Who doesn’t love a good curry?
I’ve grown up in a household with my parents loving and cooking all different types of curry from Indian and Sri Lankan to Thai. My parents love of spice and curry comes from travelling the world, experiencing these different cultures’ foods and ways of life. From an early age my parents loved to feed me homemade curry and test my tolerance to chilli. As I’ve gotten older I can definitely say my acceptance and love for chilli has gone up!
But even if you cannot tolerate a lot of hot food, curry can still be for you! My dad shared his amazing Kukul Mas Sri Lankan curry recipe with me the other day and my mind was blown. This is not a spicy hot curry, it just has amazing flavours! I have tweaked my dad’s famous recipe to make it MNB approved but full credit goes to him.
Homemade curries (to much confusion) can be extremely nourishing for your body. Most curries contain turmeric, chilli, cumin, allspice, cardamon, ginger and garlic – spices with strong anti-bacterial properties. The spices in curry have a number of valuable health benefits, including the prevention of cancer, protection against heart disease, reduce Alzheimer’s disease symptoms, ease pain and inflammation, protect the immune system from bacterial infections, and increase the liver’s ability to remove toxins from the body. It’s best to avoid the cream based curries and go for the tomato ones!
Curries, however, can be a hard one to get right when you’re making them from scratch at home but I can guarantee that this recipe will hit the spot!
Kukul Mas Sri Lankan Chicken Curry
The BEST Chicken Curry Recipe You’ll Try Today!
Preparation Time:
30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour minutes
Servings: Serves 6
- In Bowl 1:
- 1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
- 10 curry leaves
- In Bowl 2:
- 6 spring onions finely chopped
- 6 cloves garlic chopped
- 2 teaspoons finely grated ginger
- In Bowl 3:
- 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 2 teaspoon ground coriander powder (too much coriander can be bitter)
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ground fennel
- 2 teaspoon sweet paprika
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon black mustard seed
- In Bowl 4:
- 1kg chicken thigh fillets (cut each thigh into 6 pieces)
- In Bowl 5:
- 2 ripe tomatoes chopped
- 6-8 cardamom pods bruised on thread
- ½ cinnamon stick
- 4cm lemon grass stick bruised/cut
- Ghee 2 tablespoons (we love pepe saya)
- 2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon sambal oelek (extra if you like it hot)
- 1 fresh red chilli finely sliced diagonally
- On its own: Fresh coconut water - (Scrape 1/3 of flesh and coarsely blend with ½ cup coconut water)
- Heat the ghee then add bowl 1 until seeds and leaves pop and sizzle (less than 1 minute).
- Add the contents of bowl 2 and fry gently until onions are soft/well cooked.
- Add contents of bowl 3 and stir, add the vinegar to prevent spices burning, stir.
- Add bowl 4 (chicken) and continue to stir and coat well with spices.
- Add contents of bowl 5 and cook covered for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally until tomatoes break down and chicken is just cooked.
- Add the blended coconut water and sambal oelek to taste.
- Note: cooking with the lid on the pot may cause the coconut milk to split.
- Serve with long grain Indian or Basmati rice and other curries like Dahl and salsa.
Now go spice up your life!
Michelle xx