Chicken Ceylon

[Jethro]

Here we go, my first attempt at BIR style curry (as experimented by myself) as opposed to authentic  traditional recipes which I usually do.

My choice was Chicken Ceylon as I have not seen it done here and it's one of my favourites.

This will serve two hungry people quite easily.

Ingredients:
1 bag (about a pint, or 1/2 a litre) of Darth's base sauce, you can use any of your choice, it's just that I have quite a bit left from my last experiment 
5 green cardomom pods just cracked open
5 bits of cassia bark
5 cloves
About a dozen whole black peppercorns.
2 Teaspoons of hot chilli powder (or even more if you want it hotter)
1 Tablespoon of Garam masala (if you want to be more authentic it should be a Ceylon masala but 99.9% of BIR's will just use the normal stuff, so I have)
1 bruised stem of fresh lemongrass
A splodge of oil..(technical term)
100 grms of Creamed coconut
1 Tablespoon of curry leaves.
1 Teaspoon of salt.
4 chicken breasts chopped into bite sized pieces.

Method:
Put the chopped chicken in a pan just cover with water and boil for about 5 mins or until just cooked though. Using a slotted spoon remove the chicken into a bowl and reserve the water.
In your main cooking vessel put the splodge of oil (ok about a tablespoonfull for you pedants) and gently fry the whole spices, cassia, cardomom, cloves and black pepper (not the curry leaves or lemongrass) for 2 minutes stirring all the time to avoid burning.
Add the base gravy and heat untill boiling, you should have a nice wet mix, time to add the bits that need more delicate treatment.
Add the chilli powder, salt, and curry leaves, lemongrass and garam masala, cook for as long as you think is right (taste it you will know when it's right)
Add the coconut cream and melt it into the mix.
At this point it will start to thicken quite fast, keep the heat down and add some reserved chicken stock as required to achieve your required consistency.
Cook for a couple of minutes untill coconut is well distributed in the sauce.
Add the pre-cooked chicken and heat through untill you are sure that everything is cooked through and melded together.
You have the choice now of leaving the whole spices in or picking them out, I like to leave them in myself, its shows a bit of individuallity to the dish and you just can't beat that explosion of flavour when you bite into a whole cardamom pod!.
Serve with a rice of your choice (coconut rice is traditional, and I will post a recipe for this separately) and/or naan and some fresh coriander for garnish.
Half a hardboiled egg can be added to each portion if wanted, Some restaurants do, some don't, or chopped hardboiled egg sprinkled over the top looks nice..entirely up to you



Enjoy!!

Jethro

[Yousef]

Looks great and an interesting recipe as well.
My only comment is that adding Ground Spices to the base will not release their full spiciness, i would add them into the hot oil at the beginning then add the base.

Stew

[Curry King]

Great pic looks fantastic.

Is a whole tablespoon of garam masala a bit over kill I would have thought you wouldn't be able to taste anything else?

cK

[extrahotchillie]

Looks very good, well done

[Rai]

Nice pics.......please could you clarify which ground spices, besides chilli powder and garam masala, we are referring to here please?  Isnt garam masala supposed to be added towards the end of cooking rather than being fried at the beginning?

Thanks.

[Jethro]

Thanks for kind comments

Stew,
You could put the ground spices into the oil at the start, but there is no need, there is enough oil/water in the base gravy to extract the flavour and a lot safer than risking them getting burned.
Being in powder form exposes each tiny grain of spice to whatever medium you are using to extract the flavour therefore it don't take long as opposed to whole spices.

cK,
When you look at the overall weight involved, 1 level tablespoon (approx. 15 gms) compared to the base plus other ingredients and meat (at a guess about 2Lb) it's not that much.
Also I find that anything with coconut cream/milk in it tends to get the spice mix  masked a bit.

Rai,
Sorry I didn't make that look very clear, I have amended it.
Garam massala is only a mix of spices like any other, it can go in near the end if you want  a raw spicy flavour (some recipes call for this) or, in the context I am using it, as a general spice boost which needs to be melded into the dish.
I could have put small amounts of all the ingredients in the garam masala into the dish at that point and you would not have asked the question . Just because its "garam masala" does not mean it cannot be used for purposes other than the most excepted ones.
Hope this explains it 

[Cory Ander]

Hi Jethro,

Great photos and interesting recipe and comments Jethro! 

You could put the ground spices into the oil at the start, but there is no need, there is enough oil/water in the base gravy to extract the flavour

I was particularly interested in this comment!  Presumably, the benefit of frying the spices in hot oil (i.e. before any water is present) is to achieve higher temperatures (i.e. above 200C rather than below 100C) to extract the essential oils from the spices?  It rather begs the question "what temperatures are required to extract the essential oils from spices?"....maybe this should be a topic for a new thread?

......1 level tablespoon (approx. 15 gms).....it's not that much

I agree, considering that you have no other ground spices in your recipe (apart from chilli).  I guess it's likely to make the dish particularly aromatic?  Maybe more like a typical Balti in fact?

As a general comment, I would expect a typical BIR dish recipe to have fewer whole spices (probably none), more powdered spices or pastes (such as curry powder/paste, spice mix, coriander, cumin, tumeric, etc) and tomato paste, garlic and maybe ginger in it.  Lemongrass in an unusual inclusion for a BIR dish....more Thai, I'd say?

Thanks again for an interesting post Jethro! 

Regards,

[Curry King]

Hi jethro,

Good point, I do make a spicy CTM myself very occasionaly but thats the only one I use creamed coconut for.  I'm also not a big user of garam masala as I find I can always taste it over everything else, saying that i've had a BIR vindaloo before that I swear was just chili and GM, it was awful  :-X

[currytester]

 ;D ;D ;D Today I made up the new base - double quantity as I luv quick and easy meals even though the initial prep and cooking takes some time and then as I had no onions or peppers left decided that I would give Chicken Ceylon a go. I made it exactly as in the recipe except for reducing the amount of chilli powder to half a teaspoon ( I reckon I must have the hottest of the hot chilli powders)added the rst of the ingredients then cooked for 5 minutes and added chicken and some stock the sauce tasted salty and sharp so i added 2 teaspoons sugar and three tablespoons of pineapple chunks - it then tasted better than my local restaurant's by a mile - keep the recipes coming they're great.

[Curry King]

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