Chicken Balti

Are you guys ready for another curry?!

The important things which make a delicious curry, for me, are heating the spices to release the wondrous flavours, and cooking the onions for long enough to release their wonderful flavour. That is the base of all really good curries.

And this recipe contains both those things! Bonus!

Indian food has always been my first love. Of course, I love many other kinds of food (all of them!) but the first meal I ever learned to cook was a curry, with flavours not totally dissimilar to this one. 

This feels like an updated version, for a slightly more experienced cook who is confident to mix spices rather than relying on a pre-made curry spice mix.

It’s not a very spicy curry, especially if you de-seed the chilli. The yogurt also makes it incredibly easy to adjust the spicing near the end of cooking. I like my curry spicier than my boyfriend does, so 

I added some yogurt, then removed my portion, then added more yogurt to the rest so my boyfriend could have a slightly milder experience.

And I have to impart some wisdom that I literally only learned a few weeks ago. Does your basmati rice ever go all gloopy and gross, coming out more like a porridge than fluffy grains of rice? That it because you are STIRRING it. So, for perfect fluffy rice, add rice to a pot, and pour over double the amount of boiling water (eg 1 cup of rice, 2 cups boiling water). Sprinkle in a little salt, bring to the boil, pop the lid on and simmer for 12 or so minutes until cooked. DO NOT STIR THE RICE. Leave it alone, and it will become perfection all by itself.

serves 2 with leftovers

Ingredients

• Vegetable oil
• 10 cardamom pods
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 stick of cinnamon bark
• 2 onions, diced
• 1 pepper, diced
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 de-seeded chilli, chopped
• 1 thumb of ginger, chopped finely
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• Salt and pepper
• 2 tsp cumin, ground
• 2 tsp coriander, ground
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 1.5 tsp turmeric
• 2 chicken breasts, diced
• 3 tbsp tomato pasatta
• 100ml natural yogurt

Method

Begin the cooking by frying the whole spices in a little oil for a few minutes until it begins to smell delicious.

Throw in the onion and pepper and turn down the heat. Cook for 10-15 minutes until the onions are lovely and properly soft and translucent.

While that is cooking, bash the garlic cloves and chilies together in a pestle and mortar for a few minutes, then add the ginger and lemon juice and mash again to a paste. Mix in some salt and pepper and set aside.

There is something very satisfying about bashing ingredients about in the pestle and mortar

After the 10-15 minutes of cooking, when the onions look and smell delicious, add in the spices and stir to combine. Then turn up the heat, and chop and throw in the chicken. Fry for a few minutes until golden on the outside.

Stir in the tomato passata and the paste you made earlier and reduce the heat, simmering with a lid on for 10 minutes.

Stir through the yogurt and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Taste at this point and adjust seasoning, you can also add more yogurt if required.

Serve with light and fluffy basmati rice.