METHI CHICKEN
Serves: 6 a part of an Indian meal or 4 served as a main course.
Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cooking Time: 2 hours
Dietary Style: GF.
DF Sub: coconut oil.
Methi chicken is a classic Kashmiri combination of spice and produce with flavour that is soft, strong and striking - another regional culinary characteristic. If you can get fresh fenugreek leaf then use that instead of frozen. Fenugreek fresh has a quality similar to spinach, though with a little more bitterness and flavour intensity. The YouTube video recipe will also connect you through to information on mustard oil, uses of fenugreek and the browning process of meat: videos that are also available in the Kitchen Hacks and Spice for Health sections of this website.
INGREDIENTS
To brown the chicken
- 3 chicken Marylands
- 1/3 cup mustard oil
To spice the chicken
- 1 tsp fine pink salt
- 1/2 tsp fenugreek poweder
- 3 dried bay leaf
- 2 tbsp kasoori methi / dried fenugreek leaf
- 8 clove buds
- 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
- 1/3 tsp fine white pepper
- 1 tsp fennel seed
- 1 cassia stick
- 2 tbsp ghee
- 4 tbsp yoghurt
- 3oo gm frozen fenugreek leaf
- 1 cup water
Cut the chicken Maryland into two pars - thigh and drumstick.
Heat the mustard oil in a heavy bottomed pot on a medium-high heat. When hot and sizzling, brown the chicken skin down to start in the oil. Leave it to brown on one side before turning to the next. Continue turning the chicken and scraping the browned pieces of fat and skin from the pan bottom to coat the chicken, and prevent these valuable tasty bits from burning. The chicken will be lightly browned after about 15 minutes.
Remove the pot from the stovetop once browned. Remove the chicken pieces from the pot and reserve the chicken, along with the juices and fats, in a separate bowl.
Use the pot the chicken was browned in to prepare the masala base - the spice. Add all of the spice, plus the ghee and the yoghurt to the pan and heat on a medium heat until the spice and fat combination is rich and fragrant. It should already taste delicious when tried at this point.
Place the browned chicken pieces with the fats and juices back into the pot of spice. Add 1 cup of water and the frozen fenugreek leaf and cook with a lid on for between 40 minutes (in a pressure cooker) and 90 minutes (in the crockpot), until tender and richly fragrant.
Serve.