Chicken Curry

We've got a great recipe for you today from a book about a white guy learning how to cook Indian cuisine from his mother-in-law. The book is "Cooking with my Indian mother-in-law: Mastering the art of authentic home cooking" and the author is Simon Daley (with Roshan Hirani). Here is the brilliant simple recipe for chicken curry:

"Chicken curry

Kukra nu saak

For me, this deceptively simple recipe makes the best chicken curry in the world: when I first tasted it, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. A whole chicken is jointed and added with its bones to the cooking masala, bringing richness and depth to the finished sauce. Don't be tempted to use boneless chicken breast; this will not give the flavour or texture that using the whole bird, bones and all, does. Cooking the curry in this way effectively produces a chicken stock to enrich the sauce - and cooking the meat on the bone makes it very succulent.

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1.8kg/4lb chicken, jointed (or the same weight of chicken pieces), skinned and breasts halved
3 tablespoons groundnut (peanut) oil
10cm/4in cinnamon stick, broken into 2 pieces
4 small onions, quartered and thinly sliced
3 fat cloves garlic
4cm/1.5in ginger
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon finely chopped coriander (cilantro) stems
1/4 teaspoon Madras curry powder
2 teaspoons dhana jiru (page 16)
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
400g/14oz can plum tomatoes and juice, crushed
2 teaspoons tomato purée (paste)
4 medium potatoes, peeled and halved
1 teaspoon garam masala (page 16)
1 tablespoon chopped coriander (cilantro) leaves
Served 4 with rice
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Wash the chicken pieces and pat dry with kitchen paper. Set aside. Put the oil in a large pan and warm over a medium heat until the oil is shimmering. Add the cinnamon sticks and onions. Reduce the heat to low and slowly fry the onions until they are golden-brown, stirring frequently to prevent the onions around the edges of the pan burning.

Meanwhile, crush the garlic, ginger and salt to a paste. When the onions are golden, add the garlic-ginger paste, the coriander stems, curry powder, dhana jiru, chilli powder and turmeric and cook for 30 seconds. Then add the tomatoes and tomato purée, increase the heat and cook until the oil pools around the sides of the pan.

Add the chicken and stir around to coat the pieces. Cook like this for 5 minutes, then add approximately 570ml/1 pint/2 cups of water (enough to come halfway up the chicken). Bring to the boil and add the potatoes. Cover and cook for about 20 minutes, until the chicken is thoroughly cooked and the potatoes are tender, but not breaking up. Add the garam masala and the chopped coriander, then taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Cook for a few minutes to meld the flavours, then serve. 

An organic chicken will yield the best results; the inferior quality of the bones of a factory-farmed bird will not give the same depth and body to the finished masala."

-"Cooking with my Indian mother-in-law: Mastering the art of authentic home cooking" by Simon Daley (with Roshan Hirani)