Recipe for homemade chicken curry
Chicken is always a safe choice. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t like chicken! Whether it’s grilled or oven-roasted or added to tarts, meatballs, or chicken salad, chicken is just something that always works.
We Danes usually have 10 – 20 staple dishes that we rotate between, and chicken curry (along with meatballs in curry) is typically one of these.
It’s quick and easy to make, you don’t have to shape meatballs, and the dish isn’t too heavy or greasy.
Chicken curry is probably mostly a Danish invention, although when it was invented, it was undoubtedly an exotic alternative to classic grandmother dishes like meatballs with brown sauce.
Curry is exotic in its own way due to all the Indian spices it’s blended from, but in fact, yellow curry is an English invention, and these spice blends were originally used mainly to mask the taste of spoiled ingredients. Today, it’s used in a plethora of dishes worldwide.
Here, I’ve made chicken curry with chicken breast. It’s a super easy and delicious recipe that can be made in 30 minutes. The dish can be varied in several different ways – see the notes below for inspiration.
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Chicken Curry
Equipment
- Pot
- Sauté Pan
Ingredients
Rice
- 2 mug Rice about 2.5 dl
- 4 mug Water
- 3 gram Salt
Chicken curry
- Oil neutral, for frying
- 500 gram Chicken Breast can be replaced with tenderloins
- Salt and Pepper salt and pepper
Curry Sauce
- 10 gram Butter
- 1 pcs. Onion
- 1 clove Garlic
- 40 gram Butter
- 6 gram Curry depending on how strong you want the sauce. Feel free to use Mumbai curry
- 50 gram Wheat Flour
- 500 gram Chicken Stock I used a Fond du Chef chicken stock with boiled water
- 300 gram Whole Milk
- 200 gram Cream
- 6 gram Mango Chutney
Topping
- Mango Chutney
- Cashews
- Herbs e.g., mint, sweet basil, or pea shoots
Instructions
Rice
- Put rice, water, and salt in a pot.
- Bring the water to a boil and let it simmer on low heat for 12 minutes.
- Remove the rice from heat and cover with a dish towel (and optionally the lid) and let it rest for 12 minutes.
- The rice is now ready to serve.
Chicken Curry
- Start by heating a thick-bottomed pot or sauté pan over high heat.
- Season the chicken with salt and pepper.
- Add oil to the pan when it’s hot.
- Fry the chicken breast fillets for about 1 minute on each side. They shouldn’t be fully cooked, just get a sear. Instead of frying the breasts whole, you can cut them into smaller pieces if you want more sear on them. If you don’t have time to fry them beforehand, that’s fine too; the chicken can cook in the sauce without being seared first.
- Remove the chicken from the pan/pot and place it on a plate until needed. Turn the heat to medium and add about 10 grams of butter. Finely chop the onions and garlic and add them to the pan.
- Let it sauté (become translucent and soft without coloring) for a couple of minutes. Remove from the pot and set aside for later.
- Turn up the heat and add 40 grams of butter to the pot along with the curry. Let the curry “burn off” for about a minute. This enhances the flavor of the curry. Then reduce the heat to medium-high.
- Add the flour and whisk it into the butter to form a roux.
- Let it “bake” for 2-3 minutes to eliminate the raw flour taste.
- Gradually add the chicken stock while whisking vigorously to avoid lumps. Using warm stock helps bind the sauce and prevents clumping.
- Continue until all the stock is used. Then add the whole milk and season with salt and pepper.
- Add the cream and let it simmer for a few minutes.
- Cut the chicken into smaller cubes and add them to the sauce along with the sautéed onions and garlic.
- Reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for 5-7 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken pieces.
- Season to taste with salt, pepper, and possibly more mango chutney. If you don’t have mango chutney, you can use vinegar and sugar instead.
Presentation
- Serve the dish in a deep plate with rice, curry sauce with chicken, a large spoonful of mango chutney, herbs, and cashew nuts on top.
Notes
- You can easily use leftover chicken for this dish.
- Optionally, add a finely chopped onion and a diced apple to the curry sauce.
- Replace milk/cream with coconut milk. It gives a slightly different and a bit more exotic taste to the dish.