Chicken Patiala

For people looking for a recipe for chicken patiala - look at a later post of mine here: http://juliecanblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/chicken-patiala-take-2.html. It turned out quite well although is not perhaps the classical recipe.

The sun actually came out for about an hour mid-day today and I decided to take advantage of it. So instead of going out and having lunch with colleagues, I went and walked around a couple streets away from the office in an area I haven't really seen. During the stroll, I walked past a French cooking store - with all kinds of pots and pans as well as spices, liquors, sweets, etc. So I couldn't help but go in and at least look around. In the end, I only bought one small thing - something I had meant to buy ever since I got back from Singapore: rosewater. You can get it here in general, but it's probably most commonly found in pharmacies, of all places.

The reason I had wanted it was because one of the meals we had in Singapore in early April was at an Indian restaurant called Yantra (here are a couple photos I took when we were there of one of the beautiful tandoors at the restaurant and the guy who was cooking in them)




























where I had a dish I had never had before: Chicken Patiala. (and...here's Patiala - south east Punjab, India)












On the menu, the description of the dish (creamy chicken dish) is one that would never ever have interested me much (I like tomato/onion based sauces and spicy. Creamy, mild, white - no thanks). But Rohit, a friend with us, suggested it and said we wouldn't be likely to come across the dish very regularly. And in the end, it was one of the best things I ate on the trip.

What was funny, was that I asked for the recipe almost right away but never got it. We started out by asking the waiter. He said he would try. When he came back some minutes later, he didn't mention the request. So I asked - "any luck getting the recipe?" He looked a bit embarrassed and mumbled something about cream and chicken. So then we tackled the host. Rohit pulled him aside and asked (in punjabi?) for the recipe and gave the guy...a look. And then Rohit turned to me and said "he'll get it." Ten minutes later, the guy came back and said... "well, the chef said he would tell you the ingredients, but not the quantities." I said "fine, that works for me." As we were paying, I was handed a slip of paper and Rohit was given some kind of nod. But a quick glance to the paper revealed immediately that it was inaccurate. One of the key ingredients in the VERSION that we ate was missing completely: rosewater. And so I suspected that there might be other ingredients missing The rosewater was lovely and subtle - that perfumey note that swam through the creamy sauce. But it was unmistakable and it was nowhere on that slip of paper.

So...I'm left with experimentation. Online I've found a few versions of the recipe - and even some photos of what it should look like (like this one)









- but the version I ate was almost a pure white, and while being rich and creamy, had an incredible depth of flavor that I wouldn't normally find in a creamy sauce. So...i have the rosewater...now just need the recipe. Any hints? ;-)