Mum in Law's Chicken Curry

My mum-in-law is a great cook and quite an enthusiastic cook too.   If I ask her a recipe for the same thing twice she would scold me " Again you are asking me how it is done!!", so now I get my sister-in-law to ask her the second time round :)     I loved this chicken curry, so I asked her for the recipe. It took me a few tries with a little bit of tweaking.
 She used chicken with bone, cut into small pieces but I used chicken boneless. The bright pink colour comes from the food colouring.  It goes well with couscous or rice and a nice simple salad.

Recipe : My mum in law's chicken curry ( slightly adapted)

2 boneless, skinless chicken breast fillets, cut into bite-size pieces ( about 285g)
( to rub on the chicken: 1/4 tsp curry powder, 1/4  tsp ground black pepper, salt and a few drops of  red or pink food colouring)
1 large onion, sliced
1 " piece ginger, grated
3 cloves garlic, grated or pounded to a paste
10 curry leaves
3" pandan leaf cut into large pieces
2-3 fresh  green  chillies slit into  two lengthways
2 tsp Maldivian roasted curry powder( or  a nice mild curry powder , not thai curry pastes )
1/4 cup tomato ketchup
1/2 cup water
handful of Indian almonds( kanamadhu) , cut into slivers  or slivered almonds
handful of raisins
a dash of light soy sauce.
salt to taste
oil for deep frying and an extra 2-3 tbsp  oil

1.   In a small bowl mix the chicken rub ingredients and rub well into the chicken pieces.

2. Heat a large saucepan with oil for deep frying, and once it is hot, ( check with a small piece of bread to see if it is hot), fry your chicken pieces till bright pink, takes less than a minute, and don't over fry as the meat will get tough. Drain on kitchen paper.

3. In a separate pan, heat a few tablespoons of oil, and fry your onions along with curry leaves and pandan leaves till the onions start to caramelize.

4. Add curry powder,  and a few tablespoons of water, garlic and ginger and stir for 1 minute till you get a nice aroma of the spices.  Stir in tomato ketchup, a dash of light soy, raisins and nuts and cook another minute. Finally add water and the fried chicken pieces, lower heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 5 minutes.

5. After 5 minutes the sauce should be thick and quite dry, if you feel it's too dry add a little bit of water ( not too much as you can see its quite a dry curry with a little sauce) taste add salt to taste.   Switch off and serve.