Fiery Hot Chicken Curry

No Eid lunch is complete without a chicken dish. This is a recipe I learnt from one of my paternal Aunts, who also taught me another delicious chicken curry.  She is a great cook and one with a sweet motherly personality.   It is a  pretty hot and spicy curry, I toned it down with a bit more tomato paste. How much you add to the chilli paste is up to you.  Here in Maldives, most people use frozen chicken, something which I learnt tastes  a lot different from the fresh one,

I remember as a child we used to get chickens in the house days before Eid, then on Eid day after Eid Prayers my grandfather would slaughter it, pluck the feathers and chop it up for mum to cook. It was fun, watching them pluck the feathers and then chop it up. Sadly it is now the frozen chicken to most families, my kids look at live chickens as if its an animal from the zoo.  Hopefully raising fresh chickens or even a chicken farm should come to someone's mind someday soon. I am not saying live hens and roosters are not found, they are still raised in the islands but.....

Recipe : Fiery Hot Chicken Curry

 1 (1300g - 1400g) chicken, skinned and cut into large portions
2 large onions
3 -4 tbsp Lonumirus (Maldivian Chilli Paste)
1 (70g) can of tomato paste ( that's about 2 tbsp)
2 tsp  ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground pepper
2 sprigs of curry leaves ( about 18 leaves)
1 pandan leaf, cut into large chunky pieces
4 -6 cloves garlic, grated
1 heaped tsp ginger paste
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/3 cup water
salt
oil

Prick your chicken with a fork, Season with a little salt, and then rub the garlic ginger and lime juice. Set aside.

Heat oil,  in a large pot or casserole, you will need about 3 tbsp.  Add the onions, curry leaves and pandan leaf and stir fry till the onions go really soft and start to go golden.

Add lonumirus, cumin powder,  ground pepper and tomato paste, 1/2 tsp salt. Stir fry till the mixture is quite well done.  Remove this mixture to a bowl and set aside.

Add an extra tablespoon of oil and then add the chicken. Fry for a minute, stirring. Then cover and cook over a medium heat. Because we are cooking with the frozen kind a lot of water comes out from the chicken so you might not even need the water I mentioned above. But if you are using fresh or organic ones then add a little when covering the pot to cook the chicken.

Once the chicken is cooked through,  and the water almost evaporates add the onion spice mix you prepared earlier and mix well. Taste the sauce and the chicken together, add salt as needed.

Cook for 5 -10 minutes, adding just a little bit of water so the spices don't burn, stirring to mix well. Its quite a dry curry.

Enjoy with rice and a vegetarian curry or salad.

Linking this over to the Eid Party celebrations at  Flour& Spice who along with the ladies from the blog My Ninja Nan and Chili and Chocolate are hosting a Eid Eats event.  Be sure to visit one of them to check the delicious recipes from all over the globe.