Cardamom Chicken (Masala Murgh) - Dinner Review

Indian cooking gets a terrible rap when it comes to healthy eating due to the tendency to find lots of fatty, creamy sauces in the restaurants found in the west, however when I saw this recipe on Rasa Malaysia I knew it had not only South Beach potential, but phase 1 potential when paired with something that wasn't rice (in fact I combined it with the Salad De Choux I was due to have later in the week as I'll be out for dinner instead, I'll review that tomorrow)

Source: rasamalaysia.com via Katy on Pinterest

And here's what I made:

The Verdict:

Taste/Texture:

This is a lovely, warming curry, not hot, but it has a bit of a kick.  If you particularly like hot you could always up the cayenne pepper amount, but really, I wouldn't mess with the spices, the cardamom especially is a great addition.  What I did do though, was reduce the amount of oil to about 1 tbsp, and used organic rapeseed oil rather than vegetable oil.  I will warn you that it took me two attempts to make the onion base for this though, since I had popped my onion, garlic and ginger in the food processor and whizzed it to mush, which then did not play well with the new frying pan I'm trying to break it, and it burned rather than cooked nicely.  For round 2 I just chopped it all finely, used an older, larger, broken in frying pan, and it all played nicely!

Substitutions:

I used only about 1 tbsp of oil, and about two thirds of the amount of chicken, but kept the rest the same.

Ease Of Preparation:

This isn't difficult, but be careful you don't start off with mushy onions!  It's a different cooking order to the other masala recipe I was given by an Indian lady I worked with years ago, but hers had lots of cream and yoghurt in it as well.

Amount Made:

This was plenty for 2 good sized servings, and would easily have served up to 3 with the salad, or up to 4 as part of a bigger meal.

Final Verdict:

I'll definitely be making this again, especially now I've cracked the onions ;o)