Hot foods for mushy evenings

Pushpesh Pant

Ayurveda categorises all foods and ingredients in two — those that boost our metabolism and warm us up pleasantly; and others that are useful to chill out. What we require in winters is recipes that have a garam taseer. In other words, foods with inherent hot properties. Interestingly, the word ‘hot’ has double meaning — it indicates high temperature and chilli content. When talking about food, no less important is the latent heat in certain ingredients. Even more intriguing is the relationship between recipes that not only combat the cold, but also stoke embers of desire! In the princely repertoire, there is no dearth of aphrodisiac delicacies. In Awadh, it is Maullaham and Kundan Kaliya, Taar Korma in Rampur and Piste da Salan in Patiala! Of these, Piste ka Salan is a favourite. It is easy to prepare and has a delicate green hue and subtle seductive taste. In days gone by, the bawarchis guarded these recipes that made use of exotic ingredients like amber, musk, ash of gems and leaves of gold, saffron, etc. However, we bring to our readers a recipe that is not just restorative, but also eschews prohibited ingredients.

Piste ka Salan

Ingredients:

• Chicken 700g
• Boiled onion paste 1/4 cup
• Pistachios 1 cup
• Green chillies paste 2 tbsp
• Curds 3 tbsp
• Ginger-garlic paste 2 tbsp
• Lemon juice 1 tbsp
• Yellow chilli powder 1/2 tsp
• Oil/ghee 1/4 cup
• Cinnamon powder 1/4 tsp
• Clove powder 1/4 tsp
• Pepper powder 1/4 tsp
• Salt to taste
• Green cardamom powder 1/4 tsp

Method:

Clean, trim and wash the chicken. Cut it into medium size pieces. Prepare a marinade blending the curds, powdered spices, ginger- garlic and green chilli pastes and lemon juice. Place chicken in this marinade, rubbing it gently all over for two to three hours. Boil the pistachios and remove the skin. Reserve 6-8 pistachios for garnishing and grind the rest. Heat oil/ghee in a pan. Add boiled onion paste and stir fry on medium flame until it turns light pink. Add the chicken and cook on high flame for five minutes and then put in the marinade along with the pistachio paste. Add 1/4 cup of hot water, stir and cover tightly and cook on low to medium heat for about 15 minutes. You may pressure cook if you like till the first whistle sounds and then take it off the flame. Let the pressure come down on its own. Uncover, stir well and simmer to thicken the gravy if needed. Garnish with the rest of the pistachios. Serve with bread of choice or steamed rice.