[Anupy] On today's show, we'll learn that the word curry in India really translates to gravy.

We'll make a spectacular Punjabi Chicken Curry, along with a smooth mango lassi on the side.

All that and more coming up on Indian As Apple Pie.

I'm Anupy Singla, cookbook author and journalist.

I was born in North India and raised in Pennsylvania, with a foot in both cultures.

Growing up in suburban Philadelphia, I learned English from "Sesame Street," and Indian cooking from my grandfather.

Homemade Indian food always brought our family together.

It's why I'm so passionate about preserving our culture and recipes, so that everyone can learn how to make delicious Indian food at home.

This is "Indian as Apple Pie."

[announcer] This program is made possible by... Leysin American School hosts summer camps for students of all ages in scenic Switzerland.

Golden country Oriental food.

BMO Bank.

Al Sahara.

Handmade rugs.

One of the biggest misnomers about Indian cooking is that we use curry powder.

And in tradition cuisine, we actually don't.

So, if we don't refer to the spice as curry, what do we mean when we say "curry" referring to Indian food?

Well, it really is about the brothiness and the gravy of a dish.

A good curry means a good gravy.

Now there are hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of curries out there, and they're basically referred to by the ingredients in the dish.

So, peas and cheese would be a good matar paneer, or a kidney bean curry would be a rajma.

We can't expect you to learn every name of every dish right away, so, for now, just refer to anything with lots of brothiness, lots of gravy, as a curry.

Today I'm going to walk you through the steps to make a traditional Indian Punjabi Chicken Curry.

You might be surprised how much you're going to enjoy it.

Whenever we think of curries, typically we gravitate towards a chicken curry.

Just a really traditional chicken curry with lots of rasa.

Rasa means "juice," meaning gravy, thinness, brothiness, deliciousness.

And we want to start with a really nice base of yogurt.

Yogurt is how we marinate most of our proteins, most of our meats, because it keeps everything incredibly moist.

Let's start with a half cup of yogurt, plain, unsweetened, savory, so we can add in all of our spices.

We want to start with some beautiful, golden turmeric powder, about a half teaspoon.

Let's go in there with some red chili powder.

This is your first opportunity for heat.

If you don't want it, just leave it out or cut it back.

Half a teaspoon.

Half a teaspoon of salt, and half a teaspoon of ground black pepper.

Not a lot, but just enough to get that basic flavor right.

We want to go in there and whisk it or stir it, with a spoon, either way.

Today were going to use chicken with the bone, but you can use boneless if you want as well.

We want the chicken to be really prepared for maximum absorption of the marinade, so let's go ahead and score it, cutting just a few holes in here with our paring knife.

We like our chicken to be skinless, because we find that it can really absorb more flavor without.

And now we're going to go ahead and put our chicken in our marinade.

We've got it all in there.

Now let's go ahead and get it in here and give it a stir so all these pieces are covered with this beautiful marinade.

To do that, I actually like grabbing my rice spatula.

This is an Indian spatula, very flat, but just able to get really deep in there, and make sure that we are covering every piece with that delicious, flavorful marinade.

Then we're going to go ahead and cover our bowl.

We're going to put this in the fridge.

Ideally, you'd want to keep it in the refrigerator overnight, but we've got one already in there that we're going to pull out and start cooking with.

Our chicken has been marinating and now we are ready to build our curry.

I always like to say, build and not just cook.

We've got a yellow onion.

We tend not to go for white onions because they're a little sweeter than we'd like, but I'm going to today just give them a rough chop so that we can throw them into the food processor.

We're also going to go for ginger and our garlic, three cloves.

Now we are ready to puree our tomatoes.

So, traditionally we don't take the skin off.

We just use it.

We just chop our tomato and put it in.

You can do that as well.

But I'm starting to really enjoy pureeing my tomatoes, but a box grater is the easiest way.

I mean, you can buy it canned if you want.

Look how beautifully pureed we've got our tomato.

And then our last ingredient that we want to prep are our chilis.

These are Thai chilis.

Usually we use green.

You can use a serrano chili as well.

In this case, what I want to do is just cut them down, slice them down whole length wise and then add them in towards the end.

We are now ready to make the base of our curry by grabbing our oil or ghee.

Ghee is clarified butter.

Clarified butter has a higher smoke point than regular butter.

So, about two tablespoons.

Now as we get this warming up, you'll see the ghee is going to melt in your pan.

We have a medium high heat.

And we want to start by building our thurka.

Making our thurka.

What is thurka?

It's tempering of spices in our hot oil or in our ghee.

We'll start with a spice called hing, it's asafoetida.

If you don't have it, don't worry.

We just add a pinch in here in the hot oil, or ghee, so that it just improves digestion and adds a little bit of base flavor.

But I always say, don't stress about this one.

It is not easy to find, and if you can't, not a problem at all, just leave it out for now.

And then let's go for our cumin seed.

I'm going to reach for my spice box.

Cumin seed is an essential spice that I always have on hand in my masala dabba, or spice box.

I'll go ahead.

This is a half teaspoon measuring spoon.

Let's go ahead and put a teaspoon in there.

A half teaspoon of turmeric powder is going to go in as well.

And now, I am ready for my whole spices.

And in this dish, we want cinnamon sticks, black cloves, black cardamom, which is very different than green cardamom.

You can add the green cardamom if you want, but with the black cardamom you get that woody sort of earthiness that we really want in a good curry.

And then bay leaves.

You want to give this a stir.

And this is such an integral part of Indian cooked food.

You just cannot skip this part.

It helps so much to pull out all the maximum flavor from your spices.

So, you heat if for about a minute and a half, two minutes.

And now, let's go ahead and go for our fresh ingredients.

We're going to start with our onion.

You see all that beautiful steam pulling off.

So, now let's go ahead and put our ginger and our garlic in.

Let's grab our tomato and get all of that moisture in there.

That's great because now anything that's sticking, anything that's kind of caramelizing on the bottom of the pan, we're going to effectively deglaze that pan.

We also want to add in some tomato paste.

I always like to add in an extra pop of flavor, and that's what this gives us just that little extra brothiness, that depth of flavor in our curry.

This is really common in the region of Punjab.

I grew up watching my grandmothers cook, my grandfather as well, and they always would smash the tomato down, build, build, build the curry with a little extra tomato paste.

I wish you were here in my kitchen with me to smell this warm, delicious smell coming off the pan.

It's what I grew up around.

My mom would always have something cooking.

Now, let's reach for the marinated chicken.

We're going to work fast to get it all in here.

And as it sits, it just tastes better and better and better.

Now, comes the really fun part.

You thought we were done with the spices.

We are not.

We're going to go to our masala dabba and we're going to grab a few more essential spices, including our garam masala.

Garam means "warming," masala, "mixture of spices."

This is a dry spice.

I want a tablespoon.

Maybe a touch more.

There we go.

Just for the fun of it.

And look how beautiful that looks already.

Some coriander powder.

Coriander powder is a very lemony, bright, light spice.

There is coriander in the garam masala mix, but we like adding a little extra of the plain coriander as well.

Just give it another little hit.

We'll do a teaspoon of salt, and then we are going to add a really, really special spice.

Now, this is called kasoori methi.

Methi is fenugreek.

It is very, very typical in Punjabi north Indian cuisine to use fenugreek leaves.

It comes in lots of different forms, but the dried is just so amazing in terms of flavor.

And the way you get maximum flavor out of it is by as you put it in the pan, you just kind of give it a little squeeze, a friendly little hug, and you just kind of sprinkle it in there, and then you're going to pop all these beautiful, beautiful flavors.

Let's go for our chilis.

Remember these guys?

They're going in nice and long so that we can really see them.

If you don't want as much heat, leave it out, or just throw one in.

Not a problem.

But I want it all.

And one last spice, our red chili powder or cayenne pepper.

One teaspoon, which is going to add a little extra heat.

Now, I want to add in what is going to make our curry really brothy: water.

It's not stock, it's just plain water.

And I want about a cup in here.

I can already smell that it needs water because it's sticking to the bottom of the pan a touch, and that's okay.

And we're going to turn our heat to a medium low and let it continue to simmer.

We're going to get a lid now and we're going to cover it.

Slightly ajar is how you always want it to release a bit of steam and just let this cook and sit for about 20 minutes.

We'll check it, see if we need a little bit more water.

Add a little bit more, and then just let it continue to cook for another 20.

This has been simmering for about 40 minutes, and it looks terrific.

I can't wait to get in here and give it try.

We've got the chicken.

It's kind of falling apart, it is so moist.

Notice the thinness of the broth.

We didn't want a thick, rich broth.

We wanted a thin like a rasso or juice, and that is what we've got here.

Let's give it a try now.

That tastes absolutely perfect.

It does not need any more seasoning.

And now I'm going to show you how to pair it with the perfect rice.

The best thing to go with a comforting curry is comforting rice.

I really love a flavored and spiced basmati rice.

These are called pulao.

Pulao is a combination of lots of vegetables, maybe even adding some meat morsels if you want.

We're going to do it with just vegetables today.

We're going to show you what we used to do.

As new immigrants to this country, we would make our pulao with any vegetable we could find in the frozen aisle of the grocery store.

The one we could find most easily was this frozen bag combo of vegetables.

We've got string beans, carrots, some corn, and it goes beautifully with a pulao.

Let's show you how to get started.

You want to make sure you've got really good high quality basmati rice.

Basmati, in subscript, means fragrant.

It is a long grain loose rice, and when we cook it, it should not be sticking together.

The first step is going to take this one cup and wash it.

Our heat is on medium high.

Our pan is nice and warm.

We're going to put a little bit of ghee in there.

Two teaspoons to a tablespoon.

Just enough to help our spices cook up when we add them.

Some black cloves.

Five are going to go in.

We've got some cinnamon sticks.

Let's go ahead and just put a few pieces in there.

And we want to go to our spice box for cumin seed, two teaspoons just to get all that flavor in there.

Now, let's go ahead and put our vegetables in.

It can be sliced onion.

You can even use nuts.

Cashews are really good in this.

Some pistachio.

Whatever you want to add.

I've got two cups here.

Now, these are really nice and soft, so you don't really need them to cook, but we want them to pick up all the flavor from the spices and the bottom of the pans.

We'll give it a stir, and just let them absorb all the flavor.

And now, we're going to go ahead and put the rice in, one cup of rice, and this will pair beautifully with the veggies in here.

Now, we're going to grab our water.

So, remember, one cup rice, two cups water.

It's always double the water for basmati.

And just to make sure I get all of the bits of rice left, we'll just go ahead and give it a little swirl.

The last thing we're going to do, we could have done it earlier, but we're just going to add it in now, is a little bit of salt.

Give it a stir, and once it does come up to a boil, turn the heat down so it simmers.

We'll put the lid on, slightly ajar, to release some of that steam so that it doesn't overboil and let it cook 10 to 12 minutes.

It's going to be steaming and ready to eat and paired with our curry.

Let's see what this looks like.

It smells so good, and it looks perfect.

It is kind of coming apart.

It's not stuck together.

That's what we want.

And we're going to go in here, and if you can find some of the whole spices, let's just grab them.

We've got a cinnamon stick up top, and then the cloves.

You can actually eat these.

I just don't notice them half the time, because they're really soft after they cook.

But the cinnamon stick, you would really want to get out of there.

The cumin seed is just absolutely delicious and so healthy for you so we'll leave that in.

We've got our Dutch oven.

It's really holding all that heat in.

Let's just leave it like this until we're ready to eat.

I love making homemade achaar, and it's so simple to do.

Achaars are like relishes, pickles.

They're just so many different kinds and so many different textures.

This is one that you can make easily at home.

We've got ginger here.

You always want to use a really nice plump peas for freshness, and turmeric.

Now, this turmeric is orange.

You can also buy white turmeric in most markets.

But we'll start with the orange.

And because we're getting very close to the turmeric and it can stain, I'm going to use kitchen gloves.

We've got some peeled already, but normally what I'll do is take a paring knife and peel towards me, same with the turmeric, and as you can see how it just easily pulls off here.

And here I've got some peeled ginger, and we're going to just slice it up into match sticks as well as the turmeric.

This is more than enough for now.

And now let's fill this jar with our other ingredients, but let's take off those kitchen gloves and see all of that beautiful color from the turmeric.

Let's get rid of these.

And now, let's add in some Thai chilis.

We really enjoy having some of these fresh with our meal, so it's great to just add that in.

And there's no specific way to really do this.

Just keep adding to the jar.

Now, some salt to preserve our ingredients.

Some black pepper.

Some black peppercorn just to kick it to that next level.

This already smells so good.

And then once that jar is just about filled, we'll add in that active ingredient of lemon juice.

It could be lime juice as well.

And this will help preserve your ingredients over the next couple of days in your refrigerator.

It gives it this really nice tanginess.

And now we get to do the fun stuff.

If you have kids, bring them into the kitchen, put the lid on the jar, and let them shake, shake, shake it up.

Just be careful.

Do it over a sink.

And that is truly it.

Now this can go into the fridge for six days and will marinate more and more and the turmeric and the ginger will soften up.

Add it to a soup.

Add it to a stew.

It's so simple to do, and so simple to make.

I'm going to take this to my fridge, tuck it away until we're ready for our meal.

Lassi is a traditional Indian yogurt-based drink.

They're like yogurt milkshakes.

They're absolutely delicious.

You've probably seen the sweetened ones that you find in the Indian restaurants.

But did you know typically lassi is a savory yogurt drink?

So, it's yogurt paired with spices and it's thinned out until it's so incredibly frothy.

They pour it into a metal glass, and it cools you down in the heat of an Indian summer.

Today we're going to show you my rift on an Indian lassi.

It's going to be mango.

I love mango lassis, and we're just going to make it really simple.

Instead of making it incredibly sweet with mango puree, let's just use frozen mango chunks.

And we'll start with yogurt.

This is a plain unsweetened yogurt.

If you can find Dahi, which is an Indian version, do that.

If not, any one will do.

We've got about two cups here.

Now, to thin this out even more, we're going to add some milk, or you could go for an alternative milk.

And we're going to take our mango.

Now this could be any fruit, but mango pairs so well with our yogurt.

It's three cups.

And this has been sitting a little bit.

That's okay.

It doesn't need to be hard and fast frozen, but just really nice and cool.

And now, we want a little bit of sweet, but not too much.

I tend not to like too much sugar, so I'm just going to go towards a honey, about a tablespoon and a half, maybe about two.

We're going to add our cardamom seeds, no husk, just the seeds, about a teaspoon.

And what this is going to do is it's going make it so beautifully floral and delicious.

I want to add in a touch of ice to give it back a little bit of that frostiness.

We had it from the frozen mango, but just a little bit more is nice.

We've got all the ingredients in there.

Now we're going to blend it until it's really smooth and frothy.

Alright, let's see what happened in here.

It looks great.

Let's give it a taste.

It's frothy, but also thick enough, right?

Look at that.

We also want to garnish it.

This is ground, unroasted, unsalted pistachios, and then mint goes really well too, so.

Take the little tiny sprigs of mint and you can just put them right on top.

It smells so fresh.

And there you have it.

Delicious drink for the kids, for you.

It's refreshing.

And now we're ready for the entire meal with our curry, and with our rice.

We are finished cooking and we're finally ready to plate and eat.

This is the best part.

Let's take a look at this chicken curry.

Oh, my gosh.

Look at all that steam coming off.

You know the idea is, this is just a family style meal.

It's so simple to put together, and it's so simple to serve too.

Those are the kinds of meals that I really enjoy.

And then the brothiness, let's pour that on top.

That should be enough for now.

Let's put this down here along with our pulao, our basmati rice, with all these delicious veggies that pair so well, and our achaar is just a really nice item to have on the side.

It's very earthy.

It's just very lemony.

And of course we want to garnish our curry with a little bit of cilantro.

It looks so pretty when we do that.

And last, but not least, we've got our delicious and refreshing frothy mango lassi.

Cheers, everybody.

[Anupy] I'm all about making Indian cuisine more accessible.

Visit Indianasapplepie.com for more healthy, flavorful recipes, cooking tips, and much more, all rooted in tradition and simplified for our busy lives.

[announcer] This program is made possible by... Leysin American School hosts summer camps for students of all ages in scenic Switzerland.

Golden country Oriental food.

BMO Bank.

Al Sahara.

Handmade rugs.