RM2- Day 3-Kadai Chilli Chicken with deglazed gravy

You must have guessed by now that Chilli chicken is my favourite among chicken dishes. Yes I admit it:) this is the third time I am posting about it:) ...But this time I am using some different spices and adding a different method of cooking towards the end. This is my third dish for RM 2

We had purchased a Calphalon Infused Anodised skillet and its become one of my favourite kitchen utensils. initially I was not aware how to use it the proper way. I was so fed up with food sticking to the skillet and potatoes not getting cooked in dry curries and stuff. To add to it, we could not even return it back to the Calphalon store from where we purchased. That irked me and V so much that we promised we would never buy from the factory outlet store of Calphalon. To conclude, we spend a fortune and were stuck with it. What really surprised us was there was not even one bad review about this product anywhere on Internet. It was considered a premium brand. So that got us thinking and I started experimenting cooking in the skillet. Slowly I learned the way to get food cooked in the skillet. I have to say I learned the hard way as I was not familiar with the term deglazing until I started cooking with this skillet. In few words, Deglazing according to Wikipedia, allows the cook to scrape the dark spots from the bottom of the pan, and dissolve them creating a rich sauce.


Kadai Chilli Chicken is something that came out very tasty when cooked in this skillet. In fact I did a bit of deglazing towards the end to avoid wastage of spicy and tasty gravy :) Here is how I made it:

Ingredients

Chicken (I used thigh pieces) - 3 chicken thighs cut in bite size cubes
Onion - 1 onion cut in small cubes
Whole peeled tomatoes - 1
Garlic cloves - 3 big cloves cut in thin slices
Green chilli - 3 to 4 slit in the middle
Asafoetida- a pinch
Oil - 4 tablespoons for sauteing

Marinade:

1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons Tandoori masala (I used the paste)
1 tablespoon freshly ground pepper
Garlic powder- 1 teaspoon
Onion powder - 1 tablespoon
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
Salt
Oil- 2 tablespoons

Garnish:
Few coriander leaves
Few pudina leaves chopped finely
1 teaspoon fennel powder
1/2 teaspoon Garam masala powder

Method:

Wash and prepare the chicken thighs using the marinade ingredients. Marinate the chicken for at least an hour in refrigerator.

In a preheated skillet, on medium flame, add oil. Once the oil is preheated, add asafoetida and immediately add the green chillies and garlic. Saute for 5 seconds and add the chicken pieces and onion.

Saute for 10 seconds to mix everything. Then cover the skillet and let it cook at medium heat for 2 minutes. Reduce the fire to medium-low, stir well. Increase flame to medium and cover again and let it cook for 2-3 minutes until the water content in the skillet reduces allowing the chicken to turn brown. The chicken would have started to turn brown now. The onions we added initially along with the chicken would have cooked well and that's how I make it with chilli chicken. Add the tomatoes now, Mix well, reduce flame to medium-low. Cover and let it cook for another 2 minutes. Uncover, add the chopped coriander, pudina leaves. Stir lightly. Then sprinkle and fennel powder and garam masala powder. Cover the skillet and turn heat to low. Allow the flavor of the garnish to spread inside the dish and then turn off the flame and keep it covered for 2 minutes.

How I deglazed the chilli chicken:

After I transferred the chicken to a serving plate, I switched on the flame under the skillet at medium-low and added less than 1/4 cup of water and increased flame to high and when the water started boiling, I started scraping the remains of the chilli chicken from the bottom and sides of the skillet, after I scraped it clean, I added a a pinch of cornstarch and a pinch of salt and switched off the flame and allowed the deglazed gravy to thicken. Then I added it to the chicken on the serving plate.


I had this with Kanji and pickle. I loved every bit of it, so did V who took it for lunch that day. I hope you too would like it.

Day 3 Recipe Marathon dishes of my buddies:

1) DK

2) Siri

3) Srivalli

5)PJ

6)Curry Leaf

7)Medha

8)Priya

9)Bhawna

10)Raaji

11)Ruchii

12)Anu

13)Kamala

14)Ranji

15)Divya Kudua

16)Rekha

17)Divya M

18)Lakshmi

19)Raaga

20)Lakshmi Venkatesh