Clean the chicken pieces. Marinate it with the ingredients listed under marination. Keep it aside for 30 minutes.
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Thinly slice onions and green chilly. In a kadai, heat the oil. When oil is hot, add the sliced onions, green chillies, curry leaves, and salt. Adding salt helps the onion to get cooked fast.
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Grind ginger and garlic into a fine paste. When the onions are lightly brown, add the ginger, garlic paste. Saute well till the aromatics release their flavor.
Once sauteed well, add chilly powder, coriander powder, garam masala, fennel powder and saute. Add oil as needed to fry the masalas. I use home made garam masala. When you use store bought one, based on the brand you use you may have to increase garam masala measurement to 1.5 teaspoon or 2 tsp.
Add chopped tomatoes and mix it well in the gravy. Cover and cook until tomatoes are cooked. It might take around 5 to 8 minutes. Adjust salt in the gravy.
Add marinated chicken pieces to the gravy. Mix it well. Cover and cook in low to medium flame until water releases from the chicken. Then increase the flame to medium.
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This is probably the key step in the recipe. Once chicken pieces are cooked, allow water to dry up. Don't make it a complete dry.
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Then add chopped coriander leaves and thick coconut milk. Refer notes on how to prepare coconut milk. Adjust the salt and allow it to boil.
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The final dish has semi thick gravy which makes it perfect with pathiri, any sort of rice variants ( ghee rice, pulao), chapathi, parotta/paratha, appam or any other Indian breads. Get it to the consistency that you like. Then, switch off the flame. Enjoy :)
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