Parsi Cashew Chicken / Murghi Ma Kaju

Do you ever go through the recipe booklet that comes with the kitchen appliances??? I read them wholeheartedly. The recent cookbook I got belongs to a small 1 and ½ litre prestige pressure cooker. And it has some regional recipes that you can cook in the cooker. Generally I forgo cooking chicken in the cooker because that just makes them mushy in texture and I don’t really have any control over them while they are being cooked inside the cooker.

But I take the recipes from the book and change them according to my convenience. Cashew Chicken is such a recipe. According to the book it’s a Parsi dish and its really low in spices, except....that you can really overlook the addition of kashmiri red chillies in huge numbers. But if you cannot tolerate that much heat just reduce their number and add kashmiri red chilli powder to get that rich red colour.

Add ground dry red chilli and cumin seeds, red chilli powder and salt to the yogurt.

Chop the onions.

Make a smooth paste of the cashew nuts.

Marinade the chicken with half of the ginger-garlic-chilli paste.

Heat the oil and add onions. Cook until lightly golden brown.

Next add the prepared yogurt paste.

Cook on low flame until the oil separates.

Add the marinated chicken and rest of the ginger-garlic-chilli paste.

Mix well to coak the chicken with masalas.

Cook till the chicken is cooked.

Finally pour the preaped cashew nuts paste. 

Simmer until the gravy thickens.

Either way....I really liked this Chicken Curry. May be I will make one or two more from that book!! But till then...enjoy!!

Parsi Cashew Chicken / Murghi Ma Kaju

Serves 4-5

Ingredients:

1 kg chicken

½ cup thick yogurt

2 onions – chopped

1 inch ginger – paste

3 green chillies – paste

6-8 fat garlic cloves – paste

10 dry Kashmiri red chillies

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp turmeric powder

2-3 tsp red chilli powder

½ cup raw un-toasted cashew nuts

Salt

3-4 tbsp oil

Method:

Dry roast the dry Kashmiri red chillies and cumin seeds in a skillet and then ground them to a fine powder.

With some water, make a smooth paste of the cashew nuts as well.

 In a bowl mix in the yogurt, some salt, turmeric powder, red chilli powder and the dry roasted ground dry red kashmiri chillies. Add some water and mix them well to make a smooth paste.

Marinate the chicken with half of the ginger-garlic and chilli paste and keep aside for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, heat the oil in a pan and add the onions into them.

Fry them until lightly golden and then add the prepared yogurt paste.

Put the flame on low and mix everything well. Cook them together for 5-6 minutes more or until the oil starts to separate.

Now add the marinated chicken and rest of the ginger – garlic and chilli paste into it.

Mix them well so that all the chicken pieces gets a good coat of the masalas.

Now cover and cook the chicken pieces. The chicken will ooze out lots of water so there is not need to add water right away. Just stir them after 3-4 minutes to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

When all the moisture evaporates and you can see the oil separating at the edges then add 2-3 cups of water.

Mix again and put cover. Cook the chicken until they become soft and tender from the inside.

Now open the lid and simmer on medium flame for 5 minutes.

As the gravy thickens stir in the prepared cashew nuts paste.

Cook till the gravy reaches your desired consistency and the oil starts to float on top of it.

Put off the flame and serve hot with rice / chapatti / naan.