CREAMY CHICKEN CURRY WITH VEGETABLES

Here’s a slightly spicy chicken and vegetable curry with a creamy gravy. This dish will taste especially nice in winter if you’re in India, because that’s when we get the best vegetables. As with most of the chicken curries I make, preparation takes more time and effort and the act of cooking in itself is fairly simple.

INGREDIENTS

1. Boneless chicken – 600 grams
2. Onions – 2 large
3. Garlic – 6 cloves
4. Ginger – 1 inch piece
5. Green chillies – 3 medium sized
6. Carrot – 1 medium sized
7. Baby corn – 6 medium sized
8. Button mushrooms – 6, large
9. Yoghurt (non-sweetened) – 100 grams
10. Whole black pepper – 1 teaspoon
11. Bay leaf – 1 large
12. Coriander powder – 1.5 teaspoons
13. Garam masala powder – 1 teaspoon
14. Corainder/Cilantro leaves – a handful, roughly chopped.
15. Turmeric powder – 1 teaspoon
16. Salt
17. Sugar
18. Oil for cooking
19. Ghee/clarified butter (optional)
20. Hot water – 1.5 cups

METHOD

PREPARE THE CHICKEN

• Cut the chicken into medium sized pieces.
• Blend into a fine paste the yoghurt, one of the onions, green chillies, ginger, garlic, turmeric, garam masala, coriander powder, and two level teaspoons of salt. Pour this mixture over the chicken, mix well, and allow it to sit for atleast half an hour. The longer you marinate, the better it tastes.

PREPARE THE MUSHROOMS

• Quarter the mushrooms lengthwise, making sure to slice off the end of the stems, which are usually dry, black and hard.
• In a kadhai, add about two tablespoons of oil, turn heat to full and with a spatula, coat the entire kadhai with the oil.
• Once the oil is smoking hot, add the mushrooms, a teaspoon of salt, stir, reduce heat, and cover.
• The mushrooms will release a lot of water, and as the water boils off, they’ll turn a darker colour. Once all the water has dried, the mushrooms are done.
• As the water evaporates, remember to stir every once in a while or the ones at the bottom will get burnt.

PREPARE THE VEGETABLES

• While the chicken is marinating, and the musrooms are cooking, chop the other onion. Take the time to chop it really fine, as it will mix into the gravy and add to it’s creaminess.
• Cut the carrot into large cubes. I do it by slicing the carrot lengthwise, then slicing each slice lengthwise again, and finally slicing horizontally a couple of inches apart.
• Slice each baby corn in half lengthwise, then slice those halves into 2 inch long pieces.

COOKING

• In a kadhai, heat up 3 tablespoons of oil and 1 tablespoon of ghee/clarified butter. Once it has begun smoking (don’t wait for too long, or the kadhai will go brown and it will affect the taste), add the bay leaf and black peppercorns, give it a quick stir, and add the chopped onions.
• Add half a level teaspoon each of salt and sugar, and continue frying the onions on high heat till they begin to turn golden brown.
• Once the onions have started changing colour, add the chicken, marinade and all, and stir well for a couple of minutes.
• Reduce heat to medium, cover and cook for around ten minutes.
• After ten minutes, open the lid and you will find the chicken has released a lot of water. Into this, add the baby corn, stir, cover and let the chicken continue cooking for another five minutes.
• After ten minutes, open the lid, and add the carrots. Once again, stir, and cover and let the chicken bubble away for another ten minutes.
• After ten minutes, add the mushrooms, stir, cover and continue to cook. Check back in another ten minutes or so.
• Once the water has almost disappeared, and the oil starts to separate at the sides, raise the heat, give the chicken a stir, add the hot water and bring to a boil.
• Boil the curry on medium heat if the vegetables are still not soft enough, with the lid on, and check every few minutes or so by poking the veggies with a spoon.
• Once the veggies have cooked through, raise the heat and reduce gravy to desired consistency, while stirring frequently.
• Once gravy has reached desired consistency, add the chopped cilantro, give it a quick stir, and take it off the flame.

Serve with hot steamed basmati rice.

NOTES

• The potency of green chillies varies widely, so please exercise caution.
• You can add broccoli or other vegetables if you want, but make sure to add only small quantities. Too much of vegetables will make the dish soppy and tasteless. Remember, this is primarily a chicken dish, with a few vegetables for flavor/texture.

Serves 4

Prep time – 1 hour
Cooking time – 1 hour

Deep's Special Green Chicken Curry

Want to impress your friends with your fantastic culinary skills? Here’s one way to do it. Not quick, but simple, and with a little bit of acting, you can pass yourself off as a master-chef. Here’s what you need…

 

INGREDIENTS

Boneless chicken – 300 grams

FOR THE MARINADE

Ginger (roughly chopped) – one heaped teaspoon full

Garlic (roughly chopped) – one heaped teaspoon full

Plain yoghurt (non-sweetened) – 3 tablespoons

Green Chilli – 4 – 6

Coriander powder – 2 level teaspoons

Salt – 1 level teaspoon

PHORON

Coriander seeds – ½ teaspoon

Jeera seeds - ½ teaspoon

Whole black pepper - ½ teaspoon

Bay leaf – 1 large

FOR THE GRAVY

Coriander leaves (roughly chopped) – 2 cups full

White oil for cooking.

Water – half a cup at room temperature, and half a cup, warm.

 

METHOD

1.       Cut the chicken into bite size pieces.

2.       Put the ginger, garlic, green chilli, yoghurt, salt and coriander powder in a blender, and blend it into a smooth paste.

3.       Marinate (that’s just a fancy word for mix and let be) the chicken in the paste for at least half an hour.

4.       Put the two cups of coriander leaves in a blender, add half a cup of room temperature water, and blend into a smooth paste and set aside.

5.       Heat oil to smoking, and add the coriander and jeera seeds, whole black pepper and bay leaf.

6.       Now, without giving the phoron a chance to burn, add the chicken, marinade and all, and keeping the heat high, cook, stirring frequently, for five minutes or so.

7.       After five minutes, lower the heat, and cover and cook for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally. The chicken will release a lot of water, and will cook slowly.

8.       Once the water has reduced, and the oil has separated from the gravy, stir half a cup of warm water into the coriander leaf paste, and pour it into the chicken.

9.       Raise the heat, stir and reduce the gravy to desired consistency, but don’t overdo it. This dish will have some gravy, and the freshness of coriander leaves is destroyed upon prolonged heating.

10.   The gravy should be done in about two minutes, take it off the flame immediately, and serve with steamed basmati rice.

 

Serves – 2 to 3 people

Preparation time – 30 minutes

Cooking time – 1 hour

 

NOTES

The potency of green chillies varies widely, so please be careful. I used the short stubby ones. If you get the giant ones, please use your intelligence.

Be careful not to allow the phoron to burn, it will make the dish taste bitter.

Adding warm water for gravy prevents the temperature of the dish from getting suddenly lowered, and is better for the taste of the dish.

As always, try it a few times, and you will get it right.

Pink Chicken Curry

 

This has got to be the simplest chicken curry in the history of chicken curries. It is so simple that I think the chicken can make it himself! Jokes apart, this dish emerged from my dabbling with the minimalist approach in various things in life (not including clothing!). I was thinking of ways of making a chicken dish that would cook fast and could be made with the bare minimum of ingredients. The whole point of this dish is to do as little as possible, and yet, unless you’re a complete nut, you will have a great tasting dish, that goes well with both rice and roti.

INGREDIENTS

• Boneless Chicken – approximately 600 grams, chopped into bite sized pieces
• Plain yoghurt (the non-sweetened variety) – 1 and ½ cups
• Red Chilli Powder – 1 level teaspoon
• Flour – 1 level teaspoon
• Whole Black Pepper – 1 teaspoon
• Salt – 2 level teaspoons, or to taste
• Ghee – 3 heaped tablespoons, or 4 tablespoons of any white oil

PROCESS

1. Blend together the yoghurt, chilli powder, salt and flour into a smooth paste, making sure there are no lumps.
2. Mix the chicken into the yoghurt mixture, cover and leave overnight in the refrigerator (not the freezer!)
3. Next morning, in a heavy bottomed pan, heat ghee, add the whole black pepper, wait for 10 seconds and add chicken and marinade.
4. Stir for half a minute or so, reduce flame to low, and cover, stirring occasionally.
5. The chicken will release a lot of water and will cook slowly.
6. Once the water has reduced, and the chicken is cooked (taste a piece at this point), if you desire more gravy, add half a cup of warm water, if you want it drier, increase the flame, bring gravy to desired consistency, and serve.

Wasn’t that simplicity itself?

Cooking time approximately 60 minutes

Serves 3 – 4

NOTES

• The whole point of this dish is to use as little as possible, however if you so wish, you may add whole garam masala to the ghee before adding chicken, just remember to crush the masala, or it will explode, and be careful not to burn the masala. No one likes burnt cardamom.
• Further improvisations and additions to this dish will turn it into my version of chicken rezala, which we shall discuss on another page.
• The flour is not added for taste, but rather for consistency. Yoghurt, when cooked, has a tendency to curdle, and a gravy with water and milk solids totally separated, does not look or taste particularly nice. Be sure not to overdo the flour though, unless you want a curry where the gravy looks and feels like industrial glue.
• Once again,  the potency of red chilli powder varies widely. If you have the super-hot variety, use less. If however, you have Kashmiri red chilli powder, use more. As always, play around a few times, and you will get it right.
• The drier you make the gravy, and this holds true for almost any dish, the saltier it gets, so do be careful.

Chicken with mushrooms and vegetables

You know how most Chinese restaurants in the city serve something called “chicken with mushrooms and vegetables” with a kind of white gravy? Well, we can make a healthy version of it at home. The recipe might look complicated, but trust me, it’s laid out systematically, and is fairly simple.

One thing you must remember is that this is a stir-fry style dish, and hence, we will not be cooking the chicken or the veggies in the Indian way, i.e., for a long time over a low flame, instead we will be doing exactly the opposite, quick cooking over a high flame. If this is to work, you have to be careful when you’re chopping and make sure you get uniform pieces.

Chinese cooking happens in Chinese wok. If you don't have one of those, use a large, non-stick frying pan. But an Indian kadhai is an absolute NO-NO for stir frying.

INGREDIENTS

2 boneless chicken breasts

Carrot, 1 small

French beans, 200 grams

Button mushrooms, fresh, 200 grams

Capsicum, 1, medium sized

Onions, 2 medium sized

Spring onions, 3 stalks

Ginger, finely chopped, 1 tablespoon

Green chillies, finely chopped, 1 tablespoon

Garlic, finely chopped, 1 tablespoon

Light Soya Sauce

Black pepper, freshly ground

Salt

Chinese rice wine/cooking sherry

Corn flour

Half a cup of hot water

Sesame seed oil for marination

Any white oil for cooking (DO NOT COOK WITH SESAME SEED OIL!!!)

PREPARE THE CHICKEN

1. Slice the breasts into quarter inch thick strips, cutting across the grain, make sure no strip is more than 3 inches or so long.
2. Add to the sliced chicken 3 tablespoons of light soya sauce, 2 teaspoons of freshly ground pepper, a tablespoon of rice wine or sherry, a tablespoon of vinegar, a tablespoon of sesame seed oil and three teaspoons of corn flour, mix well, and keep aside.

PREPARE THE MUSHROOMS

1. Quarter the mushrooms lengthwise, making sure to slice off the end of the stems, which are usually dry, black and hard.
2. In a kadhai, add about two tablespoons of oil, turn heat to full and with a spatula, coat the entire kadhai with the oil.
3. Once the oil is smoking hot, add the mushrooms, a teaspoon of salt, stir, reduce heat, and cover.
4. The mushrooms will release a lot of water, and as the water boils off, they’ll turn a darker colour. Once all the water has dried, the mushrooms are done.
5. As the water evaporates, remember to stir every once in a while or the ones at the bottom will get burnt.

PREPARE THE VEGGIES

1. Peel the onions, cut off the tip and tail, then quarter them, and separate the pieces, and keep aside.
2. Quarter the capsicum, making sure you clean out the seeds, and keep aside.
3. Discard the top 3 inches and the root of the spring onions, cut the rest into one inch pieces, and keep aside.
4. Slice the carrot into quarter inch thick slices, the beans into once inch pieces, making sure you have one cup of each, and bring to boil a medium sized bowl of water. Mix one tablespoon of salt in the water and once it is boiling, add the carrots and beans, turn off the heat, cover, and after 2 minutes, discard the water and keep the veggies aside.

METHOD

Heat oil till smoking, add the capsicum, then onions, give it a few stirs, add the carrots and beans, and finally the spring onions. Add a teaspoon of salt, stir well, take off flame and keep aside. We are not trying to “cook” or “fry” the veggies, they have to remain crisp, so this whole process should take no longer than 2-3 minutes.

Bring half a cup of water to boil, mix in a teaspoon of corn four, and keep aside.

Add more oil, and once it’s smoking, add the ginger garlic and chillies, and give it a quick stir. Before it has a chance to get burnt, add the chicken and stir, making sure the chicken is well coated in the ginger-garlic-chilly mix. Let the chicken settle for half a minute, then stir vigorously, all the time on high heat.

Once the chicken loses it’s translucence and becomes white, which should be in about 4 minutes or so, add the veggies, mix well, and add the hot water mixed with corn flour, a teaspoon of salt and stir well. Bring to boil, stir well, thicken gravy to desired consistency, take off flame, and serve with plain or fried rice.

Prep time – 1 hour

Cooking time – 10 minutes

Serves – 4

NOTES

1. As always, the potency of chillies varies widely, so use your discretion.
2. Be creative with the veggies! Add golden corn, cabbage, broccoli or anything else that you think goes well with this dish.