Achari murgh (chicken curry in pickling spices)
A punchy chicken curry made in whole spices and mustard oil, using a simple recipe, along with pickle oil - a delicious side dish for rice and Indian flatbreads
Equipment
- Shallow cooking pot
Ingredients
- 1 kg chicken drumsticks or curry cut pieces
- 1½ cups onions sliced
- 2 tbsp yoghurt
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 cup tomato thinly sliced
- 3-4 chilis slit
- 2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
- 2 tbsp pickle oil any pickle will do
- 6-7 thick, non-spicy chilis*
- 1 tbsp pickle masala
- 1 tbsp turmeric powder
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 2 tbsp paanch phoron
- 2-3 dried red chilis
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 tbsp mustard oil
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Massage the chicken pieces with the lemon juice, turmeric powder, slit chilis, yoghurt and a teaspoon of salt. Keep this aside until needed
- Wash the padron peppers (thick chilis) well and pat dry. Slit them from the centre and stuff them with ½ tsp of the pickle masala, each. Keep aside
- Heat the cooking pot with the oil until it smokes, lower the flame and add the paanch phoron, dried chilis and bay leaves
- When these turn fragrant add the onions and fry until they turn golden brown. Next add the ginger garlic paste and fry for couple more minutes
- Once their raw smell goes off, add the sliced tomatoes, along with 2-3 tbsp of water and cook until they completely soften
- Then add the marinated chicken drumsticks and mix well on a high flame. When no longer pink, add a cup of water, salt to taste, cover and cook over medium flame until cooked
- Finally add the stuffed chilis, the pickle oil, gently mix in and simmer on low flame for 5-7 minutes
- Remove from flame and serve your lip smacking achari murgh (chicken in pickling spices) with rice/rotis or any Indian flatbreads. Enjoy!
Notes
- *I have used padron peppers here
- Paanch phoron is a Bengali whole spice mix made up of equal quantities of nigella seeds, mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, fennel seeds and cumin seeds. You will need two tablespoons of this for this recipe
- You can use any achaar (pickle) for the curry. I have used carrot pickle, however garlic, chili, mango pickles also work well in this recipe
- tsp - teaspoon
- tbsp - tablespoon
- 1 cup = 250 millilitres