Chicken John Frezi Curry

Directions

Oil is very important for consistency and flavor of spices so be generous with healthy oils and it will make all the difference. Use only cold pressed oils like extra virgin olive oil or avacado oil. I don’t recommend refined or hydrogenated oils, ever.

Chop 2 onions into large pieces and boil in some water, time can vary. Once they start to smell quite strong give them about 5mins more and that should do.

Chuck some oil in a pot, at least fill the bottom. Heat to medium and add 1 tblspn of turmeric and 1 of paprika, a teaspn of 5spice, sugar and salt. Add tblspn tomato paste. Lightly cook the spices for a few minutes careful not to burn. While they’re cooking, throw 2 tins of tomatoes into a blender and blend well.

Pour into the cooking spices and stir well. Leave on low heat.

Drain the onions, keeping about 200ml of water with them and then chuck into the blender. Blend well and add to the tomatoes and spices.

Stir well and continue to cook on low heat as it should bubble like lava. Take out a bigger pot and again at least cover the bottom of the pot with oil, heat to medium. If using seeds put a pinch of each into a mortar and pestol and grind them up, you can try roasting them in a dry pan first for better results. These are a bit more work and add more flavour but not essiential, sometimes less is more!

Throw them into the oil, again careful not to burn. While they’re cooking, coarsely chop the large onion and add to the seeds and stir.

Finely chop garlic, ginger and chilies and add. Cook making sure seeds are properly cooked but not burned. Dice your chicken and add. Before sealing the chicken quickly add 1tablespoon of cumin, garam masala, corinnder powder and dried fenugreek.

Work the spices into the chicken as it cooks, you might need to turn up the heat some now and keep stirring until the chicken cooked through and the spices should smell nicely cooked.

Add the tomato and onion sauce. And mix well. (Spices don’t cook very well in sauce, so very important that they are cooked before adding sauce.)

Keeping the lid off so it can cook off excess water and reduce, stirring occasionally, this can take 30min to an hour, depending on how thick you want the sauce, but more importantly the spices should be well fused with the sauce so always taste test. Also at this point you can add more ground chili if it’s not spicy enough.

Chop fresh tomatoes, capsicum, small onion and coriander stems and sauté (lightly fry) with lemon juice and add to the curry 10mins before taking it off the heat.

Pour, garnish with coriander leaves and serve with rice and whole meal roti.