The Homely Chicken Curry
The flagship chicken dish on every Indian Menu
There is hardly a Sunday I go without eating chicken. A simple chicken curry is how our love for chicken gets started. So it is only befitting that my first recipe in this diary starts with this humble curry.
If you are new to cooking, this may seem a bit daunting. Stick till the end and you will realise how simple and yummy this is. (The photo on the top is what I made this Sunday. ) I have embedded images and videos at different stages of the recipe to make it simple. Read ahead, enjoy and let me know your version of the curry ☺
Total Cooking Time — 1.5 hours.
Ingredients
Marination
- Chicken (skinless) — 1 kg
- Vinegar — 3 tbsp
- Ginger garlic paste — 3 tbsp
- Powdered black pepper — 3 tsp
- Salt — according to taste (I used 1 tbsp)
Curry
1. Onions (roughly chopped) — 3-4 depending on the sizes of the onions
2. Dry red chillies — 2-3
3. Cloves — 5-6
4. Cinnamon sticks — 3 (broken into small pieces)
5. Green cardamom (choti elaichi) — 2
6. Black Cardamom (badi elaichi) — 1
7. Bay leaves (tejpatta) — 1
8. Turmeric powder — 1 tsp
9. Coriander powder — 1.5 tbsp
10. Chicken Masala powder — 2 tbsp
11. Red chilly powder — 1 tbsp (if hot is not your taste, you can replace this with Kashmiri Mirch powder)
12. Oil — amount you are comfortable with ☺(I used around 5 tbsp of mustard oil. Refined vegetable oil will do good too)
13. Fresh coriander leaves finely chopped for garnishing.
How to marinate:
- Wash and drain the chicken.
- Transfer the chicken to a bowl and mix it with vinegar, black pepper powder, salt and ginger garlic paste.
- Let it stay for 15-30 minutes. The longer the better.
Prepare the curry
- Heat oil in a pan. Once heated put the bay leaves, dry red chillies, cardamoms (both green and black), cloves and cinnamon in the oil and let it crackle.
- Add the onions and stir it nicely. Your pan will look something like this
3. Once the onions turn in to a rich brown color, add the spices in the mentioned quantity. These spices are turmeric, coriander, red chilly and the chicken masala powder.
4. Mix the spices well with the onion. If it sticks to the bottom of the pan add some water and stir it.
5. Keep stirring it at small intervals. Let it cook till the oil from the masala separates.
6. Add the marinated chicken to the cooked masala mixture and mix well.
The chicken mixture will look as below.
7. Once mixed well, simmer the flame, cover the pan and leave it.
8. Chicken generally releases a lot of water. Keep stirring the chicken at regular intervals after removing the lid and cover it back again. Repeat the process for at least 30 minutes till the water released by the chicken reduces and turns into a thick consistency. Make sure the flame is lowered during the process.
9. Poke a chicken piece with a knife to see if its well cooked through. You can also taste a small piece to be double sure. You can increase the flame at this point of time and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes.
10. Once cooked, add water according to the amount of the curry gravy you would like. Let it be on flame for the next 10 minutes till water bubbles and the gravy turns into a consistency you like.
11. Remove the flame, add half of the chopped fresh coriander leaves. Mix well.
12. Transfer the chicken curry to a serving bowl. Add the remaining coriander leaves on the top.
13. Serve it hot with rice or chapattis. Let me know how yummy yours was ☺
