Again, #1 in the title is just to avoid any confusion as I will be posting different versions of Chicken Curry in the future. This is the first non-vegetarian recipe am posting. I started cooking regularly while living with Mompa. He was a strict vegetarian. So am used to cooking only vegetarian food before marriage. Even after moving to Bangalore, didn’t cook much with meat. Started exploring non-vegetarian recipes with chicken fries. Learnt later at a dinner we hosted that the taste can be improved a lot by adding a few more ingredients and not just blindly following pack instructions. Anyways, later tried a few chicken curries that I learnt from family and friends. And here I am now with my own recipe of a Chicken Curry. I recently fell in love with the flavour of dried fenugreek leaves(Kasuri Methi). That is one ingredient which surely improves any dish by a notch – be it dal, paneer or chicken. So just out of a spur of the moment, I added those leaves in this curry and was happy with the result. And now I make this Chicken Curry often in our home. Try this recipe for Chicken Curry with dried fenugreek leaves and let me know how well you like it.
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup Oil
- 1 teaspoon Coriander seeds
- 1 teaspoon Peppercorns
- 1 Cinnamon stick
- 5 dry red chillies
- 1 large Onion
- 2 inches Ginger
- 6 cloves Garlic
- 1 sprig Curry leaves
- 5-6 Chicken drumsticks
- 3 Tomatoes, chopped
- 1 teaspoon Salt or as needed
- 3 teaspoons Kuzhambu powder
- 1 teaspoon Kashmiri red chilli powder
- 1/2 cup Water + 3 tablespoons(*refer notes)
- 4 tablespoons Coconut cream
- 1 tablespoon dried Fenugreek leaves
- Coriander leaves for garnish (optional)
Preparation:
Clean, wash and drain the chicken drumsticks. Take the peeled and chopped onion, ginger and garlic along with 3 tablespoons water in a blender and grind them to a smooth paste. Chop the tomatoes. And keep the rest of ingredients handy.
Take 1/4 cup oil in a pressure cooker and heat it in a medium setting. While it is heating take the peppercorns and coriander seeds in a mortar and pestle and crush them. Add the crushed mixture in the oil followed by cinnamon and dried red chillies. Fry them in the oil for about 30 seconds without burning them.
Add in the ground onion-ginger-garlic paste. Sauté well so that the raw odour of the paste changes into a nice aroma. Add curry leaves and chicken drumsticks. Stir them through the onion base. The flesh pink colour of the chicken will start to turn white.
Now add the chopped tomatoes and salt. The tomatoes will get mushy as you sauté through.
At this point, add the kuzhambu powder and Kashmiri red chilli powder. Mix the spices through. Add 1/2 cup of water and coconut cream. Give it all a quick stir, close the lid of the pressure cooker, put on the weighted whistle once the steam comes out and let it cook for about 6-7 minutes or 2 whistles.
Switch off the heat and let the steam settle. Once it’s done, add dried fenugreek leaves by crushing them between your fingers. Stir and mix it in the curry.
Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with rice or pooris.
Notes:
- Any kind of large chicken pieces with bones can be used to prepare this curry. Not just drumsticks.
- For grinding the onion-ginger-garlic paste as water as little as possible. The chicken releases it’s water content while it’s getting cooked as well. So if you add more water while grinding the curry may be thin.
- If the curry runs thin and is not to your desired consistency, heat it up in the stove to thicken the curry to your liking.
- Be wary while doing so though. Keep stirring in-between to avoid burning the curry. You do not want the curry to taste bitter.
