It’s been a long time since we had Indian food, so when I was reading Babe in the City’s blog, I was intrigued that she had made Chicken Varuval twice, 2nd time with a slight adaptation. Since I’ve got or can get all the ingredients, I made it for dinner yesterday.

It looks good, doesn’t it? 🙂

Here’s my recipe which is slightly adapted from Babe in the City‘s.

Ingredients: (for 4 persons)
* 1kg chicken drummets (or 5 pieces chicken thighs, separate thigh n drumstick, chopped) or 1 kg chicken fillet, cut into small chunks
* 4 tbsp ginger and garlic paste
* 3 tbsp curry powder
* 1 tsp turmeric powder
* 10-12 pcs dried chillies, cut into fine pieces
* 10 shallots, shredded
* 2 pcs cinnamon stick
* 4 pcs whole cardamom
* 2 pcs star anise
* a few stalks curry leaves, only leaves needed, stalks discarded – washed and dried
* salt
* a little black pepper
* oil

Optional:
* 150g frozen peas
* 150g sliced fresh mushrooms

Good advice from Babe:
During deep frying chicken, use a metal slotted spoon to sieve out “garlic and ginger paste marinade mix” remnants from oil. Keep doing this to clear up oil from these bits and pieces, otherwise oil will not be hot enough to fry chicken till crispy. They can be thrown away or can be added when stirfrying spices.
Cut or snipe dried chillies diagonally with scissors and soak them in hot water for a while till soft. Then shake chillies and seeds will come out with ease.

Preparation:

  1. Mix ginger-garlic paste, 2 tbsp curry powder, turmeric powder and 2 tsp salt in a large bowl. Add chicken pieces to the mix, making sure that the chicken is covered with the mix. Then cover and marinate for 30 mins, the longer the better. 🙂
  2. Fry chicken pieces in a deep pan in batches till golden brown and set aside.
  3. Heat a wok up and add a little oil. Add and sautee shallots, spices (cinnamon stick, star anise and cardamom), curry leaves, remainder of curry powder and dried chillies till onion turns translucent (light brown).
  4. Add fried chicken and stir well. If using: After 5 mins, add mushrooms and then peas, a min later. Add black pepper and salt, to taste.

It doesn’t only look good; it tastes pretty good too.. I think the fresh mushrooms and peas gave it a certain kind of sweetness to go against the spiciness of the varuval. It was served with semi-hard boiled eggs and steamed white rice. 🙂
Ohhh.. I do miss Malaysia and it’s easy access to all its local cuisines.. special de mamak stalls..



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