Methi Chicken

Storing and Planning Ahead

Keeps for 3 days in the fridge. Freeze for 3 months.

How to Make Methi Chicken

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1. Heat the oil in a wide pan and cook the onions for 10 minutes until deep golden.

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2. Add the ginger, garlic, cumin, coriander, turmeric and chilli powder and fry for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and salt and cook for 8 minutes until the oil separates.

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3. Add the chicken and 100 ml water. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

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4. Stir in the fenugreek leaves and cook for 10 minutes more until the chicken is tender and reads 74°C / 165°F.

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5. Stir in the yoghurt and garam masala and cook for 2 minutes. Serve hot.

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A Few Pointers

• Add the fenugreek late so it keeps its colour.
• Brown the onions slowly; they set the base.
• Use dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi) if fresh is not available: 2 tablespoons, crushed.

Why the Method Is What It Is

Fresh fenugreek smells like nothing else: grassy, slightly bitter and strangely sweet. A handful in a pot of chicken curry gives the whole dish a savoury depth, and it is what makes methi chicken different from the plain onion and tomato version. Smell it first.

Pick the small leaves from the stalks, wash them well and chop. The leaves carry some bitterness, so rubbing them with a little salt and rinsing them before using takes the edge off. Add the fenugreek late. It needs only ten minutes in the gravy; longer, and it turns dark and acrid.

Brown the onions slowly, since they build the base of the sauce. Add ginger, garlic and the dry spices, then tomato, and cook until the oil separates. The chicken goes in next, and simmers in the gravy until tender and the juices run clear. A little cream or yoghurt at the end softens the spice, but it is not essential. Serve with rotis or rice.

What to Put Next to It

Rotis · Basmati rice · Cucumber raita · Lime pickle

Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Chapati (Roti), Idiyappam, Kerala Appam.

Swaps and Variations

• If you only have ground ginger, a quarter-teaspoon for each tablespoon of fresh is the ratio usually given; it tastes warmer and less bright than the fresh root.
• An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.

Methi Chicken Nutrition Facts

Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: part of the energy comes from foods, or weights per item, with no recorded source. How the figures are worked out.

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