Murgh Musallam (Whole Braised Baby Chicken)

“If ever a culture was reflected in food, look no further than the Mughals. There is a definite link between their approach to cooking, their approach to textile, their approach to architecture, their very lifestyle. The majesty of their buildings, their dazzling costumes, the richness of their culture… all can be found in their amazingly august, bejewelled, rich food.”

– Anirudh Arora and Hardeep Singh Kohli, ‘Food of the Grand Trunk Road’

What an introduction! Not many dishes could live up to that kind of hype, but this amazing one does it justice. It is definitely a special occasion dish, only to be attempted with plenty of time on my hands.

To start, I marinated whole spatchcocks (baby chickens) in a mixture of ginger, garlic, chilli, lemon and salt. The spatchcocks were then stuffed with a boiled egg cocooned within a layer of spiced chicken mince. The stuffing mixture is a heady concoction of chicken mince, ginger, chilli, raisins, pistachios, cashews, coriander, mint, saffron, cardamom, mace and garam masala. Once the egg was snugly wrapped in the stuffing, the whole parcel was stuffed into the spatchcock which was then trussed up with toothpicks (as we didn't have a trussing needle handy) and seared until a lovely golden brown.

Preparing the sauce quite an involved process, which required me to blend cooked onion and yoghurt, tomato and almonds separately before combining these along with classic Indian spices into a rich orange sauce. The spatchcocks are popped into the sauce and the whole dish placed in the oven for about half an hour. The sauce is then reduced until thick and fragrant before the addition of saffron, cardamom, mace (hello India!), rose water (sigh!), along with fresh coriander and mint (swoon!). After sweating it out in the kitchen for a couple of hours, it was really only at this point that I knew this dish would be something special.

I served the spatchcock with a tangy aubergine dish from the same recipe book and the two combined to make up a beautifully balanced dish – the pickling spices used to flavour the aubergine contrasting nicely with the richness of the chicken. The meat was wonderfully tender and infused from both inside and out with the aromatic spices of the stuffing and the sauce. Visually, the dish was pretty impressive if I do say so myself. I was especially pleased that I was able to cut the spatchcock in half to show off the stuffing and the egg nestled inside.

All in all, this was a hugely successful dish and one I would make again. Despite the time it takes to prepare (we only ate at 11p.m.!), the first taste of this dish, with its tantalisingly rich and complex flavours, confirms it’s well worth the effort.