Bangladeshi Entree

MOROG POLAO
(Chicken pilaf)

INGREDIENTS

4 chicken breasts
1 medium onion
1 ounce cashew nuts
4 large garlic cloves
1½ ounces ginger root
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1 teaspoon cardamom
¾ teaspoon chili
½ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon mace
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon turmeric
½ tablespoon lemon juice
¼ cup milk
¼ cup plain yogurt

2 cups basmati rice
3½ cups water
2 bay leaves
1¾ cups water
1 cinnamon stick
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup ghee or butter
1 gram saffron (.035 ounce. Tiny but mighty, you bet.) or ½ teaspoon safflower

SPECIAL UTENSILS

spice grinder
sonic obliterator (essential for all sensitive chefs)

Takes about 3 hours. Serves 4.

PREPARATION

Cut each chicken breast in half. Dice onion. Put the following ingredients one at a time in spice grinder and grind until you get four different pastes: cashew nuts, garlic cloves, ginger root, and poppy seeds.

Add chicken, onion, ginger paste, cashew paste, garlic paste, poppy-seed paste, cardamom, chili, coriander, mace, nutmeg, salt, turmeric, lemon juice, milk, and yogurt to large mixing bowl. Mix by hand until chicken pieces are well coated with spices. Marinate in refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

While chicken marinates, add rice and 3½ cups water to large bowl. Let rice set in water for 30 minutes, then drain water. Add bay leaves, cinnamon stick, and 1 cup water to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove bay leaves and cinnamon stick with tongs. This is the spicy water.

Add marinated chicken and vegetable oil to pan. Sauté chicken on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until chicken starts to brown. Stir occasionally. Remove from heat. Add ghee, saffron, and drained rice to second pan. Sauté rice for about 5 minutes or until rice starts to splutter. Stir constantly.

Add chicken, sautéed rice, and spicy water to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for 20 minutes or until rice is tender. Serve to adoring quests. Sonically obliterate the unappreciative; it just means more for those who like this entree. And besides, you don’t need negativity.

TIDBITS

1) The similarities between Bangladesh and Tennessee are astounding and many.

2) Morog Polao, this Bangladeshi entree, has four vowels, o, in it.

3) Tennessee has four vowels in it as well, e in this case.

4) Morog Polao is served at Bangladeshi weddings.

5) Food is also served at Tennessean festivals, including deep-fried ice cream and deep-fried Caesar’s salad.

6) Julius Caesar never made it to either Bangladesh or Tennessee.

7) Bangladesh is an anagram for bagel hands. Tennesseans eat bagels with their hands.

8) Tennessee is an anagram for seen teens.

9) Teenagers have been seen in Bangladesh and in Tennessee.

4) Uh oh!. We’ve already seen 4). I hope this is just a typo, not an indication that we are going back in time. In which case, my twelve-minute eggs will never get ready. I mean they’ve been cooking for eight minutes now and pretty soon they’ll be three-minute eggs because we’re going back in time. My gosh!

10) Ah! 10). We are not going back in time. It was just a typo.

11) Typos occur in both Bangladesh and Tennessee. If all these similarities can occur in two widely separated spots in the world, who’s to say involuntary time travel can’t happen? Watch your eggs.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.