Coconut Chicken Curry
A decadent and spicy Kerala style chicken curry in a toasted coconut gravy. Best served with steamed rice and some poppadum.
Servings: 4
Equipment
- Pressure Cooker
- Mixer Grinde or Blender
Ingredients
- 500 grams Chicken on the bone skinless
- 1/2 cup Shallots/ small onions or ulli peeled (Optional)
For Toasting (part 1)
- 4 tsp Coriander seeds/ Sabut Dhaniya
- 1 to 2 Cinnamon Sticks/ Dalchini small
- 2 tsp Cumin seeds/Jeera
- 1 Dried Red Chilli
- 2 tsp Fennel Seeds/ Saunf
- 1/4 tsp Fenugreek Seeds/ Methre
- 2 tsp Whole Black Pepper/ Sabut Kaali Mirch
- 2 Cloves/ Laung
For Toasting (part 2)
- 2 cups Shredded Fresh Coconut/ Nariyal (You can also use frozen)
- 2 tsp Turmeric/Haldi powder
- 5 tsp Coriander/ Dhaniya Powder
- 2 tsp Kashmiri Red Chilli/ lal mirch Powder
For the Curry
- 2 Onions/ Pyaaz medium sized, sliced
- 2 to 3 Tomatoes/ Tamatar Chopped or puréed
- 2 cloves Garlic/ Lassan chopped
- 1 inch piece of Ginger/ Adrak cleaned and chopped
- 1/2 tsp Mustard/ Sarson Seeds
- 2 tbsp Sesame/Til or Coconut/Nariyal Oil
- 1 sprig Curry Leaves/Kadi Patta
- 1 tsp Chicken Masala (optional), see notes below
Instructions
- In a heavy bottom pan, kadhai or pressure cooker, dry roast the peeled shallots till they have some black spots on them. Once done, keep them aside to cool down. You can use regular onions too or skip this step altogether. The onions add volume to the curry.
- In the same vessel, add the whole spices (listed in Part 1 above) and roast them till you can smell the aroma. Take them out so that the spices cool down. Coming to Part 2 of the roasting, add the shredded coconut and cook till the coconut turns light golden. To this add red chilli powder, coriander powder and turmeric. Roast for another 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let the mix cool down.
- While the spices and coconut cool down, wash and pat dry the chicken with paper towels. If using chicken breast, cut into cubes. Keep aside.
- Transfer the shallots and the roasted coconut spice mix to a mixer-grinder or blender. Add a bit of warm water and process till it becomes a thick paste. You’ll have to adjust the quantity of water while grinding to make a smooth yet thick paste*.
- Heat oil in a pressure cooker. Add mustard seeds and wait for them to crackle. Next add curry leaves, onions and chopped garlic. Fry till the onions are golden, around 10-12 minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes, green chilli and ginger to this. Add salt, coriander powder, chilli powder and cook till the oil separates, another 7-10 minutes. Next add the chicken pieces and cook for 10 minutes on medium high heat.
- Next, add the coconut spice paste and some water* to adjust the thickness of the gravy, but the thicker it is the better. Pressure cook for 1 whistle and its done.
- Once the pressure releases, open the pressure cooker and garnish with fresh coriander.Serve this Coconut Chicken Curry hot with steamed rice.
Notes
- I usually roast the spices and and the coconut separately because I process the whole spices first and then add the coconut to it to get a finer paste. You can add the spices and coconut together if your mixie/ processor can grind the paste well.
- In a recent version, I added a heaped teaspoon of Chicken Masala (By Eastern) and that lent a more well rounded flavour to the Chicken Curry. So that’s highly recommended!
- *This curry is better when it is thicker. So be careful to not add too much water while grinding or when you finally add the coconut paste to the final curry. I usually give it one whistle in the pressure cooker and the curry remains almost as thick (or runny) as it was before it was cooked under pressure.
- Not skimping on the amount of tomatoes, coriander powder and coconut results in a far superior curry each time!
- This recipe can also be adapted to the InstantPot. Incase you do try it on the InstantPot, please do share the results/experiences.
- The amount of chilli powder in most of our recipes on the blog yields a spicy dish because well, that’s how most Indian dishes are. Please adjust the amount of chilli powder you use according to your tolerance to spices. If you feel that using less chilli doesn’t result in the curry to be the same colour, switch to using Kashmiri Red Chilli Powder which is less hot and has a brilliant red colour. Your nearby Indian Grocery store should stock Kashmiri Red Chilli Powder in all likelihood.