Naadan Chicken Curry

Naadan Chicken Curry

A very tasty and less spicy chicken curry, made of coconut milk. A special dish in Kerala cuisine !!!

Serves: 3

You will need

1 tablespoon oil
2 onions, finely sliced (or 15 shallots / chuvannulli, finely sliced)
3 green chillies (medium size), slit lengthwise
1 - inch piece ginger, finely sliced
8 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 spring curry leaves
1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
3/4 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
500 g chicken, cut into medium size pieces
100 ml thin coconut milk
50 ml thick coconut milk

Method

For coconut milk:

100 g grated coconut required for 50 ml thick milk and 100 ml thin milk.

You should select coconut which are just mature (the more maturity, the less milk will it yield). Scrape coconut. Grind in a mixer for a couple of minutes with 25 ml water. Tie this ground mixture of coconut scraping in a clean cotton cloth and squeeze this to take the milk out. This milk taken out first time is the thick coconut milk and keep it aside in a cool place (the milk will spoil on heating). Once the coconut scrapping is fully squeezed, the resultant scrapping which is dry, is then immersed in 75 ml of luke-warm water for 5 min. Repeat the process to extract thin milk. The thin milk is used for initial cooking.

Once the cooking is done with thin milk, take the dish off the stove and then only pour the thick milk and should not heat any more.

For chicken curry:

Wash and clean chicken pieces. Drain out water thoroughly.

Dilute red chilli powder, turmeric powder and coriander powder in 1 tablespoon water and keep aside (spice powder mix).

Heat oil in a pan. Add finely sliced onions or shallots and fry till golden color and crisp on a medium heat.

Add slit green chilli, sliced ginger, garlic and curry leaves. Saute on a low to medium heat for 5 - 7 minutes.

Add diluted spice powder mix and stir on a low to medium heat for 3 - 4 minutes or until the raw smell disappears.

Add chicken pieces, 100 ml thin coconut milk and salt to taste. Mix all the ingredients well.

Cover with a lid and cook on a low to medium heat for 30 - 40 minutes or until the chicken pieces softens and gravy thickens. Switch off the heat.

Finally add 50 ml thick coconut milk and mix well. Serve as a main curry with Appam / Ghee rice (Neichoru) / Pulao / Idiyappam / Kerala Parotta / Brown bread ....