What makes you more happy than a perfectly cooked dish? Well, mostly there isn’t any but at times repairing a messed up dish and finally getting an awesome new dish out of it! Especially when you want to get the best of two recipes and end up with a kitchen disaster at 2 PM, all you are left with is the option to resurrect the leftover. But all those who wander are not lost right? :)
I wanted to try Punjabi dhabba style chicken curry but didn’t like the tomatoes in the recipe so trued to replace it with curd.
Ingredients:
Onions - 3 finely chopped
Curd - 500 ml (thick, I used Milky Mist)
Butter - 2 tablespoons
Dry Red chilly - 3
Cinnamon- 1 inch
Cardamom- 1
Clove - 2
Dry methi leaves- 1 tablespoon
Ginger garlic paste - 1 tablespoon
Lemon juice - Squeeze 1 and a half lemon
Coriander leaves - 2 tablespoons chopped
Chicken - 300 gm (bonesless the better)
Turmeric powder - 1 teaspoon
Garam masala- 1 teaspoon
Coriander powder- 1 tablespoon
Cumin powder - 1 teaspoon
Chilly powder- 2 teaspoons ( + as required)
Salt - 2 teaspoons ( + as required )
Oil - 2 tablespoons
Method:
Heat the kadai. Melt the butter and oil. Add cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, red chillies and let them splutter. Once its done add onions and fry them with little salt. Wait until they are golden brown and then add ginger garlic paste. Stir them until the raw smell is no more. Now add curd to it and stir them well. Leave it a minute and then add turmeric powder, garam masala, cumin powder, coriander power, chilli powder and salt. Stir them all so well and close cook it for 5 minutes. You will see the curd blending in with all the spices and changing texture. Add the methi leaves and mix it well.
Dice the chicken pieces so that the flavour will be absorbed all within. Add the small pieces of chicken and stir them. If you see that the chicken pieces are not coated with the masala add a little water and let them boil in the open kadai for 10 minutes so that the raw chicken smell changes. Add the lemon juice to it and mix it well. Check for salt and spices. Once everything kind of tastes correct, close cook it for 15 minutes. Stir it often in between so that they dont settle at the bottom. Finally garnish it with corriander before serving.
Unlike dhahi chicken or the dhabba style chicken, you will find that this curry tastes sour and tangy in addition to the spicy flavour. It goes very well with rotis or plain briyani.
Until the next experiment... 😊