Indian spice box chicken
By Roopa Gulati
Cooking time
Prep: 25 mins - 30 mins Cook: 1 hr - 1 hr, 10 minsSkill level
EasyServings
Serves 4Serve this exquisitely flavoured chicken dish with mounds of fluffy rice
Nutrition and extra info
Nutrition per serving
- kcalories
- 706
- protein
- 50g
- carbs
- 8g
- fat
- 53g
- saturates
- 17g
- fibre
- 1g
- sugar
- 0g
- salt
- 0.67g
Ingredients
- 50g fat green mild chillies (about 3 large ones)
- 3 large garlic cloves
- 5cm piece of fresh root ginger
- a bunch of fresh coriander
- 200g carton of full-fat Greek yogurt
- 2 medium onions
- 8 medium bone-in chicken thighs (total weight about 800g-1kg/1lb 12oz-2lb 4oz)
- 2 tbsp groundnut or corn oil
- 2 tsp fennel seeds
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- a good knob of butter
- Chilli-ginger garnish, to serve (see below)
Buy Ingredients
Buy the ingredients for this recipe now via:
Want to know how this works? Read all about it here.
Method
- Make the Chilli-ginger garnish (see right), before you start the chicken.
- Cut down the length of the green chillies, then remove the seeds by scraping them out with a teaspoon. You may want to wear rubber gloves for this job - fiery seeds can give the fingers a real chilli sting. Cut off the stalk ends, chop the chillies into rough pieces and put them in a blender or food processor. Peel and roughly chop the garlic and add to the chillies. Do the same with the ginger.
- Pick the leaves off the coriander and drop them into the blender as you go (reserve the stems for the garnish). Tip in the yogurt and blitz everything to a puree. This can take a few minutes and you may have to stop the blender a few times to scrape all the gunge down from the sides - a rubber spatula will make this job much easier.
- Peel, halve and thinly slice the onions. Pull the skin off the chicken, using kitchen paper to help you get a good grip. Heat the oil in a saute pan over a medium heat until hot - when you drop in a spice seed or two it should sizzle. Toss in the fennel and cumin seeds and let them crackle and pop for 10-20 seconds, stirring all the time so they don't burn. They're ready when you get a lovely whiff of warm nuts. If the oil starts to smoke, remove pan from the heat.
- Plop in the butter and let it melt, then throw in the sliced onions and turn the heat down a tad. Stir to mix the onions and spice seeds, then cook for about 10 minutes until the onions are meltingly soft and tinged golden brown. Give them a vigorous stir now and then, but don't stir them too often or they won't take on any colour.
- Push the onions to one side of the pan, then add the chicken thighs, smooth side down. Increase the heat to between medium and high and fry the chicken until it's golden brown on both sides. This should take about 15-20 minutes and you will need to turn the pieces over halfway (a pair of tongs are good for this). Watch carefully in case the onions start to brown too much - if they do, pile them up on top of the chicken.
- Stir in some of the yogurt mixture and cook until it disappears - repeat a dollop at a time. Whizz 150ml/¼ pint cold water in the blender to use the last bits of the mixture and add to the pan with a pinch of salt. Stir until bubbling, scraping up any crispy bits. Reduce the heat to its lowest and cover the pan tightly. Simmer for 30-35 minutes or until the chicken is tender when pierced, stirring and turning halfway and adding a splash of hot water if the sauce is too dry. Serve sprinkled with finely chopped coriander stems and a little chilli garnish (put the rest in a bowl on the table).
Recipe from Good Food magazine, November 2002
You may also like
Comments, questions and tips
Comments
Very tasty, quite different to other curries I've made. It does take quite a while for the yoghurt mix to blend in so that's maybe why the other user thought it looked a bit green, i thought the same but once it has reduced down it looks fine but it does take some time. Wasn't sure about the raw chilli/ginger mix but it does enhance the flavour. Will definitely make it again.
Not sure what went wrong, but I found this didn't really taste of much at all. It smelt lovely, but it just seemed a bit flavourless. Perhaps my spices were a bit old......On the plus side, garnish was great, and the whole thing was very easy to do. Think I will try it again some time with freshly bought spices, see if that helps.
Great tasting curry. Used chicken breast instead of thighs and they dried out a bit too much- should have taken it out while seeds were softening. Garnish tasted lovely. Used just 1tsp of fennel seeds as I don't like aniseed too much and that was fine. Will definitely make again with thighs or maybe fish.