Peppers Hyderabadi Style - Mirchi Ka Salan

Our next dish in our Indian dinner gave me a lot more trouble than the chicken. I've both simplified it and am sure I did not get it quite right. It was so very tasty, though, that I'm posting it anyway, and hopefully you can avoid a few of my pitfalls. 

My first mistake was to use some nice sweet yellow peppers from the garden. They were delicious, but I'm pretty sure quite different from the usual ones used in this dish. Since they were also rather large I cut them up rather than leaving them whole. Then, I returned them to the sauce sooner than I should have. The end result was that they were hardly detectable as peppers, being pale, soft, and in bits, and the dish was more like a sauce. Served with some steamed brown rice (a rare treat for me now) it was so good that it was hard to complain. But if you used smaller peppers, left them whole, and put them into the sauce at the right time, you should get better results. 

The usual pepper is not one I've seen around here, and I suspect it's a bit hot for our tastes anyway, even slit and with the seeds removed. The sauce I ended up with is on the thick side of what seems typical; it shouldn't be thicker and could be a bit thinner. Also, all the recipes I saw called for whole peanuts and sesame seeds to be toasted, then ground - I just went straight to using peanut butter and tahini instead. I've broken the ingredients down into a lot of little mis en place dishes because that's the only way to keep myself organized and once you have them all ready the actual cooking goes reasonably quickly. 

4 servings
30 minutes to prepare the mixes
40 minutes to finish the dish

Mix #1:
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1" piece of cinnamon

Put the whole spices into a small bowl and set aside. 

Mix #2:
3 pods green cardamom
1 teaspoon cumin seed
1 tablespoon coriander seed
1/4 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 to 1/2 teaspoon ground Cayenne (to taste)
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

Crush the cardamom enough to remove and discard the green papery husks, then grind them with the cumin, coriander, peppercorns, and salt. Mix them in a small bowl with the Cayenne (to taste), cloves, and nutmeg. Set aside.

Mix #3:
2 teaspoons peeled, grated fresh ginger
3 to 4 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon apple butter OR tamarind pulp

Peel and grate the ginger into a small bowl. Peel and grate the garlic in with it. Add the apple butter or tamarind pulp. Set aside. 

Mix #4:
3 tablespoons unsweetened dessicated coconut
3 tablespoons peanut butter
3 tablespoons tahini

Toast the coconut in a small skillet until golden and turn immediately into a small bowl. Mix in the peanut butter and tahini. Set aside. 

Finish the Dish:
500 grams (6 to 8) green or red frying peppers
2 large tomatoes
1 large onion
3 tablespoons mild vegetable oil
2 cups water

Wash and de-seed the peppers. You can leave the peppers whole, and just remove the seeds through a slit in the side, or you can cut them up and de-seed them. I opted to do that because I was using considerably larger peppers than those that are traditionally used, but it did mean they got a bit soft and pulpy. Don't cut them too small - they should be larger than bite-sized.

Blanch and peel the tomatoes, and cut them into dice. Peel and chop the onion.

Heat the oil in a medium sized skillet over medium heat. Cook the peppers or pepper pieces until slightly browned and fairly softened - this is a lot of the cooking that they are going to get so they should look close to cooked to you. Still, this should not take much more than 5 minutes cooking. Remove them from the pan and set aside.

Add the bowl of Mix #1 to the pan, and stir for a minute or two until sizzling and fragrant, with a few of the seeds starting to pop. Then add the onions and mix in well. Let them cook for a minute or two, then add the bowl of Mix #2, and stir it in well. Next comes Mix #3, and when it too is well incorporated, add the tomato. Finally, add Mix #4, combine well, and stir in the water.

Cover the pan and let simmer for about 15 minutes. Stir FREQUENTLY. I found the peanut butter and tahini really, really wanted to weld themselves to the pan. At the same time though, keep it covered when not stirring so as not to lose too much moisture. At any point during the cooking, if the sauce gets too thick, add a little more water.

Once the sauce has darkened a bit and seems to be fairly thick, with oil rising to the top, return the peppers to the pan and simmer them for another 5 minutes or so, until completely cooked.. Serve at once.

Posted in: Ontario Food