Chicken Curry in Nigerian Style
Nigerian Style Chicken Curry is all about chicken cooked in fiery red colour gravy made with tomatoes, local red chilies, chicken curry powder, ginger-garlic, dried herbs such as oregano and thyme and a bit of stock cube.
Ingredients
For Marinade
- 500 gm chicken drumsticks
- 1 tsp ginger garlic finely chopped or paste
- 1/4 tsp oregano
- 1/4 tsp thyme
- ½ tsp paprika powder
- 1 tsp curry powder
- 1 tbsp oil
- ½ tsp turmeric powder
- ½ tbsp. lemon juice
- 1 tsp salt
For Curry
- 1 cup tomato puree
- 1 pc onion sliced
- ½ tsp ginger garlic chopped or paste
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp red chili paste
- 1 pc Bouillon stock cube
- 1 tbsp peanut powder or cashewnut powder
- Salt
- Curry powder
- Thyme powder
- Oregano powder
- 2 cups Water adjust
- 2 tbsp Oil
Accompaniments
- ¼ cup green bell peppers finely chopped
- ¼ cup peanuts roasted & crushed
- 1 green chilies chopped
- A few lemon pieces
- ¼ cup cucumber chopped
- ¼ cup fresh coconut grated
- ½ cup pineapple chopped from 1-2 pineapple slices1/4 cup cup tomatoes chopped
- ¼ cup onions chopped
Instructions
Marination (optional step)
- To the chicken add turmeric, curry powder, paprika powder, oregano powder, thyme, salt, lime juice and ginger garlic paste
- Finally, to this add oil. Combine everything very well. Let it marinate for a few hours.
Cooking chicken
- Add the marinated chicken to a pan along with some water.
- Cook on medium flame until the chicken is half tender.
- When liquids dry, sauté the chicken until it changes in color. Keep aside.
- Reserve any left over chicken stock for later use.
Preparing Curry
- Heat some oil in a pot.
- Then add the onions and sauté until light pink.
- Add ginger garlic(paste or finely chopped) to the onions and sauté for a minute.
- Add salt, curry powder, oregano, thyme.
- Now add tomato puree.
- Sauté until the rawness of the tomatoes goes.
- Add tomato paste and chili paste
- Sauté again for some time until oil starts oozing from the sides.
- Now add the chicken stock cube. Mix well.
Add Chicken to Curry
- Add the sautéed chicken. Combine everything well such that curry spices mix into the chicken pieces.
- Lastly add water and peanuts or cashew nut powder.
- Cover and let the chicken simmer on low flame until done.
How to serve
- Serve chicken on rice
- Additionally, sprinkle chopped capsicum, peanuts, green chilies, cucumber, grated coconut, pineapple, tomatoes, onions.
- Finish off with a few drops of lemon juice.
- Relax and enjoy this meal.
- With every morsel feel the interplay of textures and flavours in your mouth.
Notes
- In order to garner to a rich fiery red color curry use red ripe tomatoes and chilies. Red color of the curry is characteristic of this dish. But the yellow color chicken curry is not uncommon either. The difference is that the red tomato paste or red chilies maybe used at bare minimum levels. in moderation.
- Omit fresh red chilies if not available. However a good substitute is Hot Chili Garlic paste or Homemade Schezwan sauce.
- Use which ever curry powder is available locally. Though Nigerian curry powder is the best for an authentic taste.
- Adjust the amount of curry powder, salt, thyme and oregano in curry as per individual requirement.