Double Chili Chicken Pictorial

[Luke]

Every now and again I come across a recipe that is awesome.

 

It started with a discovery in my local South Indian take away near work. This is a true South Indian place, not your usual run of the mill Indian restaurant which we get around here.

 

In the bain marie was a red, slightly oily, dry spiced chicken dish scattered with onions and green coriander. A dish with no name. I asked what it was, and they replied it was "spicy chicken". I bought some and I was hooked.

It was obviously a favorite of patrons as there was never a day when this dish was not in the bain marie and it sold out quickly.

 

Here is my take on that recipe, which I believe is called Double Chilli Chicken. 

 

Apologies in advance, but I dont work to quantities when cooking. Hopefully you can make your own judgement but just ask if you want more clarification. 

 

The ingredients you will need are:

- oil or ghee (mustard oil if my wife is giving me grief over health, ghee for best flavor)

- Chicken mini drumsticks (about 1kg) 

- About 3 brown onions, cut in half and then sliced (red onions would be better, but I only had one for garnish)

- Salt

- About 20 curry leaves

- Sliced ginger

- Sliced garlic

- 10 to 15 whole dried chillies (I remove most of the seeds)

- Ground dried chilli powder (medium hot)

- Ground coriander

- Ground black pepper

- Jaggery or Palm Sugar

- Lime juice

- Chopped fresh coriander for garnish

- Chopped red onion for garnish

 

I start with a heavy base fry-pan that has a fitted lid and add the ghee.

 

 

Choose a dried whole chilli of your liking and remove most of the seeds, as they can burn and become bitter. 

 

Saute your dried chillies in the ghee for a few minutes

 

You will notice they start to darken quickly

 

Don't let them burn, but take them a bit darker than shown in the photo above and then remove into a spare bowl to cool with a slotted spoon. You can leave the ghee and seeds. Quickly add the onions to stop the remaining seeds from burning. Add salt to help the onions cook.

I should have also added the curry leaves to the oil first, but I forgot so I added them later.

 

As the onions soften on the heat, finely julienne some fresh ginger and slice some garlic. Exact quantities dont matter so adjust to your preference. 

 

Add the garlic, ginger and chillies to the pan once the onions soften and take on some colour

 

After a few minutes of cooking out the garlic and ginger, add the ground coriander and chilli powder. Again, exact quantities don't really matter but I used about 1 Tablespoon of each. What matters more is the quality of the ground powders. The coriander is ground in my coffee grinder just before use, and I make my own chilli powder from dried Spanish Padron chillies I grow each summer. If you can, always make your own ground spices. For the ground chilli powder, remove the seeds before grinding as you will get a redder product.

A quick word on chillies : There are hundreds of varieties, but I choose the Spanish Padron due to the balance between heat and flavour. I want an intense chilli flavour without searing blow your head off heat, and this chilli has that right balance. 

 

Stir the powders into the onions and cook for a few minutes.

 

Add the chicken and arrange such that the chicken has good contact with the bottom of the pan. We need this to get the meat to release its own moisture, which is what makes the sauce and prevent the dish from burning

 

Cover with a lid and lower the heat. After 5 minutes you should notice some liquid from the chicken. This increases to a maximum around 15 minutes. Stir every 5 minutes but don't remove the lid until 15 minutes have elapsed.

 

While the chicken is cooking, prepare some jaggery or palm sugar and squeeze the juice out of one lime.

 

After 15 minutes of cooking with the lid on, remove the lid, add the jaggery and lime juice, and now increase the heat. What we are going to do is evaporate the remaining liquid and turn it into an awesome sauce that sticks to the chicken.

For another 10 minutes, you will need to pay careful attention to ensure the dish does not stick and burn. You need high heat to help caramelize the sauce and constant movement. Taste for seasoning. Add extra salt, lime juice and heaps of black pepper.

 

Prepare some slived red onions for garnish.

 

 

And some roughly chopped green coriander. This stuff grows like a weed in my garden as I let the kids loose with the seeds and they scatter them far and wide!

 

Serve the chicken on a bed of steamed basmati rice

 

And garnish with onion and coriander. Serve and enjoy with a glass of cold beer. Awesome stuff!

 

Cheers

Luke

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Smithy]

That looks and sounds like an excellent dish.  Thank you for the tutorial!

[sartoric]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

Every now and again I come across a recipe that is awesome.

 

It started with a discovery in my local South Indian take away near work. This is a true South Indian place, not your usual run of the mill Indian restaurant which we get around here.

 

In the bain marie was a red, slightly oily, dry spiced chicken dish scattered with onions and green coriander. A dish with no name. I asked what it was, and they replied it was "spicy chicken". I bought some and I was hooked.

It was obviously a favorite of patrons as there was never a day when this dish was not in the bain marie and it sold out quickly.

 

Here is my take on that recipe, which I believe is called Double Chilli Chicken. 

 

Apologies in advance, but I dont work to quantities when cooking. Hopefully you can make your own judgement but just ask if you want more clarification. 

 

The ingredients you will need are:

- oil or ghee (mustard oil if my wife is giving me grief over health, ghee for best flavor)

- Chicken mini drumsticks (about 1kg) 

- About 3 brown onions, cut in half and then sliced (red onions would be better, but I only had one for garnish)

- Salt

- About 20 curry leaves

- Sliced ginger

- Sliced garlic

- 10 to 15 whole dried chillies (I remove most of the seeds)

- Ground dried chilli powder (medium hot)

- Ground coriander

- Ground black pepper

- Jaggery or Palm Sugar

- Lime juice

- Chopped fresh coriander for garnish

- Chopped red onion for garnish

 

I start with a heavy base fry-pan that has a fitted lid and add the ghee.

 

 

Choose a dried whole chilli of your liking and remove most of the seeds, as they can burn and become bitter. 

 

Saute your dried chillies in the ghee for a few minutes

 

You will notice they start to darken quickly

 

Don't let them burn, but take them a bit darker than shown in the photo above and then remove into a spare bowl to cool with a slotted spoon. You can leave the ghee and seeds. Quickly add the onions to stop the remaining seeds from burning. Add salt to help the onions cook.

I should have also added the curry leaves to the oil first, but I forgot so I added them later.

 

As the onions soften on the heat, finely julienne some fresh ginger and slice some garlic. Exact quantities dont matter so adjust to your preference. 

 

Add the garlic, ginger and chillies to the pan once the onions soften and take on some colour

 

After a few minutes of cooking out the garlic and ginger, add the ground coriander and chilli powder. Again, exact quantities don't really matter but I used about 1 Tablespoon of each. What matters more is the quality of the ground powders. The coriander is ground in my coffee grinder just before use, and I make my own chilli powder from dried Spanish Padron chillies I grow each summer. If you can, always make your own ground spices. For the ground chilli powder, remove the seeds before grinding as you will get a redder product.

A quick word on chillies : There are hundreds of varieties, but I choose the Spanish Padron due to the balance between heat and flavour. I want an intense chilli flavour without searing blow your head off heat, and this chilli has that right balance. 

 

Stir the powders into the onions and cook for a few minutes.

 

Add the chicken and arrange such that the chicken has good contact with the bottom of the pan. We need this to get the meat to release its own moisture, which is what makes the sauce and prevent the dish from burning

 

Cover with a lid and lower the heat. After 5 minutes you should notice some liquid from the chicken. This increases to a maximum around 15 minutes. Stir every 5 minutes but don't remove the lid until 15 minutes have elapsed.

 

While the chicken is cooking, prepare some jaggery or palm sugar and squeeze the juice out of one lime.

 

After 15 minutes of cooking with the lid on, remove the lid, add the jaggery and lime juice, and now increase the heat. What we are going to do is evaporate the remaining liquid and turn it into an awesome sauce that sticks to the chicken.

For another 10 minutes, you will need to pay careful attention to ensure the dish does not stick and burn. You need high heat to help caramelize the sauce and constant movement. Taste for seasoning. Add extra salt, lime juice and heaps of black pepper.

 

Prepare some slived red onions for garnish.

 

 

And some roughly chopped green coriander. This stuff grows like a weed in my garden as I let the kids loose with the seeds and they scatter them far and wide!

 

Serve the chicken on a bed of steamed basmati rice

 

And garnish with onion and coriander. Serve and enjoy with a glass of cold beer. Awesome stuff!

 

Cheers

Luke

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks fantastic ! 

Ill be in Melbourne next week, can you tell me the name of the Indian restaurant please ?

[Luke]

Vel Spices in Carrum Downs

http://www.velspices.com.au/

 

The last time I was at the shop, there were two closely located venues. An Indian grocery shop with a small take away section, and about 50 meters further down the road, a sit down restaurant, all owned and run by the same people.

 

I heard they have changed things around and the shop is now next to the restaurant. Sadly, the business I work for moved and we are no where near it anymore....

 

Luke

 

 

[liuzhou]

Sounds great. I just took delivery of a batch of curry leaves, so this may be up my street. I do have a couple of questions, though.

 

 

9 hours ago, Luke said:

Add salt to help the onions cook.

 

How does salt help the onions to cook?

 

9 hours ago, Luke said:

Stir every 5 minutes but don't remove the lid

 

How do I stir wihout removing the lid? Not sure what you mean here.

[Luke]

HelloLiuzhou,

 

Adding a small pinch of salt to frying onions helps draw water out of the onion, which assists with the frying process (speeds it up). I'm not an expert, but google has plenty of references to this.

 

Regarding the lid, what I mean is, every so often, remove the lid, stir and replace the lid. In the first phase of cooking the chicken. Hope that makes sense.

 

Cheers

Luke

 

[rotuts]

thank you

 

wonderful presentation

 

like your knife

 

have one myself.

 

hope you have a system to get it razor sharp

 

its not that easy w globals.

[Luke]

Hi Rotuts,

 

Yes, I do love a sharp knife. Its another passion of mine.

 

I've tried a variety of sharpening methods, but for time vs cost, I settled on a 1" and 30" belt sander and a selection of different grit belts (from Tru-Grit https://trugrit.com/ ) + a leather belt for finishing. I don't have any trouble sharpening the Globals and yes that Cromva steel is not easy.

 

I'm not in the US but you are, so you should have access to that HB brand at the homeless despot shop. 

 

You can also search for "harbor freight 1 x 30 knife sharpening" on youtube to get an idea.

 

Cheers

Luke

 

 

[liuzhou]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

HelloLiuzhou,

 

Adding a small pinch of salt to frying onions helps draw water out of the onion, which assists with the frying process (speeds it up). I'm not an expert, but google has plenty of references to this.

 

Regarding the lid, what I mean is, every so often, remove the lid, stir and replace the lid. In the first phase of cooking the chicken. Hope that makes sense.

 

Cheers

Luke

 

Thank you. I suspected that was what you meant, but wanted to be sure. I have to import curry leaves at some expense and don't want to waste them.