Chicken madras curry as it should be! This recipe gets restaurant quality results!
Slightly milder than a vindaloo and equally as delicious, if you like spicy curries, you’ll love this madras curry recipe. This is how chicken madras curry is made at the best curry houses.
I know because I have visited and cooked at so many of them! If you have my cookbook ‘The Curry Guy’ and/or ‘The Curry Guy Bible’, you might recognise the madras curry sauce. In the books I featured lamb madras curry to serve 4 people.
Here I have done it with chicken in a curry house portion to serve 1 – 2 people.
Like it spicy? Give this madras curry a go!
You can make things easier on yourself!
This is a chicken madras curry recipe just like those you’ll find at curry houses. To make it, you will need to first prepare a base sauce and pre-cook your chicken.
It tastes amazing but if you would like to make a chicken madras curry without all the forward preparation, you could try my one pan version here.
About this chicken madras curry recipe…
Back in the early 90s when I moved to the UK, Indian food was a new cuisine for me. Chicken madras curry and also vindaloo were my favourites as I love spicy food.
In fact, it was my love of chicken madras curry that led me to starting my blog in the first place. The blog started as an authentic Indian food blog but before long I was receiving requests from readers to show how to make British Indian restaurant (BIR) style recipes.
Before long, I was right in the middle of the restaurant kitchens, learning the secrets behind curry house style curries like this chicken madras.
How spicy will this chicken Madras curry be?
On the heat scale, this chicken madras curry is just above a jalfrezi curry and slightly milder than a vindaloo.
That is when you order out but of course you can adjust the seasoning when you cook a chicken madras yourself.
If you are not sure about the hot spices, simply reduce the amount you put in. It’s a lot easier to add spices at the end than it is to reduce the heat level once the spices have been added.
That’s the beauty of cooking for yourself… you can decide how spicy to make your curries.
What is Madras curry?
Now let’s discuss what a Madras is. Back in the old days, you had three choices at British Indian restaurants, mild, spicy and very spicy.
The curries were all made the same way, just the amount of chilli powder used was what made the difference between a chicken curry, a chicken madras curry which had about a tablespoons of chilli powder in it and a vindaloo which had three or four tablespoons of chilli powder.
Boring right? Over time, curry house chefs upped their game giving each of their curries their own characteristic flavour. It’s for this reason that madras curries now have their own distinctive flavour.
What is the difference between a chicken madras curry and a vindaloo?
Vindaloos are now made a lot more like the authentic Goan pork vindaloo. That said, pork isn’t used at most curry houses because they are run by muslims. They do add ingredients like vinegar and spicier fresh chillies to give their vindaloos a flavour that is similar but usually spicier than an authentic vindaloo. This gave them them a flavour that was different but equally as delicious to the Madras.
A chicken madras curry is just over medium heat where vindaloo will often give you a spicy kick to remember.
Preparing Ahead
Curry Sauce
All of the authentic British Indian restaurant (BIR) recipes on my blog call for a base curry sauce. Here’s my recipe. Once this is made, you will be able to make this chicken madras curry in about ten minutes.
PRE-COOKED CHICKEN
I pre-cook chicken in two ways for chicken madras curry. Most restaurants use this stewed method to prepare their chicken for this curry.
It’s slowly stewed in a spiced broth. The liquid from the resulting stock can be added to your chicken madras curry for extra flavour.
You could also add tandoori style chicken tikka to this recipe if you’d like to make a tandoori Chicken Madras curry.
For this recipe I used the slowly stewed version.
Do I have to use chicken?
Of course not! This Madras curry recipe is all about the sauce. Any meat, vegetables or paneer can be used as a main ingredient. For example, try this tandoori paneer.
Following are step by step photographs of how to make a chicken madras.
Heat the oil over medium-high heat and then throw in the whole spices to infuse.
Add the garlic and ginger paste and fry for about 30 seconds.
Stir in the ground spices.
Then add the tomato puree and bring to a simmer.
In go the green chillies.
Add a ladle or two of the base sauce. You can continue topping this up if the curry is looking dry.
Dump in the chicken and stir well to coat with the sauce.
Add the mango chutney and bring it all to a rolling simmer, adding more base as needed.
Here are more curry house curry favourites you might like to try!
Chicken Korma
Chicken Dhansak
Lamb Rogan Josh
Chicken Tikka Masala
Lamb Vindaloo
Chicken Chilli Garlic
Chicken Patia
Lamb Bhuna
So good with Basmati rice or a chapati.
Go on… You know you want it. Make this and enjoy!
How To Make Chicken Madras
This curry house style chicken curry is a favourite with spicy food fans. You can adjust the heat of this chicken Madras curry to taste.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp rapeseed (canola) oil
- 2 dried Kashmiri chillies
- 2 green cardamom pods
- 1 1/2 tbsp garlic and ginger paste
- 2 green bird's eye chillies
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp ground coriander
- 1/4 tsp turmeric
- 1 tbsp kashmiri chilli powder
- 1 tbsp mixed powder
- 70ml (1/4 cup) tomato puree
- 300ml (1 1/4 cups) base sauce
- 300g (11oz) pre-cooked chicken
- 1 tbsp smooth mango chutney or lime pickle
- Juice of 1/2 lime
- 1/2 tsp garam masala
- 1 tbsp fresh coriander (cilantro) to garnish
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. When hot, add the dried Kashmiri chillies and cardamom pods.
- Move these whole spices around in the oil for about 30 seconds to infuse into the oli and then add the garlic and ginger paste. Fry for a further 30 seconds.
- Add the green chillies followed by the cumin, coriander, turmeric, chilli powder and mixed powder and stir to combine.
- Stir in the tomato puree followed bye a ladle full or two of the base sauce. Bring to a simmer and then add the chicken pieces. Only stir if the base sauce is obviously sticking to the pan. As the base sauce cooks, it will caramelise to the side of the pan. Scrape this in for more flavour.
- Stir in the mango chutney and lime juice. Allow to simmer for a couple of minutes, again only stirring if the sauce is obviously sticking to the pan.
- To finish, sprinkle the garam masala over the top, garnish with the fresh coriander (cilantro) and season with salt to taste.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield:
2Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 244Total Fat: 7gSaturated Fat: 2gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 4gCholesterol: 42mgSodium: 580mgCarbohydrates: 35gFiber: 4gSugar: 23gProtein: 13g
You can make this a day ahead. If fact it gets better. I often freeze mine for a later date too.
Give it a go! If you like chicken madras, this is a good one!
Clark
Saturday 18th of March 2023
Hiya, I cooked the base sauce yesterday and roasted and ground my spice mix... I cooked up the masala. First attempt, not bad. Now, I've got a question... All the recipes are mainly just adding more of the same spices that the spice mix and base sauce already provide. Looks like there might only be 1, maybe 2 new ingredients for each recipe... Don't all the dishes taste the same? And what's the point of adding more of the same spices you're already putting in?
Cheers
Dan Toombs
Wednesday 22nd of March 2023
Hi Clark
The recipes definitely don’t all taste the same. In fact they all use different ingredients that makes the flavour and often the texture different. As for the base sauce, the spices added are really only added for colour and a bit of flavour. There is only a little base sauce added to each curry so you do need to add more spices to intensify the flavour. Hope this helps. Thanks, Dan
Lisa
Wednesday 15th of December 2021
Hi Dan,
By yield to you mean it serves 2 people or it makes up 2 cartons of curry? Thanks
Dan Toombs
Wednesday 15th of December 2021
It serves 2 people. Thanks Dan
Kate Leigh
Tuesday 25th of May 2021
I made this according to instructions and all I can taste is the tomato purée. It’s overwhelming. Do I need to water down the base! I used 300mls of the base straight from blending.
I want to love it but its just spicy tomato to me.
Dan Toombs
Wednesday 26th of May 2021
Yes - the 300ml required is diluted base sauce. I have a video on YouTube showing how to make Madras if you need further help. Thanks Dan
Tom Baker
Wednesday 14th of April 2021
Hi Dan I made all the pre-prepared elemnets for this recipe over the last few days and completed the Madras yesterday evening. A-MAZE-ING!!! It will be my go-to curry for the fore-seeable and I'm thrilled that I still have loads of base sauce and cooked chicken in the freezer. I'm now going to explore some of your side-dish recipes. Thank you so much.
Dan Toombs
Friday 16th of April 2021
Great to hear. Thank you so much. Dan
Keivan
Saturday 27th of February 2021
Hi Dan, I live in the UK and i used 70ml tomato puree. I used the tube concentrated version which seems pretty thick. In your videos yours seem more runny. I was wondeirng if you meant tomato sauce which has a much thinner consistency.
Dan Toombs
Sunday 28th of February 2021
For tomato puree I use passata mixed with a bit of water. You could use the tube tomato puree too but I like passata. Thanks Dan