Grandma's chicken curry!

Seeing the title of my post, you must be probably thinking that this is how my grandma cooks chicken curry. She probably did, I'm not sure. I actually got this recipe from "Kiran TV", and thought it looked pretty interesting. Probably a bit time consuming but definitely worth it. And of course, being the lazy bugger that I am, I did resort to a few short cut methods. Trust me though, it was scrumptious. I normally use onions only for my chicken curry, but here I have used a combination of both shallots and onions. Perhaps, the biggest surprise I had was the fact that there were no tomatoes used for this curry. In fact, nothing tangy whatsoever. And since I always like my curries tangy, I improvised and added some lemon juice. So, curious about the dish? Read on then...

INGREDIENTS- For Marination

•  500 gms chicken
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 2 teaspoons red chilly powder
• 2 teaspoons coriander powder
• 1 teaspoon black pepper powder
• Pinch of fennel seeds (optional)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Salt to taste

INGREDIENTS- For Cooking

• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1/4 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 10 shallots-finely chopped
• 1 medium sized onion-finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons ginger garlic paste
• 3 green chillies finely chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon red chilly powder
• 1 teaspoon coriander powder
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper powder
• 1 teaspoon garam masala powder
• 1 cup thin coconut milk
• 1 cup thick coconut milk
• 1/4 cup water
• Salt to taste

INGREDIENTS- For Garnish

• 5 tablespoons coconut grated
• 1/4 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 2 dried red chillies (optional- I did not use this)
• 2 tablespoons oil

METHOD

• Clean the chicken thoroughly. The final wash should be with vinegar, salt and lemon juice to get rid of the smell and to have a nice glaze.
• Marinate the chicken with the ingredients under "For Marination" and set aside. Set this aside before you start chopping the shallots,ginger,garlic and green chillies. It should be marinated for at least 20 minutes.
• Heat oil and splutter mustard seeds.
• Add chopped shallots and onion followed by the ginger garlic paste and green chillies. Saute till the raw smell disappears and the onions start to turn brown. Add salt and curry leaves at this stage.
• Once the onions have turned brown, reduce the flame and add the turmeric, coriander,black pepper and garam masala powders.
• After a minute add the red chilly powder.
• Once they cook, add water and saute till the oil separates from the spices.
• Now add the thin coconut milk. For this, mix 2 1/2 tablespoons coconut milk powder with 1 cup hot water.
• Cover and cook on a medium flame for 15 to 20 minutes.
• Once the chicken is cooked, check salt levels.
• Now add the thick coconut milk and wait for it to just boil once. Switch off the flame.
• In a frying pan, heat oil, splutter mustard seeds and fry curry leaves and coconut till it turns brown.
• Add this to the chicken curry and mix in.

  Tada, grandma's chicken curry is ready. I have taken just one. I feel that the curry covers the whole chicken. Sorry about that. Next pics will be more clear, promise!

You can have this with appam, chapathys, bread or even rice. Try it out and let me know how it turns out! BTW, in case you haven't noticed, The stats have crossed 1200 and we're still going. So on that note, I would like to dedicate this recipe to all you lovely people out there. Love u guys!! God bless!