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Donal Skehan
My Best Chicken Curry | DonalSkehan.com, Put the spices lingering at the back of your cupboard to good use with one of my favourite curry dishes.
  • main-meals

My Best Chicken Curry

August 11

The difference between a good curry and a great curry is balancing the spices in your paste. Below I share my ultimate combination resulting in an aromatic chicken curry recipe you’re sure to return to again and again.

  • serves Serves 4
  • time 70mins

Method

  1. 1. Place all the ingredients for the spice paste in a food processor and blitz until completely smooth. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.
  2. 2. In a mixing bowl, combine the chicken with the garam masala and a generous seasoning of salt.
  3. 3. Heat a large, high sided pan over a medium high heat and add the oil. Once hot, fry the chicken until golden brown on all sides. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside on a plate.
  4. 4. If required add another drop of oil and over a medium high heat, fry the paste for 6 minutes until aromatic, stirring regularly.
  5. 5. Add the chicken back to the pan, with the tomatoes and chicken stock. Bring to a steady simmer and then turn the heat to low and simmer gently for 15-20 minutes until the sauce has reduced and the chicken has cooked all the way through.
  6. 6. To serve, stir through a squeeze of lemon juice to taste and serve with cooked rice, naan bread and garnish with coriander leaves.

Ingredients

1 tbsp sunflower oil

1 tbsp garam masala

1.1 lbs chicken thighs, deboned

14oz tin chopped tomatoes

1 cup of chicken stock

Sea salt

For the spice paste:

1 onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, finely grated

1 large thumbsized piece ginger, finely grated

1 heaped tsp chilli powder

½ tbsp turmeric

1 tbsp cumin

1 tbsp ground coriander

1 tbsp ground ginger

To serve:

Juice of ½ lemon

A small handful of coriander leaves, to garnish

1 1/4 cups of basmati rice, cooked

Naan bread

1 tbsp sunflower oil

1 tbsp garam masala

500g chicken thighs, deboned

400g tin chopped tomatoes

250ml chicken stock

Sea salt

For the spice paste:

1 onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, finely grated

1 large thumbsized piece ginger, finely grated

1 heaped tsp chilli powder

½ tbsp turmeric

1 tbsp cumin

1 tbsp ground coriander

1 tbsp ground ginger

To serve:

Juice of ½ lemon

A small handful of coriander leaves, to garnish

250g basmati rice, cooked

Naan bread

You'll Need

Food processor

Mixing bowl

Large high sided pan

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This is very similar to a Thai green curry but it’s a lot lighter in terms of spices, sticking mainly with the fresh ingredients like ginger and lemongrass. I use Kaffir lime leaves here, which some supermarkets carry in the herb section, Asian markets are also bound to have them. Improvise with finely grated zest of lime. If you haven’t used lemongrass before it’s a fantastic little ingredient which is responsible for giving this dish that wonderful light and fragrant flavour. To prepare, slice off the woody ends and the root, you should be left with about 2-3 inches. If you don’t have a food processor, just chop the paste ingredients until they’re as fine as you can get them.

 

 

In small handblender blitz the ginger, lime leaves, garlic, red chilli and lemon grass until finely chopped.

 

Heat a frying pan over a high heat and add a little sunflower oil.

 

Season the chicken pieces and brown off in the pan until you have a nice golden colour on either side.

 

Remove the chicken pieces from the pan and place on plate with some kitchen paper.

 

Pour the remaining oil and scrape any crispy bits into a medium sized high sided pot and place over a medium high heat.

 

Add in the blitzed ingredients and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes until the they release lots of great fragrant smells!

 

Add the chicken back in along with the coconut milk and fish sauce.

 

Cook over a gentle heat for 10 minutes until the sauce has reduced a little and the chicken is thoroughly cooked through.

 

While the chicken is bubbling away, get the rice on.  Rice can get people a little panicked but the easiest way to think about it is that it is 1 part rice to 2 parts cold water.  What I do is measure the rice in a glass and then use the glass to pour in the water, that way it’s easy to see the volume you need to add.

 

Add the rice and water to a pot, cover with a lid and simmer over a medium heat for about 15 minutes or according to the instructions on the packet.

 

Serve the chicken over the rice and give a generous sprinkle of spring onions and coriander.

 

Devour the dinner! 🙂