Chicken Passanda

This is a curry I first cooked a while ago. I don't cook it that often but every now and again I whip this up. I personally prefer lamb in a passanda and also this doesn't really taste what I think a proper passanda tastes like but even so, it's a nice dish in it's own right!  I'm not entirely sure where I got this recipe from originally as I have it on a print off so I'm very sorry if this was yours!

The recipe serves two with rice.

Chicken Passanda

Ingredients

1 large knob of butter

1 medium onion, finely sliced

2 tsp ground cinnamon

3 cardamom pods

1 inch piece of ginger, finely grated

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp tomato puree

100ml natural yoghurt

2 tbsp ground almonds

2 chicken breasts, diced

2 tbsp raisins

1 tbsp desiccated coconut

Method

Melt the butter in a large wok or casserole dish. Add the sliced onion and fry until golden, before adding the ground cinnamon and cardamom pods.  Fry for a further 2-3 minutes.

Add the ginger, garlic, chilli, turmeric and coriander to the pan and fry for around 3 minutes and then add in the tomato puree.

Add a third of the natural yoghurt, stir and allow to reduce for a minute or two. Repeat with the next two thirds. Pour in enough boiling water to cover all the sauce and stir well. Bring the sauce mixture to the boil, then simmer for around 10 minutes.

In a non-stick frying pan, over a low heat, gently toast the almonds. This will take a matter of seconds before they burn, so be careful! Remove from the pan and add some vegetable oil to the pan and cook the diced chicken until cooked through and starting to brown slightly. Remove from the pan.

Add the almonds, chicken, raisins and coconut to the curry sauce and simmer for around 25 minutes. If the sauce starts to dry out you can add some water or yoghurt. Stir and scrape the bottom of the pan if it starts to stick.

Season to taste and serve with some steamed white rice.

That's it, you're curry is now ready to eat and you commence the game of "dodge-the-cardomom-pod" immediately!