Chicken Curry – Restaurant Style
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For most of us, our first encounter with Indian food was with the spicy, creamy Chicken Curry, at your local Indian restaurant. You may have enjoyed it in all its deliciousness with some naan or zeera rice, savoring the burst of flavor in your mouth, every time you took one more bite.
What you may also recall is all the grease that came with it and the guilt you felt relishing this great dish. “But the grease is what makes it so yummy!” – is what you must’ve told yourself. And “It’s only once-in-a-while…It’s not like I’ll want to have Indian Chicken curry everyday!”. Well guess what. Now you can. My recipe for Chicken Curry is an extension from an earlier post on making the curry base, which makes this recipe not only easy, but much lighter on grease and fat. While several variations to the ‘Chicken Curry’ exist (including adding red food coloring), this version is the basic recipe that most Muslim households in India prepare on a regular basis.
The preparation begins with marinating chicken pieces overnight, in a mixture of spices and yogurt. I strongly recommend you use bone-in, skinless chicken pieces. An easy-to-make curry base is then prepared, in which the chicken is then slow-cooked. Make the curry as thick or thin as you like, depending on whether you plan to eat it with rice or bread.
Make this dish when you have guests over and you want to impress them with your curry-making skills, or prepare it when you and your family want to enjoy something different in the week’s dinner menu. Enjoy with your favorite bread, or go Indian and relish with freshly cooked Basmati rice or store-bought Roti’s or Naan. Serve with some Raita.
Chicken Curry
This recipe makes about 6 Chicken drumstick or the equivalent in Chicken thigh pieces.
You will need:
For the Marinade
- A large dish or bowl
- 6 skinless Chicken drumsticks, washed well and patted dry
- 1 teaspoon ginger+garlic paste
- 1/2 teaspoon Garam Masala powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Chili powder
- 1/2 cup plain yogurt
For the Curry
- A large heavy-bottom pot
- 4 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp ghee. If you don’t have ghee, vegetable oil will do
- 3 dried Bay leaves
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 2 inch stick of Cinnamon
- 3 large onions, roughly chopped
- 5-6 medium-sized tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
Some of the ingredients used for Chicken Curry
- 2.5 teaspoons Chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Turmeric powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Garam masala powder
- 2 tablespoons Dhania-Zeera powder
- 1 cube chicken bouillon
- Salt to taste
- Chicken stock – to thin the gravy if required
- Chopped Cilantro leaves and lemon juice for garnishing
Method:
- Mix the marinade ingredients well in a large bowl and coat the chicken pieces completely, in the mixture. Marinate overnight in the fridge
- In a large pot, heat 4 tbsp of oil and cook the chopped onions in medium heat till they are a light brown color
- Then add the chopped tomatoes and cook till they are soft and mushy
- Turn off heat, and blend this mixture with 1/2 cup of water
- Heat 1 tbsp of ghee or oil in the same pot and fry the Bay leaves, cinnamon stick and cumin seeds in it
- As soon as the cumin seeds start to crackle, add 1 tsp of ginger & garlic paste
- Then add the blended onion and tomato mixture and allow to re-fry in the ghee / oil
- After about 30 seconds, add all the dry spices + chicken bouillon and mix well
- Cook the spices in the gravy till the oil separates from the sides of the pot
- Finally, add the marinated chicken and mix well. Add salt to taste.
Add the marinated chicken to the curry paste and mix well
- Cover the lid on the pot, and allow the chicken to cook on low-medium heat. It should take around 30 minutes for the chicken to cook completely. No need to add extra water for cooking the chicken – the tomatoes and yogurt will release a lot of liquid
- Add chicken stock if you feel the gravy is too thick
- Garnish with Cilantro leaves & lemon juice, and enjoy!
OneLifeToEat’s first guest post!
I am so excited to announce that OneLifeToEat (OLTE) just had it’s first guest post!
I was recently contacted by Emily Moore, who is a college student and writer, about doing a post which would be featured under her Cheap Eats for budget-crunched college students. She learned about me through the oh-so-amazing Brazen Careerist where I posted one of my recipes and we agreed to collaborate on her series of recipes for college students who look for delicious, healthy, and yet ‘Cheap Eats’.
I used the recipe for Low-Fat Chicken Kebabs posted earlier on OLTE, and modified it to include fewer and cheaper ingredients, that a budget-strapped student can easily reuse in other common recipes. I also took care to include an estimate of how much the recipe would cost per meal. You can read the post here.
If you or a friend is looking to feature an Indian recipe on their blog or publication, I am open to writing for them. Please use the Contact form on this blog to get in touch with me. I look forward to more opportunities for collaboration!
Channa dal & patties
I’ve been looking for ways to get more protein in my diet and wanted to include more vegetarian ways to achieve that. As a result, I’ve been making a lot of Lentils, Pulses and beans lately, and I’ve been learning so much about them. The Channa Daal is one such protein source that I’ve truly come to enjoy. I remember having it as roasted, in a spicy Indian snack called Chivda, but hardly had the chance to enjoy it as a meal. I finally got down to making it the other day and thought of sharing it here. On further research, I learned that the Chana dal is incredibly nutritious for diabetics. Read about it here.
Chana dal takes longer to cook than other types of Dals so I strongly recommend using a pressure cooker for this recipe. The dal can also be cooked in a heavy-bottomed pot.
My recipe is lightly spiced and fragrant with the aromas of cumin seeds and curry leaves. The dal is cooked in oil along with some ghee (clarified butter) to aid digestion. Enjoy it with some hot Roti’s (Indian flatbread) and a bowl of Raita (Indian spiced yogurt). Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Spiced Chana dal
Chana dal / Split chickpeas
You will need:
- 3 tbsp oil + 1 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
- 2 cups Channa dal or Split Chickpeas, washed well and soaked for 2 hours (NOTE: If not using a pressure cooker, soak the dal overnight.
- Update: Make sure to soak the dal in a large bowl / utensil as the chana dal tends to expand considerably if soaked overnight (All credit to Mehnaz for pointing this out)
- Update: Make sure to soak the dal in a large bowl / utensil as the chana dal tends to expand considerably if soaked overnight (All credit to Mehnaz for pointing this out)
- 1/2 large onion, finely chopped
- 2 large tomatoes, finely chopped
- 3-4 curry leaves
- 1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 2 cloves chopped garlic
- 1 tsp ginger & garlic paste (available as a mixed paste in Indian grocery stores)
- 3/4 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp Dhania-Zeera powder (Cumin & Coriander powder – available as a mixed spice in Indian grocery stores)
- 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/4 tsp Garam masala powder
- Salt to taste
- 1.5 cups water if cooking in a pressure cooker (more needed if cooking in a pot)
- A large handful of chopped coriander leaves for garnishing
- Juice of 1/2 lemon for garnishing
Method:
- In a large pot, or pressure cooker, heat the oil on medium-high heat
- Once well heated, add the mustard and cumin seeds, with the curry leaves
- As soon as the seeds start to splutter, add the chopped onions and chopped garlic
- Cook till onions are translucent and soft
- Add the ginger & garlic paste, and allow to cook for 30 seconds
- Add the chopped tomatoes and cook till they are soft too
- Finally, add all the dry spices and cook them in the tomat0 + onion paste till the oil starts to leave the mixture
- Drain off all water from the soaked Chana dal and add to the pot / pressure cooker
- Add salt to taste and mix well
- If cooking in a pressure cooker, add 1.5 cups water, close the lid and allow 3 whistles. If cooking in a pot, cook the dal, uncovered on medium heat, till they are soft but not mushy. Add hot water to the pot every time it needs more
- Once the pressure cooker has cooled down, slowly open the lid and check if the dal is cooked. It should be soft to bite but not mushy
- Cook for one more whistle, after adding some more water, if you feel the dal is still raw.
- Finally, garnish with coriander leaves and lemon juice
- Serve with hot Roti’s or Paratha’s
What to do with leftover chana dal
I once made too much dal by mistake and didn’t have the heart to throw it away and came up with this recipe for chana dal patties. The patties are a perfect evening snack or party appetizer. My version is tangy, spicy and as one would say back home – “Chatpata!” (really mouth watering)
Chana dal patties
Simply re-cook the dal till mushy. Mash it together with some boiled potatoes and about 1 tbsp of all-purpose flour, for every cup of daal. Add more flour if you feel the mixture is too paste-y. Add about 1 tsp of Chaat masala, some more salt, some chopped onions and scallions and mix well. Make small flat patties, shallow fry them in some vegetable oil, and serve with some green chutney. Yum-O!
One Life to Eat 