Turn Up The Heat with Chicken Curry Done Three Ways

Heat the oil or ghee in a karahi or wok over a high heat. Add the diced chicken and fry for about four minutes or until white on the exterior and almost cooked through. Season with the salt and pepper and add the ground spices. Stir this all together to coat the chicken. Add the tomatoes and push them down into the simmering sauce. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pan and cook for five to seven minutes, stirring occasionally.

Lift the lid. The skin from the tomatoes should be coming off; remove this with tongs or your hands. It should come off easily but if it doesn’t, raise the heat again to high and simmer until the skin can be easily removed. If you are using tongs, give the tomatoes a good squeeze as you remove the skins. This will help them break down into the sauce. Push the peeled tomatoes down into the sauce, smashing them as you do. Then add the yoghurt and stir it into the sauce. Reduce the heat to low again, cover the pan and cook for about five minutes. Stir from time to time, pushing the tomatoes down and breaking them apart. After five minutes, remove the lid and turn up the heat to high. Add the cream and stir constantly, scraping any sauce that begins to caramelise on the side of the pan back in for additional flavour. Keep stirring. You want the tomatoes, cream and yoghurt to emulsify with the oil into a smooth sauce.

When you are happy with your sauce, add the butter and let it begin to melt into the sauce, while continuing to stir. Add the kasoori methi by rubbing the leaves between your fingers. Although this is not butter chicken like you might have tried before, it should look like it. Keep stirring until the sauce comes together and looks like butter chicken!

Try the curry and add more salt and pepper to taste if you like. Top with the julienned ginger and coriander. If you like a bit of spice, top with thinly sliced chillies too.

Grind the whole spices for the roghani masala to a fine powder in a spice grinder or pestle and mortar. Stir in the chilli powder, ground coriander and ginger and set aside.

When ready to cook, heat the ghee or mustard oil in a large pan over a medium–high heat. Stir in the bay leaves and cumin seeds and allow them to flavour the hot oil for about 30 seconds. Then stir in the chopped onions and fry for about eight minutes or until they are golden brown in colour. Stir in the garlic and ginger paste and fry it for 30 seconds, then add the roghani masala spice blend and fry and stir it into the onions. Add the passata and water, bring it all to a simmer and then add the chicken.

Give it all a good stir to coat the chicken with the sauce, then cover the pan, reduce the heat to low–medium and simmer for 20 minutes, giving it a good stir halfway through.

After 20 minutes, lift the lid. All that oil or ghee will be a shiny red floating on top. Stir in the garam masala and season with salt to taste. Scoop deep into the curry to plate it up and drizzle some of the red ghee or oil over the top of each serving. Garnish with chopped coriander and serve with rice, naans or chapattis.

Put the chicken pieces in a mixing bowl and add the chilli powder, half a teaspoon of salt and two tablespoons of the yoghurt and mix well with your hands until the chicken is evenly coated in the marinade. Allow to marinate while you prepare the rest of the dish.

Heat the rapeseed (canola) oil and ghee in a karahi or large saucepan over a medium–high heat. When the oil appears to quiver slightly, stir in the sliced onions and sprinkle half a teaspoon of salt over them, which will help caramelise them. Fry, stirring regularly, for 10–15 minutes or until the onions are a deep golden brown. Transfer the fried onions to a plate to cool. Set aside.

At this point, you could discard all but about three tablespoons of the oil and ghee in the pan but it would be left in when cooked the traditional way. Add the marinated chicken to the hot fat and fry over a medium–high heat for about 10 minutes or until nicely browned and about 80 percent cooked through.

While you are cooking the chicken, prepare the korma paste (this and frying the onions can be done up to a day before cooking if more convenient). Place the soaked flaked (slivered) almonds, garlic and ginger paste, fried onions, green chillies, if using, and the remaining yoghurt in a food processor and blend to a smooth, creamy paste. If needed you can add a drop of water to do this. Set aside.

Returning to the chicken, it should be nicely browned and almost cooked through, sizzling in that flavoured oil. Stir in the whole spices and fry for about a minute to infuse their flavour into the oil. Then stir in the korma paste. Be sure to get it all by adding the water to your blender and swishing it around to get the paste from the sides, then pour that in too.

Stir it all up so that the chicken is coated with the korma sauce, then cover the pan and simmer over a low–medium heat for 15 minutes. When you lift the lid, the oil will have separated from the sauce and will be floating on top. That is how this korma should look but feel free to skim off some of that oil if you want.

Try the curry and season with salt to taste. Stir in the garam masala and serve garnished with chopped coriander and/or toasted flaked almonds.