food talk
This tikka always ticks

Devouring hariyali tikka, with so much more contributed by the aromatic and pungent greens, can be sheer bliss, says Pushpesh Pant

MURGH HARIYALI TIKKA

Method Claen, wash and pat dry the murgh tikka. Grind to a coarse paste the coriander, chillies and mint. Make a marinade blending well the curds, ginger and garlic pastes with this green paste, salt and peppercorn powder. Rub the chicken pieces well with this and keep aside for about an hour. Carefully pierce through a skewer and brush lightly with oil. Grill on an open fire charcoal grill/ barbeque, gas tandoor or microwave (only as a last resort) for about seven minutes or till done to preferred taste. (If you wish to adapt this recipe for a main course dish, replace the tikka with whole supremes /chicken breasts trimmed and flattened a little. These can be pan grilled—about five minutes on the each side and draped with a yogurt or fried onion-based sauce like gravy. Just avoid the tomatoes that can only strike a discordant note). Serve with onion rings and lime wedges along with a green chilly.

We have always been a trifle upset with the trend that the ubiquitous murgh malai has put into shade all other tikka. The plane Jane murgh tikka is seldom ordered and the delightful seasonal spices—methi and lehsun—seem to be perpetually on the defensive back-foot.

It was at the celebrated Chor Bizzare on Asaf Ali Road that we had first encountered the cheesy sharabi-kebbai tikka—delightfully different from the run of the mill malai version decades ago but since then flattering imitators have all but ruined the poor thing.

Massaging the chicken ruthlessly with grated processed cheese of indifferent quality cannot and doesn’t guarantee malaiyat, the creamy texture.

Careless—verging on criminal—neglect on the part of the man at tandoor more often than not brings the much-hyped malai either burnt or ‘rare’ (translate ‘underdone’).

We were very happy to sample recently a lehsuni murgh tikka at the inexplicably unnoticed Paatra—the Pan-Indian eatery at the Capital’s Vasant Continental. It brought to the table the basic tikka with flavours intact and not hiding the stringiness of the chicken behind a veil of Amul or whatever. It was almost perfect except that we couldn’t comprehend why they call it lehsuni when the emerald garb it adorns tempts one to christen it accordingly.

There is that unmistakable taste of garlic there; but so much more is contributed by the aromatic—and pungent—greens. Devouring, what we insist on calling hariyali tikka—looking out on the vast expanse of surviving greenery on the remnants of the historic ridged girdling the beautiful JNU campus—the showers of receding monsoon was sheer bliss. Chef Neeta Nagrajan and her team receive well-earned accolades for not pandering to the gallery.

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