Tomato pepper rasam

South Indian vegetarian meals are pretty standard: rice, sambhar, rasam, two vegetables, aaplam (papar or poppadums) pachadi or chutneys and yoghurt. I am not a big sambhar fan, but I do love the rasams. Rasam can best be described as very light spicy soup that sort of acts a palate cleanser, hence its rich flavors. This next recipe is something I learnt from my mother-in-law -- it's a delicious tomato peppery rasam and is best eaten piping hot.


The Recipe

1-2 medium sized fresh tomatoes quartered
1 tsp cumin seeds
2-4 tsps pepper powder, according to taste
a dash of hing (aesofetida powder)
salt to taste
a small lump of tamarind
4-6 curry leaves
a small sprig of coriander leaves
2 tablespoons cooked toowar dhal
2-3 cups water
mustard seeds
a little oil


In a thick-bottomed pan put the tomatoes with all the other ingredients except the mustard seeds and oil. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for at least 20-25 minutes adding more water if needed till tomatoes are pulpy and liquid tastes flavorful and peppery.
Heat a little bit of vegetable oil, add the mustard seeds. Once they start to splutter pour into the boiling tomato liquid, check seasoning and remove from heat. Strain and serve liquid rasam piping hot in small bowls, accompanied by steamed rice.

Chingri Malai Curry

A close friend of mine lives a stone's throw away from the offices of Ananda Bazar Patrika, a large Calcutta-based newspaper group. His apartment, with its narrow staircase dark wood furniture, high ceilings and 'mystery doors' is a great place to settle down in the deep sofas and shoot the breeze for a couple of hours.

While my friend doesn't cook, he does have wonderful people around him who can cook wonderfully -- I have eaten the most traditional and delicious Bengali food at his place: deem boras, luchi, cholar dal, fish and prawn curries and fresh mishtis like kheerer chop, nolen gurer sondesh.

The recipe for chingri malai curry given below is a common Bengali way of preparing prawns (or shrimp) for special occasions. Here in Taipei, I have with great success, replicated the dish using frozen shrimp balls available at all Chinese supermarkets. Of course back in Calcutta it is made with fresh large shrimp.


The Recipe

Tiger or 'jumbo' or any large size prawns (cleaned and shelled) 500-750 grams
Thick coconut milk 1 cup
small green cardamoms 5-6
cloves 2-3
cinnamon 2
red chillie paste 1/2 teaspoon
ginger paste 1 teaspoon
tumeric powder 1 teaspoon
fresh chillies 4
ghee 2-3 tablespoons
sugar 1/2 teaspoon
salt to taste


Heat ghee, add cardamoms, cinnamon, cloves. Then add the prawns and fresh chillies slit down the middle, tumeric powder, chillie and ginger paste. Mix well and cook for about 5-6 minutes. Add the thick coconut milk, salt and sugar. Cook till gravy thickens -- about 10-12 minutes. Do not overcook as prawns turn rubbery. Add a tablespoon of ghee and remove from heat. Serve hot with steamed rice.

Rajasthani mixed dhal

Dhals or lentils are a staple at most Indian meals. Small and large grocers in most of urban India sell a variety of lentils ranging from the basic masoor and moong dhals, to urad and toowar (very common in south India) channa, lobia (white bean) and rajma (kidney beans).

There are regional favorite dhals and of course ways of preparing them that are region-specific too. In south India, toowar and urad dhals are cooked widely, in the north the bean dhals are more commonly used, in western India moong dhal is quite a favorite. Today's recipe is a tasty very filling dhal -- actually two dhals -- and is a commonly eaten among the Marwari community, that has its roots in the north Indian state of Rajasthan. As the dhal is very thick, when it is nearly cooked I use a potato masher to smoothen it a bit. Works pretty well giving the dhal a smooth, rich finish.


The Recipe


1/2 cup split Bengal gram dhal (chaana dhal)
1/2 cup white urad dhal
tumeric powder 1/2 teaspoon
chilli powder 1/2 teaspoon
coriander powder 1/2 teaspoon (mix these 3 powders with a little bit of water to make a paste)
cumin seeds 2 teaspoons
garam masala powder 1/2 teaspoon
ginger paste 1 teaspoon
garlic paste 1 teaspoon
diced onion 2 teaspoons
2-3 fresh chillies
salt to taste
a little vegetable oil

Wash and drain the dhals. Add about 4-6 cups water to the washed dhals and cook till soft with a bit of salt. It will take about 25-30 minutes to cook and soften. (Some people pressure cook the dhals, this reduces the cooking time). In a little oil, fry the cumin seeds, garam masala powder, ginger paste, garlic paste, onion and chillies for a couple of minutes. Add the spice powder paste to this and the cooked dhal and a bit of water water if it is too thick. Stir thoroughly and cook well for about 20 minutes. Check seasoning. If the finished dhal is too thick, use a potato masher to smoothen it a bit, add a little more water and boil another 10 minutes or so. Serve hot with freshly made chappatis.

Matha diye Moonger Dhal

No Bengali lunch or dinner is complete without a delicious fish preparation. Bengali fish dishes are lightly spiced or fried and usually accompanied by white steamed (boiled) rice or luchis (a fried bread made from refined flour). One of my favorite Bengali fish dishes is 'matha diye moonger dhal' -- a strong flavored fish head preparation, rather easy to prepare once you have bought a cleaned fish head from your local fishmonger or supermarket.

The Recipe


1 cup moong dhal (easily available from any Indian grocery store)
1 tsp ground ginger paste
1 tsp cumin seeds (ground with the ginger paste)
2 tomatoes chopped
2 bay leaves
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp tumeric powder
1 fish head (use carp or any white fish)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
salt to taste
3 cups hot water
2-3 fresh chillies
vegetable oil for frying


Rub the fish head with salt and tumeric powder and keep aside. Heat the oil and fry the moong dhal till it changes color slightly. Add 3 cups of hot water and let the dhal cook till almost done (about 25 minutes).
Add tomatoes and 2-3 fresh chillies slit down the middle. Add sugar, tumeric powder and a ginger and cumin paste. Add salt and boil well for a couple of minutes.
Fry the fish head and add to the boiling dhal. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
In a teaspoon of oil prepare a tarka (or seasoning) of fenugreek seeds, cumin seeds and bay leaves fried for about a minute and then add to the cooked dhal.

Amma's Mysore Pak

Like many Tamilian Brahmin ladies of her age, my mother-in-law loves preparing simple pure ghee based sweets in her kitchen. Tamilian Brahmins are a strict vegetarian community of southern India. Possibly because their dietary regulations have resulted in little variation of daily main dishes, Tamilian women produce such fantastic sweets on a more regular basis than other indian communities. Every Tamilian housewife will have her small repertory of favorite sweets and my mother-in-law's favorites include mysore pak (recipe below) badam halwa and a variety of payasams (rice puddings).

Indian sweets typically use a lot of sugar (or gur i.e. jaggery) and at least in the Tamilian kitchen are made in fairly small quantities. As most of these sweets use pure ghee they do last quite a while, but usually they'll just get eaten up pretty quickly as they are so delicious!

Mysore Pak is a traditional south indian sweet and is made of besan (Bengal gram flour). As with making cakes or pastries, the best sweets are made with very precise measurements. I have used the word 'cup' in the recipe, the important point to keep in mind is you need to use the same measuring cup for the sugar and the besan so as to keep the proportion correct. For best results prepare the sweet in a heavy-bottomed non-stick pan.


The Recipe

1 cup besan (Bengal gram flour) sifted
2 cups sugar (use a very fine white sugar)
a little water
1 cup pure ghee, you may need to add a few teaspoons more


Put the sugar in a thick-bottomed pan and pour just enough water to cover the sugar and place the pan on a medium flame. Stir almost constantly till the sugar syrup attains a two-thread consistency (this means when you put a drop of the sugar syrup on your thumb and press it with your forefinger it stretches into two thin 'threads').
Add the besan into this sugar syrup and stir constantly with a wooden spoon. After a minute or so, add the ghee a couple of tablespoons at a time and keep stirring. This bit needs a bit of skill because as you add the ghee the mixture will thicken so it needs to be stirred constantly. It helps to turn the heat down a bit, so that the mixture cooks through and thickens without burning. Keep adding the ghee and stirring the mixture for about 10-12 minutes, you may need to add a couple teaspoons ghee over 1 cup -- till the sweet achieves a nice creamy texture and has thickened almost to cake batter consistency. Then remove from heat.
Pour the finished sweet into a tray greased well with ghee. Leave to cool for about 20-30 minutes then cut the sweet into little cubes with a butter knife. As the sweet cools it will harden a little more.

Fried fish stuffed with red paste

One of my grandmothers had Goan neighbors. She lived in a squat rather rundown building near the Wellesley tank. Her apartment building that went by the rather grand name of Amelia Chambers had a narrow little entrance way, no elevator and a darkish staircase. It was an exciting apartment to visit, at least during my childhood years, not least for the amazing food my grandmother prepared.

Her Goan neighbors were a large family, the lady of the house seemed to have a perpetual runny nose and loud sniffs were a part of her way of speaking. She was very noisy, largeish and had a dominating personality. Her various children and husband lived a somewhat shadowy existence somewhere in the recesses of their small apartment with formica-topped tables and plastic tablecloths. Naturally the most delicious smells wafted across from their apartment all the time. Meatballs, pork vindaloo, sorpotel, rum cakes (at Christmas time) were just a few of the goodies Sniffy Aunty (as we unkindly used to call her) effortlessly turned out of her little kitchen. The recipe below is a typical Goan way of cooking fish, not something I learnt from Sniffy Aunty but delicious nonetheless. Use a bland white fish like pomfret for the best results. The spice paste used to stuff the fish is called Recheo in Goa.


The Recipe

1 medium-sized pomfret or any plain white fish
White vine vinegar 2 tsp
Recheo spice paste 2-3 tablespoons
oil
salt to taste

Recheo paste -- this will make a fair quantity that can be stored in a jar in the refrigerator for a week or so:
10-12 dried red chillies
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
12 black peppercorns
1 teaspoon tumeric powder
1/2 chopped onion
half inch piece ginger
10 cloves garlic
a small lump of tamarind
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
6 tablespoons white wine vinegar

Grind all these ingredients into a thick smooth paste


Clean the fish and wash well. Slit the fish on the side to make a kind of pocket. Rub the salt and vinegar over the fish and keep aside for about 10 minutes.
Stuff the fish with the recheo paste.
Heat oil in a large pan, gently place the fish in the pan once the oil is nice and hot and cook well, uncovered for 6-7 minutes on medium heat. Turn over and cook the other side.
Serve hot with steamed white rice and chilled beer on a sunny afternoon!

Kerala Chicken

In affluent Indian homes an older generation of housewives had the rather tedious task of planning the daily meals. Back in those days convenience foods were unheard of and probably wouldn't have been used even if freely available. So each day the woman (or women in the case of large extended families living under one roof) would decide what curries would be made, what dhals and what vegetables.

A typical lunch at our home would include rice -- a rather large quantity of it at that -- a fish curry or a chicken curry, two vegetables, curds and a plain dhal. We were big healthy eaters! Ours was also a non-vegetarian family. Which meant plenty of delicious chicken, mutton, fish curries, the odd egg curry and pork during the winters. Today's chicken recipe is a relatively new entrant to the family kitchen. The recipe comes from a Keralite friend and is a common way of preparing chicken in Kerala, one of the four south Indian states. For a nice change try the recipe with a combination of pork and chicken, delicious too!


The Recipe


1 chicken, cut and cleaned (if you like and have a larger number of people to cook for, add about 300 grams lean pork as well)
1/2 inch piece ginger crushed
5-6 cloves of garlic
1 chopped onion
2 tsps coriander powder
1 tsp tumeric powder
a sprig of curry leaves
1 tsp chilli powder
a little white wine vinegar
salt to taste

1 onion sliced fine
1 cup coconut milk
3-4 fresh chillies

Mix the chicken with the first set of ingredients and cook over a low fire till done. There is no need to add any water.
In a large pan, fry the sliced onion till golden, add the cooked chicken with whatever delicious juices that have come out as the chicken was cooking over a low fire. Fry well and then add the coconut milk. Bring to the boil. Add the fresh chillies and curry leaves and remove from heat. Serve hot with steamed rice.

Rezala

One of the greatest pleasures of my life as a journalist in Calcutta (other than writing a really good piece that got talked about!) was the long lunches and dinners shared with fellow-journalists, over which we discussed life in all its sordid, empty, futile detail, with a kind of been-there, done-that, seen-it-all sort of weariness. We hadn't, of course, seen it all. It was just easier to be that way back then. It made us feel all grown-up.

The lunches were usually in seedy restaurants around Bentinck Street and the Ananda Bazar Patrika office on Sooterkin Street (also known as Prafulla Sarkar Street). One restaurant, actually restaurant is probably too grand a word, eatery is more apt, called Sabir's was a great place for laccha naan and rezala, the sort of everyday Muslim food that Sabir's was known for. Crowded, noisy not the cleanest place around, it used to be one of my favorite lunch time haunts. Three-four of us would get a table in the large bustling dining room filled mostly with young Muslim shopkeepers in lungis grabbing a quick lunch before going back to their stores in the nearby Chandni market.

There were no printed menus, just a waiter casually coming up to us, we'd order the mutton rezala, some laccha naans and tea. The food would be on the table in seconds served in cracked, mismatched ceramic plates and bowls. The rezala -- a light lamb curry delicately spiced -- was served individually in soup bowl like dishes, the buttery laccha naans came in small chipped saucers; the oversweetened tea in small teacups without saucers. Big fat flies buzzed around everything. It was a simple delicious combination: that mild, yoghurty rezala with the greasy laccha naans (a kind of thickish flatbread made of flour and cooked on a large flat iron griddle in dollops of ghee).

The chicken rezala recipe below can be used for a lamb rezala as well, adjust the cooking time as required if using lamb.


The Recipe

1 kg chicken cleaned and chopped (don't use boneless pieces of chicken as the bones add flavor to this dish)
Sour yogurt 1 cup
2 onions sliced into thinnish rings
1 tsp tumeric paste
2 bay leaves
2 tsp ground ginger-garlic paste
2 tsp cumin and coriander powder
1 tsp chilli paste (grind 2-3 fresh chillies with water to make this)
1-2 fresh whole chillies
6 small cardamoms
5 cloves
1 small stick cinnamon
coriander leaves
salt to taste


Mix the ginger-garlic paste, the tumeric paste, the chilli paste and the coriander-cumin paste together in a cup of water. Strain this mixture and mix the strained liquid with the yogurt, salt and onions. Marinate the chicken in this for at least 2 hours.
Put the chicken together with marinade in a large pot and cook on a high flame. Bring to boil and then reduce the heat, cover and simmer, till the meat is tender and well-cooked. Remove from heat.
Add fresh chillies and sprinkle with coriander leaves before serving with steamed white rice.

Masala Aloo

This is good spicy, very easy potato recipe that goes particularly well with coconut rotis.

The Recipe

4-5 medium boiled potaoes, peeled and cubed into biggish chunks
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds (methi)
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp tumeric powder
1 tsp coriander powder
2 medium tomatoes chopped
curry leave 1 sprig
fresh chillies 2-3 slit down the middle
salt to taste
oil

Heat the oil and add the mustard seeds. Once they begin spluttering add the fenugreek seeds and the rest of the powdered spices. Fry a bit and add the tomatoes and salt. Cook till tomatoes are pulpy, add the curry leaves and potatoes and a bit of water. Mix well add the chillies and remove from heat. Serve hot. If you like add a teaspoon of pure ghee over the finished dish.

Note: aloo is the Indian word for potato.

Coconut Rotis

The thin round chappati is a very common Indian bread and is not unlike the Mexican tortilla. In most parts of India chappatis are eaten almost every day. As kids I remember we had a wooden 'chappati box' that was filled with soft brownish chappatis wrapped in a thin muslin cloth every evening. As there were 4 of us kids, my parents and grandmom, the chappati box often contained as many as 30 chappatis each evening, to be eaten along with the main curries and vegetables that would be our dinner staple.

These days I eat chappatis more as a health food than anything else, less paunch-building than rice and lighter on the digestive system, it makes for quite a healthy dinner bread. Chappatis or rotis as they are also called, are traditionally made from unrefined wheat flour. They can be made thick or thin, smeared with butter or ghee, stuffed with any kind of filling and shallow-fried or just cooked plain according to preference. These days many Indian grocery stores sell 'roti flour' which is perhaps the best kind of flour to use when making chappatis. The recipe I am giving below is a nice flavored roti commonly eaten in southern India where coconut is an important ingredient.


The Recipe

Roti flour (2 cups, makes about 3-4 rotis)
1/4 tsp salt
cumin seeds 1/2 tsp
grated coconut about 1/4 cup
2-3 chopped fresh chillies
1 tablespoon chopped onion
a bit of oil

Mix the onions, chillies, salt, cumin seeds and coconut with the flour and knead into a soft pliable dough using some water. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and let the dough rest for about 40 minutes.
Grease a flat gridle with a bit of oil. Shape the dough into a couple of lemon-sized balls. Flatten each ball with the palm of your hand and then roll it out on a floured board as thin as possible.
Place a rolled out roti on the greased pan and cook gently on both sides (use a pair of kitchen tongs to flip the roti over as it is cooking). Serve hot with a nice spicy potato vegetable.

Variation: Use boiled and mashed potatoes instead of coconut in the dough, or omit the coconut and use cumin and onions instead.

Deem Postor Jhurjhuri & Deem Devils

Eggs feature quite prominently in Indian food even among the vegetarians of the south. Here are two nice egg recipes, both from Bengal. The second one, deem devil (perhaps devilled eggs) used to be a favorite at college canteens. Two deem devils and a steaming glass of oversweetened milky tea -- pretty much Heaven on earth!



The Recipes

Deem Postor Jhurjhuri

3 hard-boiled eggs
200 grams potatoes peeled and cubed
posto (poppy seeds) 100 grams
a pinch of aesofetida (hing)
2-3 fresh chillies
1 tsp tumeric powder
1 tsp ginger paste
salt to taste
1/4 tsp sugar


Soak the posto in warm water for 15 minutes then grind into a fine paste.
Heat oil, fry the potatoes till golden and keep aside.
Add hing, chillies, ginger and posto to the oil (if there is too much oil, remove some). Fry or a couple of seconds, add the salt and sugar, some water and the fried potatoes. Cook till all the water has evaporated. Chop up the boiled eggs and add it to the potatoes, and mix well till the dish looks crumbly. Top with chopped chillies and serve hot.



Deem Devil


4 eggs, hard-boiled and peeled ( halve lengthwise carefully)
5 medium potatoes boiled, peeled and mashed
2 onions, grated
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp garam masala powder
1¼ cup breadcrumbs
2 tbsps coriander leaves chopped
oil for frying
salt to taste


Heat a little oil and add all powdered spices, onions and the ginger-garlic paste and salt. Fry quickly for a bit and add the breadcrumbs and potatoes, remove from heat and knead this mixture into oval hollowed-out cavities that should resemble the halved egg (and be a little bigger in size than the halved egg). Fit this cavity around the halved hard-boiled egg and shallow fry in hot oil. Sprinkle eggs with chopped coriander leaves before serving.


Note: 'deem' is the Bengali word for egg

Dhansak

Now a nostalgic probasi Calcuttan, the Parsees for me have always been a symbol of an age when Calcutta was still very much a boxwallah 'brown sahib' sort of city. Calcuttans of a certain type, never spoke Hindi, always ate using heavy silver cutlery and were educated at schools and colleges that just happened to be a stone's throw away from each on grand old Park Street in the days when Flury's was still spelt with an apostrophe s.

Everything about the Parsee community is old world. The old-fashioned clothes of the middle-aged aunties and white vests of the old uncles; their quaint manner of speaking; their hairstyles and their homes and of course the way they keep referring to 'the good old days'.

On any trip back home one of my 'must-take-back items' is invariably a small packet of Mini Engineer's sister-in-law's dhansak masala powder. Dhansak is the best known Parsee dish in India. This wholesome, very filling meal in itself is basically a big dish of lentils, lamb and vegetables cooked with a blend of spices that isn't very different from the sambhar spice blend.

Most Parsee families used to eat dhansak as standard Sunday lunch. These days as the Parsee community continues to decline sharply due to small families and a religion (Parsees are Zorastrians, originally from Persia) that does not allow new converts, the hearty dhansak Sunday lunch is unfortunately becoming a thing of the past. We may not be Parsees, but we can enjoy the recipe, so here goes...


The Recipe

Just a note: This IS a tedious dish to prepare, but if you are patient you will be well rewarded!


1/2 kg lamb cubed
2 medium white onions sliced fine

Make the following into a smooth paste in a spice grinder:
6 garlic cloves
half inch piece of fresh ginger
8 dry red chillies
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
cinnamon
2 cardamoms
4 peppercorns

Other Ingredients:
1 tsp tumeric powder
1/3 cup toovar dhal (an Indian lentil called Pigeon Peas in some indian grocery stores)
1/3 cup moong dhal
1/3 cup masoor dhal (all these lentils are easily available from an indian grocery supplier)

1 aubergine quartered
4 pieces of red pumpkin (squash)
2 tomatoes chopped
a handful of spinach

the juice of 1 tablespoon tamarind pulp soaked in hot water and then strained
salt to taste
vegetable oil


Fry onions till brown. Add the ground spice paste and the coriander-cumin powders.
Add tomatoes, cook 5 minutes.
Add the dhals, spinach, aubergine, pumpkin and mix well. Add the lamb.
Add 6 cups of water and salt. Bring to the boil. Simmer till the lamb and lentils are cooked.

Add tamarind juice to lamb and lentil mixture. Cook another 10 minutes, add a little water if it has become too thick.

Sprinkle one onion diced fine and fried crisp brown with a few chopped coriander leaves before serving.

Pepper Andhra Chicken

This is my food and recipe space. I'll use it to introduce interested readers to some kinds of Indian food -- not of the butter chicken variety -- infinitely more subtle and delicious that is commonly eaten in ordinary homes around the country everyday.

Today's recipe for instance is Pepper Andhra Chicken. A delicious very fragrant dish cooked in Andhra Pradesh, south India. Personally I love south indian food. The spices are used in delicate balance, sometimes quite a bit of fiery black pepper is used -- as in this dish. And a lot of fragrant curry leaves and dhani patta (coriander leaves) are used.

This recipe came from an old friend of my husband's parents: Mr and Mrs R. Mrs R, is the wife of a former Indian civil service officer. The Indian Civil services used to be a regimented, upright world of educated men and women who took their role as 'backbone of the nation' very seriously. Mr R often talks about the good old days when he solved labor problems in the coal mines of Bihar or dealt with a violent uprising in a southern Indian village singlehandedly. Those days, are of course fading fast. The Indian civil service is no longer what it used to be though it doesn't hurt to sit back and listen to the stories of these dedicated old-timers.

This couple, like most senior-level civil servants entertained on a largescale and continue to do so in their charming Hyderabad home. Mrs R's kitchen is a treasure trove of Andhra cuisine. She cooks her rasams and salans the way they have been traditionally cooked in this region: fiery hot, fragrant and delicious. This chicken recipe is a family favorite.


The recipe:

1 cut and cleaned smallish chicken (don't use boneless chicken as the bones add to the flavor of this dish)
one white onion diced
one or two medium tomatoes chopped
1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
generous squeeze of lemon juice
1 tsp tumeric powder (haldi)
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp coriander powder (dhania)
a sprig of curry leaves
a sprig of coriander leaves

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1/2 inch stick cinnamon
2 cloves
1 small bay leaf (dried)
2 dried red chillies
generous sprinkling of coarsely ground black pepper
salt to taste


Put the chicken and first set of ingredients in a large pot. Mix together well, cover pot with a lid and leave to cook on a low flame. Don't add any water as the chicken, tomatoes and onion release quite a bit of water which is enough to cook the chicken. Check occasionally to make sure there is enough liquid in the pot.

When chicken has cooked through -- by this time the chopped onions and tomatoes will have melted down too -- remove from heat.
In a large skillet, heat the oil and and add the whole spices. When the black mustard starts spluttering (it splutters very quickly so be careful) add the chicken. Stir fry rapidly. Add salt to taste and lots of black pepper. There should be enough black pepper to give the chicken a nice darkish color. Turn down heat and stir fry a while, till the chicken is thoroughly coated in black pepper. Serve hot with steamed white rice.