punjabi chicken curry gravy recipe

Punjabi chicken, a delicious chicken curry which is a gravy kind of a recipe made using onions and tomatoes along with some yoghurt. This chicken curry tastes amazing as it has many whole spices that go into it and the base of the gravy along with the spices just tastes good with either roti or paratha.

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• About the recipe
• Step by step procedure
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About the recipe

It is so called because in punjab chicken is made with gravy often called as "tari wala chicken" and the meaning of 'tari' is gravy that is gravy wala chicken curry.

The gravy is usually made by combining onions, tomatoes, curd which forms a good gravy to the chicken that goes best with many rice recipes such as bagara rice , paneer pulao or veg pulao or any special rice recipe.

Making of this tari wala chicken curry briefly?

The procedure to make it is like any other normal curry of non veg where the base is mainly made using tomatoes and onions .

The difference to Punjabi or dhaba style of cooking the curry is the curry's first stage is to give it an aromatic flavor of bay leaf, dried red chilies and whole spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and some do add cumin seeds to the tempering to give a flavorful effect.

The curry is then cooked by roasting onions and chicken and then cooking the curry by adding chopped tomatoes and yogurt.

Ingredients

Oil : Oil is always add to the base but punjabi style cooking usually uses butter.

Adding oil too gives a delicious taste and adding butter and malai in the end picks up all the flavors.

Whole spices : Adding whole spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, dried red chilies, bay leaf is essential part of making dhaba style chicken curries.

Dry spices: These are an essential part of every Indian curry and ginger garlic paste is the essence of every flavorful base.

Onions and tomatoes: This curry has a wonderful gravy which makes it a good dish to be served with rice, roti or paratha.

It can be served with many pulao or biryani recipes too. The base that is created is mainly by using onion tomato gravy which gives a rich gravy masala to the curry.

Yogurt : Along with onion tomato base, adding yogurt lifts up the flavors of the dhaba style chicken and gives more gravy to it as well as pleasant aroma of the curd added.

Malai, butter and kasoori methi: These three are the essential part of punjabi cooking and these three ingredients go together and give a rich, creamy and aromatic flavors to any gravy where diary products such as milk, yogurt or cashewnut gravy is used...

Herbs: I usually prefer add green chilies, cilantro leaves to every gravy and mainly the hara dhaniya leaves which are highly needed in non veg gravies to have pleasing smell and do not give out a boiled smell of non veg used.

Other regional chicken recipes to be tried are chettinad chicken, pakistani biryani

How long it takes to cook the gravy?

It actually takes about 40 minutes for the chicken to get to its good consistency of the base which roughly takes about 40 minutes to 45 minutes and then the chicken in the end is given some final touches by adding kasoori methi and malai which is the main secret to get the delicious flavor to the curry.

Dried kasoori methi is easily available in markets or the fresh fenugreek at home can be dried and stored in containers to use it anytime.

The kasoori methi goes well with many recipes mainly in north indian veg and non veg curries such as masala chicken , murgh makhani, paneer butter masala etc...

Malai is often used in many northern indian curry recipes to give a creamy texture and flavor to the curries.

The combination of malai and kasuri methi lifts up the flavors of these gravies which give a creamy flavor to the curry which goes well with any kind of naan as well as rice recipes or even plain white rice.

Cleaning of the chicken

The chicken before using has to be cleaned well by removing any skin fat present all over the chicken as well as washing it well using lemon and turmeric so that the chicken can get rid of any smell it has.

Always make sure to buy fresh chicken from the seller or from the store and do make sure to clean and wash well before use.

I have updated with a recipe of this Punjabi style chicken curry and also along with step by step pics or procedure as I continue posting and below in the recipe card I have shared detailed description on how to make the tari wala curry.

Check out the step by step procedure for the delicious dhaba style of making the chicken Punjabi curry with chicken and yogurt masala.

Step by step procedure

• Take a cooking pot, add oil and heat it.

• Add whole spices such as cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, dried red chillies, bay leaf and saute few seconds.

• Add the very finely chopped onions.

• saute until it gets soft and slight pinkish in color.

• Add the ginger garlic paste and saute for a minute to get rid of the raw smell.

• Add the chicken pieces which are cleaned and washed well.

• roast until the color of chicken changes.

• Add the chopped tomato, a teaspoon of red chili powder and mix well.

• Mix and cook the tomatoes until they turn soft and mushy.

• Take a small bowl, into it add yogurt or thick yogurt.

• add salt to taste, red chili powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder, cumin powder and give a mix.

• Add this yogurt mix into the curry.

• mix everything well.

• Cook the chicken curry for few minutes until oil starts releasing from the sides.

• In between the cooking process, add water and give a mix.

• Check for salt and add garam masala powder.

• Mix well and cook until the chicken is almost done.

• Add slit green chilies, chopped coriander leaves, kasoori methi and cook for 5 minutes.

• Lastly add butter and malai to the chicken curry and cook for 2-3 minutes.

• cook for few more minutes if a thick gravy is preferred and its done...

• Switch off the flame and serve punjabi chicken hot.
• Check out the video below...

Video

Recipe