I made this chicken curry, or rather, adapted this recipe for my partner when he visited me shortly after we met some years ago. The idea was to spend as little time in the kitchen (and as much time with him) as possible, but have something that was as close to the curries I knew from home.
I’ve substituted many long-drawn steps, like marinating the chicken and frying chopped onions for shorter steps that don’t require me to be in the kitchen for longer than 15 minutes- or half an hour at the most.
Here’s the recipe for Indian chicken curry.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
500g chicken thighs and legs
25g Garam masala
One bay leaf
1 Teaspoon cumin seeds
4 medium-sized onions
1 clove of garlic (or more if you like)
A little bit of ginger
2 Tablespoons yoghurt (Leave out if lactose free)
1 Tablespoon vinegar
1 lemon or 2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons sunflower oil (or any other oil you cook in)
You can buy powdered Garam masala at any Indian store. If that seems too tedious, you could make a basic mix using a teaspoon of cumin seeds, around 20 peppercorns, one big bay leaf, a teaspoon of turmeric, some chilli and salt. Here is a very good recipe for Garam Masala mix and I found another one on Allrecipes.com that you could use to make your spice mixture.
It’s a good idea to keep the spices low if you’re not used to or not fond of very spicy Indian curries.
Make it:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Peel the skin off the chicken thighs and legs and place in an oven-proof dish. Drench with lemon juice, vinegar, some turmeric, yoghurt and salt.
Peel the onions and mince in a mixer with the garlic and the ginger. Pour the mixture in with the chicken.
Add the oil and the powdered garam masala.
Mix everything and add more salt if necessary.
Add the cumin seeds and stick the bay leaf into the mixture – you can use more bay leaves if you have only small ones.
Cover the dish and put in the oven for about 40 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 180 degrees and bake for another 20 minutes.
Serve with rice if you want to go gluten free or Middle eastern flatbread or chapatis.