chicken with indian spices

Recently I have been watching some cooking shows where the chef visited the common people's home as well as unassuming eateries on the street. One thing that struck me is in many home kitchens the family has a simple spice box. In the spice box there are no more than 6 to 8 spices and spice mixtures. Many of these I already have in my pantry. I decided to make a chicken dish using these spices.

I normally dislike chickens in North America. They are bred to grow very fast and the meat and texture typically inferior to smaller chickens in Asia. Whenever I eat chickens here, I prefer dark meat. Chicken breasts of North America chicken is the worst part of the chicken.

I have this can of mango puree in my pantry forever

The spices that I used to make this dish includes cumin, turmeric, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, peppercorns, chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, and some ready made hot curry powder. I freshly ground all the seed spices. A general rule with spices is to avoid buying them in powder form. It is much better to buy them in the unground forms - whole seed, pod, or corns.

as I was creating this dish based on my intuitions, I first cook only one drumstick to test out the improvised recipe

this meal is served with toasted French baguette

once I was happy with the result, I cooked up the rest of the 6-pack drumsticks

the spicy sauce turns out a bit to sweet to my liking - despite I used less than 1/8 can of the mango puree

a quick meal with pan seared scallops and Gulf shrimps

a light meal