Green chili lemon pickle chicken – For a spicy/tangy Saturday lunch

Attention all – This blog post is brought to you by Mandar. This blog was supposed to be a collaboration between Gauri and me, but I honestly haven’t had a lot of opportunities to cook over the last few weeks! Also, Gauri is the real boss in the kitchen and everything she makes is so awesome, that I am in a food coma most of the time!

Anyway, the urge to cook finally hit me this weekend and I pulled out a recipe I have been wanting to try for a long time. Presenting my green chili lemon pickle chicken!

What you need:

1 kg chicken (curry cut and a couple of leg pieces was what I used)
250 gms onions
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 tbsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp coriander powder
2 tbsp red chili powder
1 tbsp garam masala
200 gms curd
3 spoonfuls of lemon pickle (the kind our moms make, if you can get it)
1 tbsp vinegar
4 green chillies (slit lengthwise)
50 ml fresh cooking cream
150 ml desi ghee

Let’s cook:

Step 1 : Blanch about 3 onions and pureed them in a mixer and kept them there

Step 2 : In a deep vessel, pour in the ghee and let it nicely heat up

Step 3 : Put in the ginger garlic paste and stir until the raw smell goes away

Step 4 : Pour in the blanched and pureed onions and the chicken into the mixture

Step 5 : After stirring a little bit, add in all the masalas – turmeric, chili powder, coriander powder, garam masala and salt. Keep mixing the entire thing!

Step 6 : After about 5 minutes of heating everything above, beat the curd and add it in

Step 7 : Keep mixing everything until they form a slightly thick gravy

Step 8 : The piece-de-resistance – add about 3 spoonfuls of the lemon pickle and a spoonful of vinegar and make sure it mixes thoroughly

Step 9 : Add the green chilies into the gravy and make sure they mix well

Step 10: Keep heating the gravy and chicken for another 5 minutes

Step 11 : Add the fresh cream and close the lid and let the chicken cook slowly

Step 12 : Serve with piping hot rice or rotis

I usually stick to my biryanis and south Indian chicken curries and hardly get out of my comfort zone. But this was a nice spicy/tangy change from the usual fare! Thanks to Gauri for pushing me to make this recipe and writing this up! Talk to you all soon!

Cheers

Mandar