Chicken and Tomato Garlicky Curry

So, like all part time chefs, I only cook on special occasions. This is a real special occasion dish. Very very rich, bit of a faff to make, as hot as you want. It's one of my homages to British Curry house culture - trying to make my own equivalent of my favourite curry; Garlic Chilli Chicken. This dish will take a lot (and I mean a lot) of heat, so feel free to really load up those chillis if that's your bag. The 3 birds eye in the ingredients listing will make a pretty hot curry.

Serve with Cauliflower Bhaji and fresh home made Naan.

• Stage 1
• 4 Medium sized cloves of garlic
• A large thumb of ginger
• 2 small onions
• ½ tsp of aniseed seeds
• ½ tsp of fenugreek seeds
• ½ tsp of cumin seeds
• ½ tsp of mustard seeds
• 3 birds eye red chillis (to your taste)
• 1 can of whole peeled tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons of ground nut oil
• ½ tsp ground turmeric
• 1 ½ tsp paprika
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• Stage 2
• 1 large onion
• 1 tbsp groundnut oil
• Stage 3
• 2 large cloves of garlic
• 2 skinless chicken breasts
• 2 tsp mustard seeds
• ½ tsp urad daal
• 1 tbsp groundnut oil

Stage 1:

Peel and slice the garlic and ginger into thinnish slices. Everything in this stage is going to be blitzed later, so presentation is unimportant. What you want is to get those flavours to mingle, so the larger surface area exposed for cooking the better, but don't go over board.

Roughly chop the onions and the chillis (leaving the seeds in).

Get the oil good and hot (but not too hot) in a heavy bottomed saucepan.

Put the aniseed, fenugreek, cumin and mustard seeds in the pan. When they start to pop put the chopped onions, chillis, garlic and ginger in the pan and turn the heat right down.

After the onion has started to soften put the tomatoes in, and then all of the other remaining ingredients. Give it a good stir, but leave the tomatoes whole to start with.

Let this simmer and reduce slowly over about an hour. At about 45 minutes you'll need to break up the whole tomatoes and start to check more frequently that it's not drying out.

The goal is to get a very thick sauce without burning it on to the bottom of the pan.

Once it's reduced as much as you dare take it off the heat and let it cool. When it's cooled down puree it with a blender, so that you've got a smooth very thick sauce.

Stage 2:

Peel and halve the onion, and then cut each half into thin strips.

Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan until it is really quite hot (not smoking though).

Put the onion strips in and stir fry until they start to brown. You'll need to keep stirring the whole time and not be frightened of them burning. The plan is to end up with caramelised onions that are actually quite brown.

Once they've browned take them out and drain off the oil. Put them to one side for later.

Stage 3:

Preheat the oven to 170C.

Peel the garlic cloves and cut them in to very thin slices. Cut the chicken into 1 to 2 inch cubes.

Put the oil in a casserole dish on the hob and get it good and hot. Put the urad daal in, and a minute or so later put the mustard seeds in. As soon as the mustard seeds start to pop throw the chicken and garlic in and stir fry until the chicken is golden brown on all sides. The garlic should melt into the oil during the frying process.

Put the tomato sauce into the pan and stir thoroughly. As it starts to bubble put the fried onions in as well and give it another stir.

Finally, put the lid on the casserole dish and put it in the oven for about 50 mins.

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