{"id":184500,"title":"Chicken Curry","modified":"2026-10-05T16:28:49+02:00","plain":"Chicken legs simmered in a North Indian sauce with golden onions, tomatoes, yogurt and spices.\n\n\n\nThe onions start to turn golden in oil scented with cinnamon and cardamom, and the whole house already smells like dinner. \n\n\n\nNext come the ginger, garlic and tomatoes, which cook down into a deep red sauce that coats the chicken. The meat falls off the bone, fresh coriander goes in last, and you are already reaching for a piece of naan to mop up the sauce. All this dish really asks for is a little patience at the stove; the spices do the rest.\n\n\n\nAnother Punjabi classic: tandoori chicken, marinated in yogurt and spices\n\n\n\nWhat is chicken curry?\n\n\n\nThis chicken curry is the home-style chicken curry of northern India, known as tariwala murgh in Punjab. The chicken, preferably bone-in, simmers in a base of golden onions, tomatoes and yogurt, seasoned with whole and ground spices. \n\n\n\nIts sauce is lighter than that of restaurant-style butter chicken or chicken tikka masala, which rely on butter and cream. It is an everyday dish in Indian cuisine, the kind you make at home.\n\n\n\nThe word \u201ccurry\u201d comes from the Tamil kari, meaning \u201csauce\u201d or \u201cspiced sauce.\u201d The English adopted it in the 17th century to describe almost any dish in a sauce from the subcontinent. In Hindi, tari refers to a thin, fragrant gravy, and murgh means chicken: tariwala murgh is therefore simply chicken in gravy.\n\n\n\nFrom the Indus Valley to the shops of London\n\n\n\nThe trio of ginger, garlic and turmeric is far older than the word curry. Archaeologists have found starch grains from these three plants on teeth and pottery from Farmana and Harappa, two Indus Valley sites dating back around 4\u00a0500 years. \n\n\n\nThe same villages cooked lentils, vegetables and domesticated chicken. Tomatoes and chillies, meanwhile, did not arrive from the Americas until the 16th century.\n\n\n\nIn Punjab, the sauce is mopped up with flatbreads like these flaky parathas\n\n\n\nCurry powder is a British invention: ready-made blends designed to recreate these flavours in England, sold in London as early as 1784 by Sorlie\u2019s perfumery. \n\n\n\nIn India, cooks tend to make their own masala to suit the meat, region and family, from Goan vindaloo to Punjabi chicken curry. In Punjab, tariwala murgh is the family Sunday lunch, served with basmati rice or wheat flatbreads.\n\n\n\nFurther south, in Kerala, nadan kozhi (\u201ccountry chicken\u201d) takes a different path: coconut oil, curry leaves, fennel, black pepper and thick coconut milk added right at the end. \n\n\n\nFor a touch of coconut without switching recipes, replace the hot water with light coconut milk towards the end of cooking. In a similar vein, Thai massaman curry also combines coconut milk with warming spices.\n\n\n\nThe main ingredients in chicken curry\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChoose bone-in chicken legs or thighs: the bones give the sauce body and the meat stays tender. Finely chopped onions form the bulk of the sauce once they are nicely browned. \n\n\n\nTomatoes bring acidity and yogurt binds everything together, with cashew pur\u00e9e as a substitute for a dairy-free version. Chicken korma takes this idea further, with a milder nut-based sauce.\n\n\n\nAmong the ground spices, turmeric adds colour, ground coriander lends body and garam masala brings warmth to the whole dish. Kashmiri chilli gives the sauce its red hue without making it fiery, and smoked paprika can be used instead. If you do not have the individual spices, curry powder can replace them all, though the flavour will be less distinctive.\n\n\n\nThe whole spices give the dish its signature flavour: bay leaf, a cinnamon stick, cloves and green cardamom infuse the oil from the start. Ginger-garlic paste, a slit green chilli and fresh coriander round out the aroma. Chana masala, aloo gobi and palak paneer start with the same base of onions, ginger and garlic.\n\n\n\nKey techniques for a good chicken curry\n\n\n\nA well-chilled lassi to tame the chilli heat\n\n\n\nThe flavour develops during bhunao, the patient cooking process in which the onions, tomatoes and spices reduce until the oil separates from the mixture.\n\n\n\n Barely softened onions make a bland sauce; well-browned onions make one with depth. Add hot water a little at a time, and the curry is ready when the meat falls off the bone. Serve it with rice or naan, and a cucumber raita for a cooling touch.\n\n\n\n\n\n\tChicken Curry\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\n\t\t500 g chicken (preferably bone-in legs or thighs (boneless chicken also works))3 tablespoons oil (neutral)3 onions (finely chopped)2 green chilies (slit)1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste (or 2 cm of ginger and 3 garlic cloves, chopped)2 tomatoes (medium, pur\u00e9ed or finely chopped)60 g yogurt (or 1.5 tablespoons of cashew butter, or 12 cashews blended with 60 ml of water)1 teaspoon salt120-240 ml water (hot (or light coconut milk))2 tablespoons fresh cilantro or mint (finely chopped)\u00c9pices en poudre0.25 teaspoon turmeric1 teaspoon Kashmiri chili powder (or smoked paprika)1 teaspoon garam masala1 teaspoon ground coriander\u00c9pices enti\u00e8res (\u00e0 omettre si vous n'en avez pas)1 leaf bay (or 1 sprig of curry leaves)4 whole cloves1 stick cinnamon (5 cm long)3 pods green cardamom\t\n\t\n\t\tHeat the oil in a saut\u00e9 pan over medium heat.Add the whole spices: bay leaf, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom.Add the onions and chilies.Saut\u00e9 until the onions are golden brown, 7 to 8 minutes.Add the ginger-garlic paste and saut\u00e9 for about 1 minute, until fragrant.Add the tomatoes, turmeric and salt.Cook until the tomatoes have broken down.Lower the heat, then stir in the yogurt, Kashmiri chili powder, garam masala and ground coriander.Cook over low heat until the mixture is fragrant.Add the chicken and fresh cilantro.Saut\u00e9 over medium heat until the chicken turns white, about 3 minutes.Cover and cook over low heat for 3 to 4 minutes so the chicken absorbs the spices.Meanwhile, heat water in a separate saucepan (hot water prevents the chicken from becoming tough).Pour in the hot water to make a thick sauce, then add more gradually as the chicken releases its juices.Cover and cook over medium heat until the chicken is tender and the sauce has thickened; it is ready when the meat comes away from the bone.Taste and adjust the salt, adding a little garam masala if the sauce needs more flavor.Garnish with fresh cilantro.Cover, turn off the heat and serve with naan or rice.\t\n\t\n\t\tThis chicken curry is North Indian-style: its sauce is based on onions, tomatoes and yogurt, without coconut milk. For a milder, creamier coconut milk version, replace the hot water with light coconut milk toward the end of cooking.\nFor an authentic South Indian version (Kerala, nadan kozhi), cook with coconut oil, add curry leaves, fennel seeds and black pepper along with the spices, and replace the water and yogurt with thick coconut milk added right at the end, avoiding a vigorous boil so it does not split.\nFor a rich red color, use Kashmiri chili powder: it colors the sauce without adding too much heat.\nIf you do not have the individual ground spices, replace them all with 1.25 tablespoons of curry powder.\n\t\n\t\n\t\tPlat principalIndienne","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}