HINTS AND TIPS

CHICKEN
Chicken is available both fresh and frozen all year round. It tastes better the more naturally it has been raised: free-range birds, which roam outdoors and are fed on grain, have the finest flavour. Their skin colour will vary from off-white to golden yellow if fed on maize, but don't buy any with discoloured skin. When choosing pre-packed chicken, avoid any with excess liquid in the pack and check the best before date. Supermarkets and butchers sell chicken ready-portioned so you can buy joints suitable for your recipe, whether legs, breasts or drumsticks. It's also worth remembering that a whole chicken is easy to cut up and often more economical too.

FEAST
No Bangladeshi feast would be complete without a chicken curry or lentil (dahl) curry, especially in Bangladesh. This fertile region, laced with lakes, ponds and rivers, is known as 'royal bengal'. Most people keep chickens, in their houses and grow vegetables and plant a variety of fishes in their ponds and cooks fresh every morning.

REMEMBER!
Chicken is delicious, and equally popular with both children and adults. It is a very lean meat, containing less fat than even turkey or veal. If you are trying to lose weight or have to watch your cholesterol level, remove the skin before cooking as this contains most oof the saturated fats.

SPICE
In Bangladesh everyone buy whole spices from their local markets and then grind the pods and seeds with a pestle in a mortar to make their own preferred curry blend. The spices are displayed in the market in small sacks and give off a wonderfully spicy aroma.
Garam Masala: A blend of several strongly aromatic spices designed to add flavour and fragrance to meat dishes.
Safron: The world's most expensive spice is actually the dried stigma of a type of crocus that grows in Kashmir (as well as in the Mediterranean and Turkey). The dried strands should be allowed to infuse in warm milm before being added to rice and dessert dishes.

CHICKEN TIKKA MOSSALA
Do you know most of the recipe in Bangladeshi restaurant is an anglicised version of a traditional Indian Tikka dish, popularised by the many Bangladeshi restaurants in the UK. It reflects the Bangladeshi love of aromatic, spicy food.

BIRYANI DISH
The Biryani is the classical regal dish of India. Today in India it is always served at special occasions - birthdays, anniversaries and wedding. The Biryani is a method of cooking rice with the juices of either vegetable, prawns, chicken or lamb. All ingredients are slow-cooked together in a large pan. Whole spices are used, and a special fragrance comes from the addition of rose water and a distinctive look is given by the careful use of saffron. Each Biryani dish is accompanied by a vegetable curry dish.

BALTI DISH
Balti cooking originated centuries ago in the Himalayan region of Pakistan Kashmir, in a province known as Balistan. The cold high altitude atmosphere there demnded simple but effective cooking methods. The Balti is literally a cooking bucket with a rounded bottom like a wok with two handles. Whole spices are roasted and ground in the kitchen to create the most aromatic spice mixtures. These spices combined with the use of fresh herbs like coriander, fenugreek and mint give balti its distinctive taste.

TANDOORI
The tandoor oven is used as the traditional Indian baking technique. With a deep clay body, it is fuelled by coal from the bottom, which spreads an even and high heat throughout the walls of the oven. Meats are placed along the sides of the walls to bake and some breads, like the NAAN, are slapped againste the wall itself, which gives them that special texture. The tandoori dish are marinated in mixture of garam massala and special spices, served on sizzling with salad.