A Wing-Lover’s Fantasy
By Lindsay Sterling
I left Sudha Chalichamu and Venu
Chaganti’s house in Scarborough carrying a glass Pyrex bowl filled with
marinating tandoori chicken drumsticks. “They’re like Indian wings!” I thought,
recalling the super spicy, hand held chicken appetizers the Indian couple had just
introduced me to, “Only they’re drumsticks.” The orange paste that Sudha had made
out of homemade Indian yogurt and spices was now getting to work on this next
batch of meat. Fresh garlic and ginger would add tang and thrust. Ground
coriander, a sweet lift. Lemon juice, tenderness. Cinnamon and clove would add
an undetectable mystery. Cumin would comfort like a well-lit campfire. Cardamom
would be like the fresh, cool, night air. And then the ground, dried hot chili
peppers would put on a massive fireworks show.
The next
day after the chicken had marinated, I did what Sudha had shown me. I lined two sheet pans with tinfoil, sprayed
them with cooking spray, and then placed the goopy drumsticks without touching
each other on the foiled pans. They cooked at 425 degrees for about forty
minutes. I flipped them once and sprayed them with oil about half way through. In
Hyderabad, India, where Sudha and Venu are from, the chicken isn’t cooked in an
oven like we have here, but a barrel-sized clay oven called a tandoor, the
dish’s namesake. The marinated chicken is skewered on iron rods and roasted in
there at super high temperatures created from wood fires or gas. As Sudha slid
her pans into her American range, she said, “We use the oven here.” Venu chimed
in, “You can grill it, too.”
Sudha’s
husband, Venu, was the one who taught her how to make tandoori chicken. He
figured out how to make it when he was a bachelor getting his masters degree in
computer programming. At the time, he and Sudha were classmates competing for
who was going to be valedictorian. They fell in love and got married, working
through the family drama of not having an arranged marriage. After living and
working in London, they both found programming jobs in greater Portland. When
Sudha was growing up, her mother had discouraged her from cooking, telling her
to focus on her studies, but after she got married and Venu taught her how to
cook, she loved it and now does most of the cooking for the family even
though they both work full time.
My American
guests were arriving to try tandoori chicken. I was subjecting small children to
this taste test because the more spicy-food-loving family friends I can
cultivate, the more spicy food I get. Plus Venu and Sudha said their daughter
started liking spicy food when she was just three years old. Venu said he liked
the amount of spice to bring him “to the verge of pain.” Sudha nodded in
agreement. I instructed my fellow Americans, “Okay, now squeeze fresh lime over
your drumstick. The sourness tones down the spiciness.” One first grader, a
little daredevil who’d just jumped into the fifty-degree ocean, took a bite
totally nonplussed. (Does she even know what spicy means?) After six seconds,
her eyes opened wide, and her mouth opened as if to scream, and she said,
“Ahhh! It’s spicy!” I got her some milk. But guess what: she kept eating. We’ll
have her over again. The 4th and 5th graders ate most of
theirs. And the grown ups discovered a lesser-known slice of heaven that’s curiously
hot as hell.
copyright Lindsay Sterling 2012
