Albless Stew, an old Parsi Recipe, is virtually obsolete . Rarely, if ever, cooked and eaten today, how many of us have heard of the ‘Albless’ which is not a wedding venue?! Try ‘Albless’ on the internet and one will only meet with the Baug or the hospital. The famous tasty  Albless Stew is missing, altogether.

Despite it being very popular at the turn of the 20th century,  Albless Stew is today merely a name in the annals of Parsi cuisine. This tender , succulent dish is almost lost to us. I bring this delicacy out to preserve the unusual recipe and to rejuvenate it, if possible. Unusual in the ingredients (vegetables) used; the Albless does not cater to the jaded tastes for the standard stew vegetables of  potatoes, onions, carrots, peas and cauliflower and unusual again in its method of cooking. in fact these vegetables except the Parsi favourite ‘Papeto’, are missing altogether.  The Albless stew is delicious, delicate and wholly enticing.

Despite appearances, the Albless stew is very easy to make and takes the normal amount of time to cook. Once started, the cooking flows at the usual pace and time.

Albless needs to be made from tender meat of an adult male animal but not a full grown old one. The meat of the male goat is lean while that of the female goat tends to be fat.

From the ingredients, Albless stew is easily seen to be a  recipe for the late summer- early monsoon in India (late may to mid-July)  when the required  seasonal vegetables grow and the young kids born of goats in late winter early summer (January/early February)  are  beginning to grow into adults. Albless is a delicious stew recipe for the settlers in the village who kept a few dairy animals, fowl and grew their own seasonal vegetables in their backyards. Today we can use tinned or vegetables easily available and sold in the open bazaars.

In places where these vegetables are not available, one may use tender baby cucumber, zucchini instead of Ridge Gourd (Indian name Turai/Turiya), of course the brinjals/aubergines cannot be replaced as there is no vegetable remotely related of which I am aware.

The Albless though a popular delicacy at the turn of the last century, was at that time, a long and difficult treat to prepare; it needed great care to cook an Albless Stew.

 At the time this recipe was recorded for our family, before the oven became commonplace in the villages of our country, the Parsis of India cooked the dish in copper vessel coated with zinc or in an enameled vessel. An enameled box with an air tight lid was placed in the midst of hot ash and embers of  a wood stove were placed  on top and around the container.

After two hours of such cooking, the contents of Albless was  rotated, top layers sent  down and vice versa, and then returned to the embers.

 This process was not just hazardous but extremely difficult; to extract the hot box from the embers without harm to one’s face and hands, open the box thus suddenly releasing the steam,  stir the contents steaming from pressure and high temperature, and then close and return the box well sealed to the embers and hot ash for cook for a further hour or more until done. In the present day this process would be akin to opening a pressure cooker without releasing the steam. Imagine the disaster.

Today, modern amenities like the gas stove and ovens have made this Stew a dream to prepare and ingest.

INGREDIENTS:

I)  1 kg tender, on bone, meat of a young male goat (not kid) or lamb,

OR

2 ½ kg layer with bones (Chicken/Duck/any fowl still young enough to lay eggs);

II)  500 Gms Onions (preferably red);

III) 750 Gms Ghee

IV ) 50 Gms each of:

IV a) Root Vegetables: Potato, Sweet Potato, Yam (Suran), Purple Yam (Rataloo/ Kamodio Kan),

IV b) Beans:  flat beans /Papdi Na Dana, (Scientific name Dolichos lablab.), green peas, double beans, Bitter Vaal (Lima beans/ Field beans)

IV c) *Vegetables: small tender tomatoes (you may use cherry or plum tomatoes but the recipe really requires tomatoes that have just turned red), tender baby brinjals /aubergine/egg plant (preferably the long variety  ) which have not yet begun to grow seeds within, young tender Ridge Gourd which have not yet begun to grow seeds within.

V)     5 gms salt or to your taste;

VI)   Leaves of 4 bunch of fresh green coriander;

VII) 4 green chilies(large, not too hot);

VIII)  1 teaspoon fresh celery,

IX)    1 teaspoon fresh parsley,

X)    20 leaves of fresh mint;

XI)  1 inch piece of ginger;

XII)  2 tablespoons of Garlic juice (if not available, crush,

steep in 2 tbsp warm water for few minutes, drain and press garlic to draw out          the juice. Use all the liquid.);

XIII) 1 teaspoon of black pepper powder;

XIV) 1 level teaspoon turmeric powder.

METHOD:

1. Cut the meat into large pieces.

 2)  Marinate the meat for two hours in a marinade of all the:

Turmeric, black pepper, salt, garlic juice, and

Finely cut: coriander leaves, green chillies, celery, parsley, peeled Ginger and mint.

3) Cover the marinating meat and herbs with cheese cloth or a net and put aside.

4) Peel and dice the *vegetables into inch long pieces.

4a) Peel and cut/ dice very small half the quantity of onions, and mix with all the other vegetables and all the Beans and put aside.

5) Cut the rest of onions into halves and slice very fine horizontally;

5a) Fry till brown, the finely sliced onions; on very low fire but in hot oil, stirring constantly. Do not let the onions burn.

6) After the meat is well marinated for 2 hours take a vessel that closes tight and layer the meat and vegetables alternately in the vessel. 7) 7) Sprinkle the fried onions as the last layer on top and close the vessel making it air tight , if necessary seal with some dough.

8) Place The vessel in  a ** hot oven/ dry pressure cooker for an hour.

**If in an OVEN, without disturbing the contents, let it cook for an hour or until the meat is cooked and tender. The meat should be soft, ready to fall off the bone.

9) If in a COOKER, you need to open the cooker after an hour and mix the contents with a large, preferably wooden spoon, bringing the bottom layers to the top; to ensure even cooking.

10) Return to stove and Cook for another hour or till meat is well cooked.

WARNING : Open COOKER very carefully. BEWARE OF STEAM BURNS OR COOKER BLOW UP.

IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO  WEAR OVEN GLOVES AND STAND MORE THAN A FOOT FROM THE COOKER; AND THEN LIFT SLIGHTLY THE ‘METAL WEIGHT’/ ‘WHISTLE’ WITH A LONG WOODEN SPOON TO LET THE STEAM ESCAPE SLOWLY. ONCE ALL THE STEAM HAS ESCAPED AND THE ‘METAL WEIGHT’/ ‘WHISTLE’ STOPS HISSING, LET THE COOKER STAND FOR A FEW MINUTES AND THEN OPEN. IF YOU FEEL ANY RESISTANCE WHEN TWISTING OPEN THE COOKER’S LID, PLEASE WAIT A LITTLE LONGER BEFORE OPENING THE COOKER AND ROTATING THE LAYERS OF THE CONTENTS OF THE ALBLESS.

11) IF preferred sweet, hot and sour, after the dish is ready, add 1 ½ tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce or as per your taste and a bit of sugar. This is purely optional but enhances the taste.

The Feature Image at the top of this Recipe of  ‘Country Captain Chicken’ is taken from Humayun Hassain’s third and last series of Anglo Indian Cooking. The Recipe itself is from my Family recipes as handed down.

THIS RECIPE WAS ADDED TO THE FAMILY RECIPE BOOK AROUND THE SAME TIME IN MID-1850S  WHEN THE DISH WAS IN ITS INITIAL PRISTINE STAGE.

LATER VERSIONS ARE SPOKEN OF,  AT THE END OF THE RECIPE.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THE SIMPLICITY, TASTE AND SPEEDY COOKING OF THE ORIGINAL RECIPE.

COUNTRY CAPTAIN — A Parsi Chicken Recipe from India

Country Captain, really!! I laughed when I first heard the name. A friend asked me whether I had heard of this dish. I rolled my eyes. “Country Cousin Chicken is supposed to be very tasty”, she informed me, “but very difficult to make; and I want the recipe”. I let it pass then. Imagined it was yet another meat and Masala thing.

When I asked them at home and got to taste the dish. I wanted more. Unlike on the wood-stoves, today with the mixer and gas and pressure cookers it is very easy to make. Amongst the Parsis, the Country Captain Chicken does not contain the curry powder and other spices, nuts and dry fruits thrown in by the European and especially American chefs. It is more simple and more tasty . The name suggests a very tasty (deserving of a salute), straight laced  quick and easy cooking out in the country where facilities were few and far between. USA and a few others claim origin of the dish, but Could it have been a Parsi’s dry sense of humour ?! Country Cousin!!

I have changed the weights and measures of yesteryear (Ser and Ratal and Tola) to the metric system we use today. The recipe I give you is noted in the mid- 1800s about the time the Country Captain Chicken gained popularity and  traversed the three Oceans – Indian, Atlantic and Pacific- to the Southern USA via the British Isle, where it changed shape and colour and so, the flavours and became quite elaborate and developed a completely different and more spicy character, Arcadian in Nature (today called “Cajun Cuisine’) .

Some weights prescribed are most picturesque. The amount of saffron is described as ‘equal to the weight of a 2 Anna coin’.

After sharing this recipe with you a week ago, curiosity gained me a few interesting facts about this recipe with an  unusual name. I thought I’d share these with you and so, edited the publication, today. Country Cousin has had quite a history;  steeped in the romance of sailing ships and exotic trade destinations.  Do check at the end of the recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

1 young layer, (chicken /duck/ any fowl, young enough to still lay eggs);

2 large or four medium sized onions (preferably white);

450 Gms ghee/ cooking medium of your choice but the taste will change according to the medium used. (The original recipe calls for ghee);

1 heaped teaspoon salt;

5 grams saffron strands;

2 large dry Red Chilies.

METHOD:

Grind the red chilly to powder;

Separately grind the saffron strands;

Slit the fowl down the underside,

Remove all the organs from within;

Wash the chicken clean,

Keep it whole.

Grate  half the quantity of the onions and keep aside;

Cut fine the other half quantity of onions and fry them till golden brown stirring all the while.

Keep aside the fried onions for garnish;

Retain the Ghee in the same pot.

In the same pot, in the same remaining ghee,

Fry the grated onions till pink,

Add the ground chillies and Saffron to the pinked onions;

Add the fowl and salt;

Fry for a few minutes, sealing the fowl on all sides;

Cover and let the fowl cook;

Add a liter of water, cover and cook;

Stir from time to time and turn the chicken over so it is done on all sides but does not burn.

IF:

cooked in a pressure cooker reduce the quantity of water to 250 ml or as much as you would usually add, depending on the cooker.

Once the fowl is cooked, well done and is moist with a thick gravy say about 100 to 200ml,

Take the whole chicken out of the pot and Sprinkle the fried onions over it.

Serve hot with white crisp bread/ white rice and lettuce and tomato salad.

Mystery and Romance of the Country Cousin

By the mid-Nineteenth Century, ‘The Country Cousin’ was a popular enough meal for the recipe to see publication in Miss Leslie’s New Cookery Book in Philadelphia, America in 1857 —- the year of the Indian Sepoy Mutiny. The dish obviously pre-dates the publication of its recipe. In the early 20th century, it was served as part of his Menu by Alessandro Filippini, at Delmonico’s a restaurant on Wall Street, the Country Cousin’s simplicity was upgraded (?) to become a more elaborate ‘Cousin’.

In time, Country Cousin fan, President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced General George Patton to the dish who became an instant adherent of the dish and today, two centuries since its origin — in 2000s  — the Country Cousin becoming part of U.S. Army’s Meal, Ready-To-Eat field Rations; all in honour of Patton.

The history of the dish is replete with romance of a “mysterious captain drifted into Savannah, (Georgia) via the spice trade and entrusted his recipe to southern (American) friends”; to “a British sea captain who originally introduced the dish in Charleston”. Savannah has always fought Charleston on claiming the origin of the Country Captain.

Documents also, points to probability of the dissemination of the recipe to the European and American Continents by the ‘country captains’ of Indian Merchant or “country ships” and the staple chicken curry on these trade ships.

In the first, still extant documentation of the recipe in the 1857 publication, Miss Leslie attributes Country Cousin is an “Indian dish and a very easy preparation of curry.” Leslie explains the name “Country Captain” signifies “a captain of native troops (or Sepoys) in the pay of England; their own country being India, they are there called generally the country troops.” Leslie ‘supposed’ the dish was “introduced at English tables by a Sepoy officer.”

Infinite variations stretched from inclusion of orange juice and tomatoes to currants, thyme and Curry Powder; from cooking it dry in a skillet to a curry eaten with rice; from retaining whole to serving it cut up in pieces (Leslie records a full, uncut chicken).

Ultimately, it all boils down to the original 18^th Century recipe — Chicken with a few Indian spices including Saffron (variations replace saffron with Turmeric Powder) — and the baroque early American (South) dating from nineteenth and 20 the Centuries (variations include adding white wine, bacon, chicken broth, celery, peanuts, almonds, currants, tomatoes, zucchini, cauliflower, peas, turmeric, mace, allspice, citrus, flour, butter, cream, a full spectrum of Curry ingredients and myriad others and omitting two main ingredients, ginger and saffron).

To demystify the Country Cousin in its place of origin and recipe would be to take away its romance and appeal. Cook it the Parsi way and await the accolades of your family and guests.