Chicken in Coconut Milk (Murgi Malai)

While the gals enjoyed visiting kittens at the Nashville Humane Association and swimming in the Rolling River pool in our erstwhile neighborhood yesterday, I tried my hand at a dish from Bengal, India, from a recipe in the Best-Ever Curry Cookbook, by Mridula Baljekar, a cookbook Sherry's mom gave me some years ago. Baljekar describes the dish, Chicken in Coconut Milk as follows,

In Bengal, this dish is known as murgi malai, and in the Bengali language, the word murgi means chicken and malai is cream, either dairy or coconut. Coconut is a favourite ingredient of the region, and it grows in abundant supply in Bengal, Orissa and Assam.

Here is the recipe:

1 tbsp. ground almonds
1 tbsp. dry coconut
2/3 cup coconut milk
2/3 cup ricotta cheese (You can also use more coconut milk, which is what I did.)
1 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. crushed garlic
1 1/2 tsp. grated fresh ginger root (I used dry ginger powder.)
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. vegetable or olive oil
1 pound chicken breast, skinned and cubed
3 green cardamom pods (I used dry cardamom.)
1 bay leaf
1 dried chili, crushed (I used three I dried out from last year's harvest.)
2 tbsp. chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) (I used dry parsley, since this is mainly garnish.)

Dry-roast almonds and coconut in skillet until browned a bit and transfer into a large bowl. Add coconut milk, ricotta, ground coriander, chili powder, garlic, ginger and salt to the bowl and mix. Brown chicken in skillet in oil with cardamom pods (I used dry cardamom.) and bay leaf. Pour in coconut mixture, add crushed chili and fresh coriander, cover and cook ten minutes or so, stirring every so often. Uncover, stir and cook for two more minutes. Serve over Basmati, a long-grained rice common in India and Pakistan and available at the Maryville Kroger.

This is the second time I've made this dish, and I knew from the last batch to go heavier on the spices than set forth in the recipe, which I copied above directly from the book. I doubled the seasonings shown above, which may have been a bit much, and I used maybe three tablespoons of ground almonds and perhaps a third of a cup of coconut. My result reminded me a little of the Panang Curry served at Lemon Grass restaurant in Maryville, though my dish was a Westerner's ham-handed attempt compared to the wonderful food at Lemon Grass.