Mother’s Chicken Curry

I decided to do something different, and do something which was an idea I’ve been playing with for a while: posting a recipe. After I posted a picture of the Indian chicken curry I made for dinner last night, I’ve gotten requests for the recipe, so here it is.

Serves: 4

What you’ll need:

• 1.25 lb chicken breasts cut into large bites
• 1.5 onions
• 4-5 cloves garlic
• Approximately 2 inches ginger
• 1 tbsp garam masala
• 1 tbsp turmeric 
• 1 tbsp coriander powder
• cayenne pepper — I used 1 tbsp, but I would recommend starting with 1/2 tbsp and then adding more if you want more heat
• approximately 1/2 cup tomato puree
• 1 medium tomato, chopped
• 1/4 cup yogurt
• Curry leaves

If you have a blender: perfect. Just throw your onions, garlic, and ginger into your blender and blitz. If not, like me, then chopping your onions finely and grating your garlic and ginger would suffice.

Heat enough canola oil to coat the bottom of a large, non-stick pot, and toss your onions, garlic, and ginger in and sautee until the onions are translucent. When that happens, add the garam masala, turmeric, coriander powder, and cayenne pepper. I used a tablespoon of cayenne pepper, but I suspect many of you might find that to be a bit hot, so I suggest starting with half that amount and then increasing if you find that you would like more heat. Dry roast the spices with your onion-garlic-ginger mixture until fragrant, and then add the tomato puree and the tomato. Stir and cook until the oil separates from the paste in your pot.

When that happens, stir in about a cup of water and bring back up to a boil. At that point, add the chicken and cook over medium heat until the sauce has reduced to about 3/4 what it was after adding the water and the chicken is cooked all the way through. A good way to check for doneness is looking for a large piece, taking it out, and cutting it open and checking the color. Obviously, don’t taste test because you don’t want to eat raw chicken.

At this point, add salt to your liking. Turn the heat off and stir in the yogurt. While my mom didn’t really do it, I added a small handful of dried curry leaves. I think they add a nice perfume and flavor to the chicken curry.

Serve with rice and your favorite kind of Indian flatbread. 

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