One of the most popular and traditional dishes in Nepal is curry. And there are different types of curry like egg curry, potato curry, fish curry, chicken curry. Among all those, chicken curry is one of my favorites. It's a way of life for me rather than being my favorite dish. This dish is cooked most of the time in my home. And in every restaurant, hotels and resorts have this item on their menu. There's no such place where this dish is excluded. The chicken dish got its name as curry from the rich dark red color (see the final photo).
Chicken curry is a traditional dish native to the Indian subcontinent. The subcontinent includes all or part of various countries like Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka and India i.e. most of southern Asian countries. One of the problem you may encounter making south Asian cuisines is that the ingredients may not be easily found in other parts of the world. There's one ingredients from here I think is very difficult to find in local shops in other parts of the world i.e. Meat Masala. But it can be ordered from Amazon if available in your country. Now lets see on how to make this exotic cuisine.
Ingredients
- 500 grams Chicken
- 1 tablespoon Ginger-Garlic paste
- 14 pieces Cashew
- 4 dried Red Chili
- 10-15 pieces of Sichuan Pepper
- 5 tablespoon of Mustard Oil
- 6 Bay leaves
- 1 tablespoon Cumin powder
- 1 tablespoon Coriander powder
- Halfspoon Turmeric powder
- 1 tablespoon Salt
- 5 pieces Green Cardamom
- 5-10 pieces Cloves
- 1 piece Black Cardamom
- 3 medium sized Cinnamon
- 10-15 pieces Black Pepper
- 2 medium-sized Onions
- 5 medium-sized Tomatoes
- Freshly chopped Coriander leaves
- 1 tablespoon meat masala
Step By Step
- Take a frying pan and fry Cashew, Red chili, and Sichuan pepper in above-mentioned quantities for 2 minutes.
- Now transfer that in your mixer and also put freshly chopped tomatoes in the mixer until it turns creamy as in the right picture above.
- Grind ginger and garlic together. This stone grinder is a traditional tool of Nepal. I could've used an electrical grinder for this one but I loved grinding in this. Had been in use since ancient times. The one in square shape is called "Silauto" and the one that is used to grind is called "Lohoro" in the Nepali language.
- It's time to make powder of ground spices which include: black pepper, green cardamom, black cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon. Also, I am again using our traditional tools to grind these. It is called Mortar and Pestle. Mortar is the name for bowl shape and Pestle is for that cube-shaped handler used for smashing. You could use the electrical mixture for this too. It's just my way of doing much of the kitchen works with my hand as it gives mobility exercises for hand.
- Take a big size pan and pour mustard oil in it. You can use sunflower oil for it. I don't prefer sunflower oil because the one found here is adulterated. So, we go to the countryside, buy mustard from the farmers there, go to the oil mill and then extract the oil. So it is 100% pure.
- When the oil is hot, put freshly chopped onion pieces and bay leaves and saute until the onion turns brown.
- Now add 1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste along with 1 tablespoon cumin and coriander powder. Stir the mixture and let it cook for 5 minutes on medium flame.
- Now put the chicken meat in the pan. I would suggest going for skinless chicken meat rather than the skin one because much of the fat is in the skin so skinless is a healthier one. Stir it until the mixture is uniform in all directions.
- Now add 1 tablespoon of salt. And stir it uniformly.
- Now add 1 tablespoon of meat masala. This can be found in every shops around. In your area try visiting Indian shop or mart to buy this one. If not, you can buy it from amazon if you want to make this dish. This is what gives curry the best taste and smell. Let it be cooked for 5 minutes.
- Now put the creamy paste that we prepared in the second step to the pan. Stir it uniformly. Also, put the ground spices powder that we prepared in the fourth step. Stir it for another 5 minutes.
- Add 2 cups of hot water to the above step after being done. Also, put the freshly chopped coriander leaves into the pan in all directions.
- Now cover the lid of the pan and let it be under medium flame for another 10 minutes. This is done to give the meat a soft texture while eating.
- Now have your Chicken curry in the your favorite bowl. Bon Appétit.
I used to prepare this dish many times but this time as I used a strictly right proportion of every ingredients, the curry turned out to be pretty awesome. I could taste every one of the ingredient while eating. You can have this curry with rice and also with Chapati (Roti). Chapati is a traditional flat-shaped bread made from wheat flour. This dish can be modified as per your taste by changing the spices amount or adding vegetables to it.