Slow-cooked curry leaf chicken in fragrant spices, eaten with rice or roti. This easy dry curry recipe takes less than an hour to prepare from scratch. Learn how to cook this traditional Indian meal now.
Curry leaf chicken is an excellent meal to attempt if you are new to preparing Indian curry dishes. While there are many variations of this meal around the nation, this one is a dry curry with influences from the south of India.
This chicken curry, like our Kerala beef fry, is slow-cooked in spices and coconut, then blended with sautéed ingredients to give it a caramelized edge. This style of curry, often known as dry curry due to its lack of moisture in comparison to other curries, is simple to prepare and takes less than an hour to prepare from scratch.
Contents
What is Curry Leaf Chicken?
Curry leaf chicken is a famous South Indian meal that incorporates two traditional South Indian ingredients. The first is curry leaves, as the name indicates. This herb has a lively, spicy flavor that is necessary for South Indian curries and dals. While it isn’t the most prominent taste in any curry, it infuses the meat with a powerful and deep flavor that compliments the more prominent spices in this dish.
Coconut is the second trademark element. The tropical fruit is ubiquitous in South India, whether in the form of coconut milk, pieces, or whole. It’s used in everything from chutney to Kerala-style avial and, of course, curries.
While diverse locations, cultures, and families have their own interpretations of curry leaf chicken, the basic components of diced chicken, curry leaves, and coconut remain consistent. We kept our recipe simple and just used basic ingredients to offer you a fast and easy introduction to this excellent dry curry.
Main Ingredients
Chicken
Here, chicken breast or thigh is ideal. While thigh meat has greater taste due to its higher fat content, it might be more difficult to separate the flesh from the bone. It is significantly simpler to prepare and dice boneless, skinless chicken breast into cubes.
Curry Leaves
For this recipe, you may use either fresh or dried curry leaves. Because the taste of the leaves fades as they dry, use twice as much dried leaves as fresh leaves.
Garam Masala
Garam masala is a fragrant spice combination that originated in North India but is now widely used across the country, as well as in Pakistan and Iran. Black cardamom, bay leaves, black peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves, green cardamom, and nutmeg are common ingredients in Indian garam masala. These spices are roasted and ground to provide a genuinely unique spice combination.
Although store-bought garam masala is commonly accessible, I suggest preparing your own in quantity to use in all future curry dishes. If you need a garam masala replacement, try curry powder or a 4:1 mixture of allspice and cumin.
Added Spices
We merely used green chili peppers, ginger, and garlic to provide a little fire and flavor to this meal. If you want to add extra flavor, cumin, coriander, and mustard seed go well with curry leaf.
Quick Tips
Use these methods to make your curry leaf chicken even more delectable.
- Remember to temper the spices before adding them to the sauce. Tempering is a typical South Asian culinary method in which spices are quickly sautéed or pan-fried in fat (in our instance, cooking oil) to release more flavor and fragrance before being added to the sauce. Trust me if you’ve never done it before. It is effective.
- Do you have a thin or watery sauce? Thicken the curry while it cooks by adding thickening ingredients like cornflour or tomato paste. Combine one tablespoon cornflour with two teaspoons water, whisk, and add to the dish. Allow it to boil for at least two minutes over low heat before adding additional.
- Add half a teaspoon of cumin or mustard seed to the skillet before tempering the curry leaves to make it spicier. This will enable it to penetrate the sauce more thoroughly before being put to the chicken.
Side Dish Ideas
Rice, bread, and mashed potatoes are excellent accompaniments to your curry leaf chicken. Brown rice, basmati rice, and simply steamed rice all complement the curry chicken. All three are simple to prepare, but basmati is the finest choice for a really Indian experience.
Naan, roti, poori, and paratha are Indian flatbread that go well with most dry curries. Mashed potatoes with veggies, dried rosemary, cheese, and black pepper are very delicious.
Leftovers
Allow the curry to cool fully before transferring it to a container that can be kept chilled. Keep refrigerated for up to three days or frozen for up to three months.
Food Safety Tip: Before storing the curry, make sure it has totally cooled. If it’s still warm or not properly kept, the moisture might promote bacterial development.
To reheat the curry leaf chicken, cook it in a pan or skillet over medium heat until the internal temperature reaches 165F (74C). If the dish is frozen, defrost it overnight in the refrigerator.
How to Make Curry Leaf Chicken
To begin, combine the garlic, garam masala, curry leaves, turmeric, ginger, green chile, yogurt, and salt in a mixing bowl. Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces and marinate it for 10 minutes. This allows the boneless chicken to tenderize and absorb the taste of the marinade’s seasonings.
In a hot skillet, combine the marinated chicken and marinade sauce. Cook over medium heat with the lid on. Reduce the heat to low and cook the chicken for ten minutes after the sauce begins to boil.
Uncover the saucepan, stir the curry, and continue to cook until the additional liquids in the pot have evaporated. When the fluids have dried out, add the coconut cream and salt, then remove from the heat.
In the meanwhile, heat a tablespoon of oil in a skillet. Add curry leaf sprigs and green chillies to the heated oil. Fresh curry leaves burn fast, so keep stirring them until they’re crispy. Pour the curry leaf oil over the chicken once it has been removed from the heat. Serve over roti or steaming white rice and garnished with some of the sautéed curry leaves. People also like Can Chicken and Beef Be Cooked Together – But, but, but!
Curry Leaf Chicken
Ingredients
- 2largeboneless chicken breastsdiced into chunks
- 2tbspcoconut cream
- cupyogurt
- 3sprigscurry leaves
- 2green chili peppersdeseeded and sliced
- 1tspgaram masala
- tspgingergrated
- 1clovesgarlicminced
- 1tbspoil
Instructions
- Combine garam masala, grated ginger, chopped garlic, yogurt, and one sprig curry leaves in a large mixing basin. Combine all of the ingredients to make a marinade paste.
- Mix in the diced chicken. Cover the meat with the paste as evenly as possible. Refrigerate for at least 10 minutes, covered with plastic wrap.
- Preheat a skillet over medium heat. To the pan, add the marinated chicken and any remaining marinade paste. Cook, covered, until the paste begins to boil. Reduce the heat to low and continue to cook for 10 minutes.
- Uncover the saucepan and stir in the coconut cream. Stir well.
- Heat the oil in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Sauté one sprig curry leaves and the green chili peppers, cut. Cook until the edges of the leaves begin to crisp.
- To the chicken, add the sautéed curry leaves and green chile. Combine thoroughly.
- Garnish with the remaining curry leaves before serving. Serve with rice or roti as a side dish.
FAQs
What can I do with curry leaves?
The most common method to utilize curry leaves is in your cooking, particularly when tempering dals or curries. Before adding additional ingredients, they are usually combined with mustard seeds and green chilies. They may also be diced finely or left whole and used to chutneys and salads.
What does curry leaf taste like?
Aside from lemony overtones, the taste of curry leaves is difficult to pin down. It has a taste similar to the spice asafoetida and may be somewhat bitter and harsh.
What does curry leaves do to food?
This herb has a distinct taste from South India and is an important element in Southeast Asian dishes such as curries, dals, and soups. Curry leaves may not have a strong flavor in cooking, but their delicate flavor adds a deeper, more powerful flavor to dishes.
Can you eat curry leaves when cooked?
Curry leaves are safe to eat. When fresh curry leaves are bitten into uncooked, they do not taste well. It will be tasteless and harsh, but it will have a strong fragrant scent. Curry leaves, on the other hand, may be eaten when cooked or added to a recipe.
Are curry leaves healthy?
Apart from having a strong odor and a spicy flavor, curry leaves are high in vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, vitamin B2, calcium, and iron. By adding curry leaves to your meals, you may cure dysentery, diarrhea, diabetes, morning sickness, and nausea.
Is curry leaf used as a seasoning in food?
They are extremely fragrant and have a distinct taste with citrus overtones (1). Curry leaves are not the same as curry powder, despite the fact that they are often added to this famous spice combination and used in cooking to flavor meals such as curries, rice dishes, and dals.
Is curry leaf hot?
It has all three trigunas: Laghu (light), Rukhsha (dry), and Tikshna (sharp). Ushna Virya (hot potency) and Katu Vipaka (pungent metabolic characteristic) are present. It aggravates the Pitta (digestive) doshas while calming the Vata (air) and Kapha (earth and water) doshas.
Do curry leaves add flavor?
Curry leaves have a distinct flavor; while it is difficult to describe, it may be likened to citrus, anise, or lemongrass. They have a strong taste and a nutty scent when cooked. Curry leaves are used to season a variety of Indian snacks and entrees.
Who should not take curry leaves?
3. May result in low blood pressure. Due to the active iron ingredient in curry leaves, over consumption may result in low blood pressure. Iron is necessary for the body, but too much iron may be hazardous in the long term.