Chicken 101 Indian Cuisine

Chicken originated in India and can be traced back to the 'Red Jungle Fowl' as the single ancestor.

Cooking Basics

Basic Chicken dishes in Indian cuisine are: Chicken curry, and Tandoori Chicken.

In the olden day, non-vegetarians kept chicken coupe in the backyard. The restaurants were sold live chicken. Therefore traditional recipes use whole chicken. In United States, a whole 'broiler' is a good choice. The basic steps to make curry are as follows.

1. The chicken chicken is cleaned and skin discarded.

2. Chicken is marinated in a mixture of yogurt, salt, lime juice, pepper and ginger. Other ingredients may be added. In the olden days chicken was marinated for 2 to 4 hours at room temperature. Nowadays, you should marinate in refrigerator to control bacteria growth.

In the olden days, marinate was reused to make sauce, baste or marinate another batch. Nowadays, the marinate is discarded for food safety..

3. Heat ghee in a pot. Fry the marinated chicken till it starts to turn brown. Take out chicken set it aside

4. Now add chopped onions and fry in the same oil and pot where chicken was browned. Add ginger garlic fresh peppers, and Curry spices of choice. Fry this as a Masala. Add tomatoes or water. Now, add the fried chicken. Bring it to a boil. Cover and cook till chicken is ready. Add yogurt butter cream etc depending on the recipe.