CHICKEN CURRY WITH FENUGREEK…WORLD FOOD DAY
Mark Kurlansky
The time has come the walrus said…lines from the poem by Lewis Caroll come to my mind often at the strangest of moments. They’ve been playing in my mind these days; I think it’s stirring my senses because of the change in weather. With winter round the corner, the best winter vegetables are beginning to show up here. No more spinach; there’s more to green leaves now. We’ve lived out the summer with stone-fruits dominating our lives in North India because that’s the only interesting thing around. The less said about vegetables, the better. The fresh food storage & transportation industry is practically non-existent, as are air-conditioned shops at the local level. Fresh & leaves in summer wilt as you even look at them. Come winter, & it’s a whole new food story. Fresh, green, leafy fenugreek or methi is one such awaited green. Fenu-what?
Fenugreek is used both as an herb (the leaves) and as a spice (the seed). It is cultivated worldwide as a semi-arid crop. It is frequently used in curry.The young leaves and sprouts of fenugreek are eaten as greens, and the fresh or dried leaves are used to flavor other dishes. The dried leaves (called kasuri methi) have a bitter taste and a strong characteristic smell.
This is a recipe I bookmarked the minute I saw it at Mallika’s Quick Indian Cooking. It was so tempting at the time, I just couldn’t wait for the season’s first fenugreek. I’m celebrating the arrival of winter here with this Methi Murgh or Chicken-Curry with Fenugreek. The curry has been adapted a little bit as I used a whole chicken & the original recipe used chicken thighs. The method is different from the way I usually cook, & was a feast for the senses throughout. It smelled so good at every stage…while grinding the fresh garam masala, to the roasting, simmering etc.
Quite an enjoyable journey for me, & the end result was finger licking good. We served it with parathas, but feel free to serve this with plain boiled rice too.
Methi Murgh as adapted from Mallika’s recipe @ Quick Indian Cooking
Ingredients:
Chicken – 1 whole , 800gms (cut up into 8-10 pieces)
Fenugreek – 1 bunch; chop just the green leafy portion, wash well, & leave to drain
Onion – 2 medium; chopped
Tomatoes – 4 medium
Ginger – 1″ piece; minced
Garlic – 4-6 cloves; minced
Garam Masala – Black pepper -8, Small cardamom – 5, Cinnamon – 1-2 stick, Cloves – 8
Paprika – 1 tsp
Thick yogurt – 2 heaped tbsps; lightly whipped with a fork
Green chilies – 1-2
Method:
Dry roast the garam masala to release the flavours. Cool & then grind in the coffee grinder.
I’m sending this seasonal & now firm favourite recipe over to Val @ More than a Burnt Toast and Ivy @ Kopiaste to enter into their wonderful Event: WORLD FOOD DAY.
In Val’s words: “The blogging community spans the globe so I would like you to submit a recipe which represents your country that would feed at least 6 people. You can send something that is a family favourite or a regional favourite that uses local and perhaps seasonal ingredients.We could then lay each dish back to back and have enough food to feed everyone on our street. If more people joined we could feed everyone in our city…our country…the world…you get the picture!!! A conga line of international dishes to feed the world!!!!The aim of the Event is to make people aware of the world’s increasing hunger and how the use of biofuel impacts in the poor countries’ harvests and needs. ” I think it’s a super cool way to pass the word around & increase awareness in the way we best enjoy. Please head to her blog for more info.
This is also off to Ruth’s Bookmarked Event,
& to the Constable’s Larder for their Low & Slow Event. There’s something about slow cooking that brings out the best of flavours in certain dishes. This is just so ‘one of them’!
Deeba @ PAB
About me: I am a freelance food writer, recipe developer and photographer. Food is my passion - baking, cooking, developing recipes, making recipes healthier, using fresh seasonal produce and local products, keeping a check on my carbon footprint and being a responsible foodie! I enjoy food styling, food photography, recipe development and product reviews. I express this through my food photographs which I style and the recipes I blog. My strength lies in 'Doing Food From Scratch'; it must taste as good as it looks, and be healthy too. Baking in India, often my biggest challenge is the non-availability of baking ingredients, and this has now become a platform to get creative on. I enjoy cooking immensely as well.
31 Comments
Hanaâ
Deeba, that curry looks delicious. I’d eat it with either bread or served over rice. I have never eaten anything with fresh methi leaves as they’re hard to come by here. However, my friend (who’s Indian) told me that I could use methi/fenugreek seeds to grow my own methi plant. I’ll have to try that next spring! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
-Hanaâ
Nachiketa
U’re blog is like my morning coffee.. 🙂
Just brilliant… 🙂
Was telling my mom about you and the awesome stuff you do and how lovely it looks on u’re blog….. We must meet sometime…
Nags
nowadays i have taken to making garam masala fresh too. it just makes a world of a difference to the gravy right? 🙂
Ivy
Hi Deeba and thanks for submitting a recipe for the WFD. I haven’t been feeling well for a few days now and I am making a small effort to catch up with all the posts I’ve missed. Your dish sounds delicious.
Núria
Deeba you surely put Passion, Pacience and Love in all your dishes 😀 This chicken curry with fenugreek is no different! Lovely presentation and a recipe to bookmark, although I should first look for fenugreek… 😀
Kitchen Flavours
Iam drooling over. Wow awesome color. Wish i could smell through the monitor. Spicy and delicious looking curry. Gr8 entry to the events.
Meeta
you’ll always catch my attention with a good chicken curry deeba – so here i am! sounds lovely!
Pearlsofeast
lovely Deeba and love the pink bowl.I am salivating!!!!!
Happy cook
Wow this chicken curry looks super delicious.
Here we don’t get fresh fenugreek leaves, i have fried kastoori meth ( don’t know if both are same) can i use them.
Bellini Valli
Thank you so much Deeba for sumbitting such a wonderful dish to our conga line of international dishes. This represents India with flair:D
Snooky doodle
wow i love indian food especially curries 🙂 thanks alot for this nice recipe
Gloria
Deeba , How beautiful really are your pictures always I love all!!! look wonderful and tasty, love so.
Dear I have an Award to you in my Blog. xGloria
Divya Vikram
Chicken n methi.Great combo..
noble pig
What an lovely submission, and the pics are so appetizing.
Shreya
Just commented on Aloo Methi and then I come across Methi Chicken, another perfect non-veg combo for Methi leaves. Love your post with the info and pictures, and this is a perfect entry for the events..
nicisme
Mmmm… another curry – quite simply my favourite food of all! After chocolate of course!
Alexa
This chicken dish looks so tasty. I have dried fenugreek leaves in my pantry but I don’t think I have ever had them fresh. I am going to go to my local Indian Food Store and see if they have it there. Thank you, Deeba, for always inspiring me!
Mallika
Deeba, thanks for trying it out. But I must say your version looks much better than mine!
diva
i don’t think i’ve ever had fenugreek! i will hafta try it sometime in a curry because i can’t live without curry!! 🙂 x
by MAG
Thank you for this wonderful recipe. We love curry at home and all the other ingredients make it very tasty!
Laurie
I can smell how wonderful this is Deeba! My mom used to make the most wonderful spicy curry chicken soup. It lends to such homey memories!
And I love your pink casserole dish!! 🙂
Gloria
Really Deeba You had TWO Awards in my Blog, return when you have time and see say: Caminemos Juntas, that means “walk together”, I saw you try only one, LOL xxxxxxGloria
meeso
I absolutely love fenugreek and I think it makes the best flavor in foods… Your chicken looks amazing, wish I could have tasted it!
Gary Baumgarten
World Hunger Year co-founder Bill Ayers will be my guest on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com at 5 PM New York time today to talk about World Food Day.
Please go to my blog at http://www.garybaumgarten.com and click on the link to the show to talk to Ayers.
Thanks.
Gary Baumgarten
World Hunger Year co-founder Bill Ayers will be my guest on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com at 5 PM New York time today to talk about World Food Day.
Please go to my blog at http://www.garybaumgarten.com and click on the link to the show to talk to Ayers.
Thanks.
Ruth E
This definitely looks like a finger licking good curry. Sounds so tasty.
Thanks for sending this into bookmarked recipes.
Bellini Valli
World Food Day is today Deeba. Come on over and join the party. Thank you so much for all your heklp in sprerading the word about this global issue. Now…let’s DANCE!!!!!!!
Jude
Never had fenugreek leaves before… Just the seeds. Thanks for the informative post!
Jeanne
… to talk of many things; of shores and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings; of why a sieve is full of holes and whether pigs have wings.
My mom and I used to quote that to each other all the time – so glad to see I’m not the only one that has random bits of poetry floating around my brain!
Rashmy
Hi..
I visited ur blog for the first time and was impressed by this recipe that I wanted to try it right then. I tried it over the weekend with some home grown methi leaves.. and it was awesome.. my husband loved it so very much..
Thank you for such a wonderful recipe..
Rashmy
closetchef
wow, i need to make this curry! I love your passion for food and clearly for photography. Can't wait to see more