This is a British Indian restaurant style recipe that works with almost all fowl
Chicken tikka slow cooked in an onion and tomato sauce
I recently explained the major role that pre-cooked meat plays in the preparation of British Indian restaurant style meals. Pre-cooking the meat until tender not only makes cooking in Indian restaurants faster but tastier too. This is very important with tougher cuts of meat like lamb, goat, beef and pork but chicken and other fowl benefit too.
I like to vary my recipes for cooked meat and chicken. I change them often but at the end of the day it’s all done to give the meat that famous British Indian restaurant flavour.
I pre-cook chicken in two different ways. For tandoori style chicken, I marinate the chicken pieces in a yogurt marinade for up to 48 hours and then cook it fast in my tandoor oven, home oven or on the barbecue. The yogurt works as a tenderiser for the chicken meat. The end result can served as is or it can be added to curries such as tandoori chicken tikka masala. Check out my tandoori style chicken tikka recipe here.
The other way I prepare chicken is to simmer it in a fragrant broth for about 30 minutes until cooked through. This method of cooking gives the chicken a much lighter flavour and softer texture. It’s a good way to cook chicken for curries such as chicken korma where I lighter look and flavour is usually preferred.
You could use either method for your curries. Use the marinated tandoori chicken tikka to make tandoori chicken tikka masala. Use the stewing method with small bite sized chicken pieces (tikka) to make chicken tikka masala. I think you get the idea… Do you want chicken korma or tandoori chicken tikka korma? The choice is all yours.
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- 1 kilo (2 lbs.) skinned chicken pieces
- 3 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 5 cardamom pods
- 10 black peppercorns
- 1 inch piece of cassia bark or cinnamon stick
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 2 large onions - finely chopped
- 400ml chopped tomatoes
- 3 bayleaves
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- Salt
- Heat the oil over medium high heat until very quite hot but not yet smoking.
- Add the whole spices and the bay leaves and stir continuously so that the spices don't burn. Watch carefully, you want the oil to take on the flavour of the spices but you don't want them to brown.
- Add the chopped onions and stir to combine.
- Continue stirring from time to time for about ten minutes until the onions are soft and translucent.
- Add just a bit of salt. This will release some of the excess water from the onions.
- Now add the turmeric and mix it in.
- Pour in the chopped tomatoes and cover the pot to let all the flavours get to know each other.
- After about ten more minutes, add the chicken pieces and just enough water to cover the chicken.
- Cover again and simmer until the chicken is cooked through.
- Remove from the heat to cool for use in your curries.