Every household in India makes their own version of curry
and they put their own touch on it. Curry
varies from region to religion and what it's made from
and how it's eaten. My name is Akha Bwa
, I'm the executive chef of Junoon restaurant and this
is how my family makes new deli chicken curry.
So what makes a new deli chicken curry is the
use of its mustard oil as well as the incorporation
of yogurt that differs from the southern region of India
where you'll see curries made more with coconut milk,
mustard seed curry leaves as well as tamarind. So
we're gonna start with red onions here. You don't
have to be fancy with the cutting. It's all
gonna go in the pot and it's gonna cook down
, chopping the tomatoes as well. Gives more body
to the curry itself. The spices and the use
of onions and tomatoes and ginger garlic are the main
factor of what it makes at North Indian. We're
using bone in chicken thighs. The bone has bone
marrow in it. So it provides a more intense
chicken flavor because New Delhi is landlocked. We tend
to have more meats like chicken lamb and goat.
Over here we have our masala daba. This is
a staple in every Indian household. This Masala Duba
in specific is my mom's. So we'll be adding
turmeric into the chicken to marinade. It'll give us
a nice color to the chicken. Turmeric is grown
all across the country and you'll find it pretty much
everywhere. Every household, every spice market will have
it. The chicken is coated. We're going to
set it aside now and get ready to start cooking
the curry. We're gonna start by searing off the
chicken in mustard oil. So mustard oil is extracted
from black mustard seeds. It's definitely got a very
pungent aroma. It's also got a higher smoke point
than even neutral oils like canola oil. So you
can kind of start to see smoke. So I
do believe that this is hot. Yep. We
hear it. So we're gonna get one side seared
, flip it over and then remove it and then
in that same oil we're gonna add in our whole
spices to start building those layers of flavor. And
here you can see the pieces with the bones on
it. They've gotten a little bit of color on
it. We just want to see that the chickens
have cooked a little bit and it's spent some time
to infuse some of that flavor of turmeric and the
chicken into the mustard oil before you move on.
You just want to make sure that there's no pieces
of chicken left over in the pot. Otherwise the
pieces will burn as you continue to cook it.
It's on to putting in our whole spices in the
pot. Cinnamon sticks, whole bay leaf, black
cardamom, green cardamom, black pepper corns. And
last I'm adding in some cloves. You're talking about
aroma and you're talking about flavor. That's being imparted
into this oil. We are gonna add our red
onions. Now, pinch of salt, it will
take some water out of the onions. I want
to add in the ginger garlic paste. As I
see the onions have gotten translucent. The ginger garlic
paste is a staple in our cuisine as well.
The use of ginger and garlic, whether it's minced
or it's in paste form goes in curries as well
as marination for kebabs. We are looking for some
of the oil to start leaving the onions. We're
ready to add our ground spices in curry powder.
Chili powder is really at your discretion in terms of
how spicy you want it. The Kashmiri chili powder
is milder in flavor but it's brighter in color.
So it's going to give a very nice, vibrant
red color. They're just getting saut ed for a
couple of minutes. I'm gonna be adding my tomato
paste and tomatoes. Now I'm just going to put
a touch of water in here to just act as
a de glazer. If your pan is very hot
water will eventually evaporate, I just wanna make sure
that the pot is not too hot so that the
yogurt won't break. We're using day yogurt. And
what the yogurt does for the dish is that it
kind of gives it a more silky smooth finish as
well as adding that nice tart citric flavor. A
lot of North Indian cuisine utilizes yogurt in the curries
. Add the chicken in. Now we're adding some
water to this, put the lid on and let
the chicken simmer. So after letting this simmer for
a couple of minutes, I'm gonna open it up
and check on it and it looks great. Now
, finish with my last few aromatics. So we're
gonna add in our Kuti meti, which is dried
fere leaves. It does add a little of a
citrus notes to it. Our Gura masala spice blend
has about 10 different spices in it and they're all
roasted spices. It's going to be at its freshest
by adding it at the end. The two main
spices that are used in a masala in New Delhi
is cumin seeds and coriander seeds. You'll have other
spices like cinnamon, bay leaf nutmeg, cloves,
Starnes, green cardamom, black cardamom, all those
spices are within the masala spice blend and they differ
from house to house finish with our fresh cilantro.
Our chicken curry is done and now it's time to
play. So our chicken is finished and looks great
. I will be adding the chicken curry into the
bowl, get our warm roti if you want to
see how roti is made, you can also check
out our tali episode for a crunch factor as well
as a little bit of a different flavor. We'll
put in some raw red onions. We have green
chilies to go along with the and this is my
family's new deli chicken curry. When it comes to
chicken curry, we do not use utensils, we
use our hands and that's how I ate it growing
up. So I'm gonna start by ripping a piece
of the roti, just rip a piece of chicken
off. Make sure I get a nice big handful
of gravy. Now I'm just gonna go ahead and
enjoy myself the flavor I find to be perfect because
there's such a great balance of spice. There's a
little bit of acidity and tartness from the tomatoes as
well as the yogurt and then those onions and ginger
and those whole spices that we put at the beginning
give just a nice aroma and I just, you
know, look forward to taking the next bite.
What can I say? This recipe was passed on
from generation to generation. It was something that my
father learned from his parents and then passed down.
I certainly hope one day to pass this recipe down
. Each person has their own variation and slight twist
to it. That's the beauty of cooking is that
it comes from the heart