Chicken pieces cooked with fenugreek or methi leaves is a signature North Indian dish that tastes beautiful with almost any Indian bread. You could even try it out with rice, chapati, laccha parantha and naan.
The slightly pungent and aromatic methi is typically balanced out with yogurt or dahi, milk, malai or cream. Methi chicken is a great example to illustrate how delicious bitter leaves can been used to highlight the taste of chicken.
The recipe is simple to cook and awesome in taste and texture. For all those who love to experiment with taste…. You MUST try this one out!!!
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 40-45 minutes
Serves: 6-7
Calorie/serving: 205
Ingredients:
- One (1) medium sized chicken (with bones or boneless).
- About 350 grams of dried fenugreek (methi) leaves. These can be crushed easily using your fingers.
- Two (2) tablespoons of salt, or to taste
- Half (1/2) a cup of milk or cream
- One (1) cup of yogurt (dahi)
- Two (2) medium sized tomatoes (puree)
Onion paste
- Four (4) medium sized onions
- Two (2) tablespoons of ginger-garlic paste
- Two (2) green chili’s
- Two (2) tablespoons of chicken masala. You could also grind and use a home-made powder* which has the following spices-
Mace (Javitri)
Peppercorns (Sabut Kali Mirch)
Coriander Seeds, Ground (Dhania Powder)
Roasted Cumin (Jeera)
Cinnamon (Dalchini)
Cardamom ((Moti Elaichi)
Cloves (Laung)
- One (1) tablespoon garam masala
Method:
- Wash the chicken and clean it properly.
- Wash the fenugreek (methi) leaves and keep aside so they dry.
- Take a kadai and heat some oil in it and add the onion paste that you prepared earlier.
- Sauté the onion paste till it is golden brown in color. Constantly stir so the paste doesn’t stick at the bottom of the kadai.
- Add the tomato puree and continue to cook for about another 10-15 minutes.
- Add salt
- Next, add the yogurt (dahi) to the paste and cook on low heat for 5-6 minutes.
- Add a glass of water to make the gravy a little thinner. You can add more water depending on how thick or thin you like your chicken gravy.
- Let this cook for 15 minutes.
- Crush and add the fenugreek (methi) leaves in the gravy and stir.
- Next, add the pieces of chicken. Stir so that all the ingredients are mixed very well.
- Cover the kadai and let it cook for about 35-40 minutes. Keep checking and stirring after every 5 minutes.
- Last, add the milk/cream to the chicken and stir. Allow to cook for about another 5-10 minutes.
- Serve hot
*I honestly prefer to use home-made masala powder more than any other ready-made masala’s. It adds a very different taste to the food and trust me, you will love it too. Try!
