Transcripts
1. Introduction to This Type of Chicken Curry: Hi there. Welcome to my online cooking class. My name is Shefali Rev. Ola. I have a website called Chef's Kitchen dot com. That's with an S. I'm a local cooking instructor and a food writer in Austin, Texas, and I've had some years of experience teaching in public forums to public classes as well as private classes, and have gone a lot of experience from teaching those classes. And it's made me a better recipe writer. But it's also taught me about what people want to know more about and what they're not familiar with. And so that's why I decided to start taking these courses online. It is a special chicken curry. To me, it's, Ah, family recipe from my in law side of the family. My husband, who's also of Indian descent. His region, his family's region of India, is on the position South India, on their style of cooking and some of the spices and the heat is very different from the region that I'm from, which is good drop and so very different flavors, very different techniques, and I've cooked it for years in my family as all members of my family love it as well, and it's been well received in the classes that I've taught as well. So I really like to share with you how to make it so you'll see that I use perhaps I'm not every day ingredients on and I'll show you and tell you about how to get those and where to get them even online. So thank you for joining me today. I hope you're really excited to learn how to make this chicken curry.
2. The Significance of the Onion Prep: So the first step to this on their style chicken curry, is to make sure you have a really nice onion gravy. And to do that, you really want to finally chop your onions. So I've chopped the root and off and the stem end off with skin on. And now I'm just gonna slice lengthwise, okay? And noticed that when I used my hands, I'm using the call to protect my knuckles. And then we take off this peels. So you take it lengthwise. It's it's pointing towards me. This is just for stability, and I'm showing you this. And it's really important because if you were to cut like this with really ah, large sort of you know, course chop, you're not going to get the gravy that you want. You really want to find chop here and you can do this in the food processor to and notice. I'm not going all the way to the end because that keeps it together. So you see how all my little sliced my cuts are very, very thin. Astonishing. Get him. And of course, a thin blade knife is really useful here in a sharp one. When you get to the end, you might get a little worried. And if you're slipping around, you need to just stop and get rid of that piece. Okay, So I had like that. Now I'm rotating it 90 degrees and again, I'm gonna have the claw shape, and I'm gonna go like this, and it's not gonna fall apart because this room is holding it all together. But I still need a little stability here. I don't need as many cuts. I just need maybe two or three, whatever you can get. So this is I could probably get another one. Now. You kind of squeeze it together. And this is where you do sort of that chef cut. So what you're seeing is a good find ice. So that was, I promise you just the hardest part of the entire recipe because that was just half an onion, and you need probably about two onions. So to make about 2.5 cups of finally diced onion for £2 of chicken for this recipe so you could use the food processor if you wanted. If you're making multiple dishes of Indian with Indian Curries and you'll need a lot of onions. You might want to do that. The other thing you could do is chapel of this in advance and keep it in the fridge. It'll last a couple of days so you can do some prep work in advance. Or you can now buy frozen diced onion in the supermarket. But I never find that those are a fine dice there, always coarsely chopped. So I would say this practice with your knife and get better and it will not take you long, I promise.
3. Tarka: How to Saute Spices: I'm using a pot that's a heavy bottom pot. It's a good size. Eso, you know, medium to large saucepan or pot is perfect for this condition. So I'm using expel, oppressed safflower oil, which is sort of my oil of choice, safflower or sunflower. Even he's either one for clean, sort of clean eating on and neutral tasting in Indian food. You don't I don't really want coconut oil in all your Indian cooking. Um, not only because it adds flavor, but I think cooking all should be also used in moderation. So I'm using this one today. I'm pouring in about a couple of tablespoons into the pot. Don't need too much when I'm teaching a class. I always tell people with Indian cooking when you're doing this step, um, to start lower medium. Because if you do start this on high and you throw in the cumin seeds and they flatter, it will alarm you are or hurt you, and we don't want that. So, um, this step. What I'm doing is a little form of a technique called circa. Circa means the seasoning of oil or fat with whole spices and or herbs or combination and I mentioned that and demonstrate that in detail on the other class that I have online posted . But in this case, all we're doing is cumin seeds and more frying Those in hot oil. You were looking for a shimmering oil. That's when you know it's pretty hot. I see it sizzling a little bit there. I'm gonna test the oil by dropping in a few seeds. If they sizzle, which they did, it's ready to put in. Okay, now you don't want any significant net. Definitely no blackening, some darkening. It's dark. I'm gonna put the onions in right away. As you can see, that's about 20 seconds. That's all you need. Maybe lesson that for seasoning the oil. Otherwise, you will burn the oil and you have to start over. So that's why you have to have your onions ready. So I've stirred a couple of times you. As you can see, it's browning, but it's certainly not a dark, dark brown, and it's not blocking at all. If you do do this and you're getting some blackening, make sure you lower the heat and add a little bit of water just a table soon if you have any sticking, but you want the onions to look just about like that
4. The Secret Ingredient: so we're gonna add some fending Greek. Now this is quite a good amount. A good quarter cup. So Finney Greek is. It's an herb. It's a green, leafy herb that is a colder season, Herb and I'm a terrible gardeners, so I can never grow it very well, even though it grows very well here. Um, you can buy it at Indian supermarkets fresh during this even, and you just strip off the leaves and chop them up just like you would with, like, you know, parsley or cilantro. Um, and then you can freeze those. You can also buy it in Indian Market already frozen and it'll say venue Greek leaves and then, But I like using dried. It's just as effective in a lot of Indian regional dishes venue Greek has when it's raw and uncooked. If you were to taste it, it's quite bitter. Uh, an earthy. That is not how the dish tastes after it's cooked, and this is what it looks like after it's been cooking for about 57 minutes. So you've got some Browning here. This is all looking really, really good. I've stirred it just a couple of times, and we put 1/4 cup, so a fairly good amount in that dish of dried. If you had the fresh, you would do about 1/2 cup and, um, both work equally, in my opinion.
5. Ginger and Garlic Paste: to make a little paste of ginger and garlic. I really love to great. You take your micro plane and you just apply pressure and you need about a two inch piece. Some ginger pieces, air fat summer skinny. So ultimately, I said about a two inch piece. But I really want you to ultimately have about two tablespoons worth of ginger. Brother pays for this dish and then equal amounts of the garlic right on top of it. I've never cut myself on this thing. I have my fingers touching the blade and nothing's cutting, so don't worry. But there are gloves you can get. If you're worried about cutting yourself where you've got your kids involved in the cooking , you can get the micro plane branded sort of cutting glove. It's useful for when you're using a mandolin as well. So that is your ginger garlic paste. And, yeah, Indians used their hands a lot. This might be unappealing to some, but it's kind of a good tactile, you know, sensation, part of part of the cooking experience. So okay, we'll take this back over to the pot and put it in
6. Making the Gravy Base: okay. And now, after that of it, I haven't on low heat. This is a type of cooking where you got to be really patient, and I'm just gonna mash this in. And, yes, it looks really dry. It doesn't look like a curry yet, does it? But it will. You just wait a certain smell really good with the ginger and the garlic. You always know the right temperature when you know that there's a little bit of sizzling found, but there's not too much sticking to the bottom of the pot, so I have half a teaspoon of turmeric. Of course, if you are really going for the health benefit where you want the antioxidant benefit from it, go ahead and put a lot more. But you will taste it more, and it will be a more predominant flavour. And then we have Indian red chili powder. Don't want on Joe Chili powder. You don't want chipotle chili powder. You just want plain chili powder or cayenne pepper. But if you can get your hands on the Indian chili powder, get a small packet of Indian chili powder. It's pretty hot, so I call for two teaspoons. You can do half a teaspoon if you want to. And now we have a little bit of a really, um, dry. Almost a pace. But this is still good. I wouldn't add water yet. It's not burning. It's just sticking. When I add the chicken, we're gonna get a lot of the juices from the chicken bringing all that up. So next some salt. I have two teaspoons. I use kosher salt because I write recipes. So I want to stay consistent and use the same sultan all my recipe. So I use kosher salt. This one is coriander. This is important in a lot of Indian cooking, so that's two teaspoons of that. All right, let that just heat up a little bit and cook, and at this point, I'm actually going to keep it on really low heat and cover it. We don't really have a lot of liquid left here, but when we add the chicken in a bit will have everything sort of melt together really nicely.
7. Almost Done!: using boneless, skinless chicken. Bang me is great. That's traditionally what we've done. The reason for using the fattier meats is so that you have that fat and juice from the meat to meld with the onions. Because that's actually what makes the onion sort of disintegrate into the final dish, which you're about to see. You won't really detect any onions in there at all. So this has been going for about 7 to 10 minutes and see how it's still super dry. We have some, some of the some of that coating the bottom of the pan. I'm not worried about it. Um, like I said before, and it smells amazing. This is your This is the power. This is the flavor. This is it is all right in here. I have £2. You can use 1.5 to £2 of cut up boneless, skinless chicken thigh meat. If you do bone in, it's just a little bit more challenging to cut, Um, but it is a richer flavor for shirt because of the bone. Just to be sure that you still follow the thing weight because you want the good, decent ratio of the onion masala to the chicken. Give this a stern. You'll see the color of the turmeric and the chili powder. Go right into the chicken. And again this looks super dry, doesn't it? Do not add water at this point. Trust. Trust me and just let it go. So I'm going to cover it. So, yeah, we got some good truths. See, everything from the bottom of the pot is lifted up for the most part, and that gives you that darkening of the gravy. So this is perfect. Still needs to cook through, of course, but I also don't want it. Teoh have too much liquid. So now is a good time when you see this much liquid that you still need to keep it covered , but probably just partially covered. So this is about the 20 minute mark. I had it partially covered for that last 10 minutes because I hear the sizzle and I see the appropriate amount of liquid that I want in this gravy and the chickens cooked through beautiful dark color give it a Nistor
8. Garam Masala: last space that we had is a spice blend, and it's called Gotta Masala. Gotta masala Blends vary from region to region, and they also very from family to family. It's like sort of every family has their own unique recipe. The one I use is the one I make, and I learned from my extended family on my husband's side from the British. This is just a teaspoon. You don't need a lot. Um, the reason for that is it really has some very strong aromatics. Michael Masala is coriander, cardamom, black pepper, cloves and cumin and cinnamon. It's really made of more of the earthy spices and not so much of the sweeter aromatics. So, for example, it doesn't have a lot of star knees or fennel or nutmeg or anything like that. So about 67 spices in this good on my cell that goes in here. But you can use any good on masala that you they're very, very good. Store bought quality brands in the Indian market as well is in now in regular supermarkets , so you and that you don't have to cook it much longer. Maybe in minute or two. Um, got a masala. The word gotta means warming my Solomon spice blend. So those spices have already been toasted. Ah, hole and then ground to make the spice blend.
9. Ready To Eat!: the dish is really great and looks pretty with little salon tronic. We know Indian food doesn't always look beautiful. If you don't like cilantro, leave it out. But I think it gives it some color. And that's the end of the dish. I hope you really enjoyed the lesson. Feel free to leave comments, emails, anything to let me know what more you'd like to learn from me. I have a lot more things I'd like to teach and, uh, and show you all about regional Indian cooking and even now, non Indian cooking. Um, thank you so much. Chef's kitchen dot com is my website where you can subscribe for the newsletter or for e mails on Also see more recipes. Thank you.
Shefaly Ravula, Shef's Kitchen Classes
