Quick Chicken Curry

Now, I first want to clarify that this is a homemade curry but I’m taking the instant route by using a pre-mixed curry powder. At first I wanted to title this post as ‘Homemade Chicken Curry’ but I know that some purists out there would argue that with homemade curry, you have to grind your own paste and spices from scratch rather than use a pre-mixed powder. While I do not understand this logic, but well…for clarity sake, we’ll just call it a quick curry. I honestly do not think curry taste any less better made with curry paste or powder done by someone else but that’s just me.

Chicken curry is so common for every household of any race. This dish came about with a craving to dip my crunchy pratha bread. Truth be told, I quite like the store-bought frozen pratha bread rather than the normal mamak roti kosong cause when you pan fry them, they get so crunchy and suck up the gravy of the curry beautifully.

This curry is just the basic-of-basics, I realise that you might add more spices and stuff like cinnamon or ginger to make more delicious….but if you long for a speedy curry with all the familiar taste and flavour, this can be a good satisfactor (if there is such a word). And the good thing is, you can put in more vegetables if you think potatoes are a little boring. Add some aubergines, or long beans or even okra are good options for this curry. Good enough to eat with your favourite roti, nasi kandar or roti jala which I will put up the recipe on the next post.

The said curry powder….just as good.

QUICK CHICKEN CURRY

Ingredients;

8 pieces of chicken (different parts)
7 tablespoons of pre-mixed curry
powder for meats or chicken
5 tablespoons water
2 red onions, chopped
2 springs of curry leaves
1/2 cup coconut milk
2 waxy potatoes
Water
Salt
Oil

Steps;

1. First, marinade the chicken with 2 tablespoons of the curry powder and 1 tablespoon water for about 1 hour. Mix the remaining curry powder with the water to form a curry paste.
2. Heat a deep wok or frying pan with oil, sautee the chopped onions till they’re soft. Add the curry leaves before adding the curry paste.
3. Stir fry the paste till you can smell the fragrance. Add the marinaded chicken.
4. Toss everything to coat. Add water till you cover 3/4 of the chicken.
5. Let it come to a bubble. Add the coconut milk, stir and turn the heat down to low. Cover and let it simmer for about 45 mins to an hour.
6. Add the peeled and quartered potatoes and let it simmer till the potatoes are fork tender. If you see the curry going too dry, add more water and season.
7. Check doneness of chicken. Taste and season the gravy with salt. Some like it rather dry, others might prefer it more wet. My hubster likes to flood his ‘roti’ with gravy so we went with more gravy.
8. Eat with rice, roti or roti jala.

Enjoy!