Chicken Jalfrezi... slightly modified ^_-

While trying to find something a little exotic to cook for dinner (we had burgers with the guys last night), I finally decided to make something I found awhile back on Allrecipes that didn't require much traveling (outside of Carmel Valley, which practically has as un-ethnic a variety of stores as you can imagine) in order get a satisfactory amount of the ingredients necessary for creating the meal: Chicken Jalfrezi. Because I'm not altogether familiar with how to get the basic ingredients needed for Pakistani food, I'm not much of a judge on how close my version of the recipe comes to the original, and I have no idea how to get my hands on ghee, which appears to be a very important part of South Asian cooking... however, someday I hope to become more familiar with the South Asian happenings of San Diego so I can explore that region's cuisine more thoroughly (especially in my kitchen).

Chicken Jalfrezi

Ingredients

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 cloves garlic
1 onion

1.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs (cut in half)

3 teaspoons ground turmeric
1 teaspoon chili powder
1.5 teaspoons salt

1 (14.5 ounce) can peeled and diced tomatoes

2 tablespoons ghee (clarified butter)
3 teaspoons ground cumin
3 teaspoons ground coriander
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger root
1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves

Note: Instead of ghee, I ended up using creamy butter... which always seems to work out, flavor-wise, to the un-discerning (aka "ignorant") tongue's taste buds.



Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large deep skillet over medium-high heat.
2. Add onions and garlic, and cook for about 2 minutes.
3. Add the chicken, and season with turmeric, chili powder and salt.
4. Fry gently, scraping the bottom of the pan frequently and turning the chicken.

5. Pour in the tomatoes with their juice, cover the pan, and simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes.
6. Uncover, and simmer for another 10 minutes to let the excess liquid evaporate.

7. Add the ghee, cumin, ground coriander, ginger and cilantro, and simmer for another 5 to 7 minutes.
8. Serve the chicken pieces with sauce spooned over the top.



Additional Notes

Some good accompanying starches are basmati rice, chapati, or naan. My husband loves the naan you can buy Trader Joe's, so we usually eat it with that.

Additionally, many of the reviewers on Allrecipes noted that the traditional way of cooking this dish is by letting all of the spices cook in the oil FIRST. This is the only way I've tried cooking it, and the taste of the spices is very strong (which I like)... I haven't tried it in the order listed above.

Lastly, I added cayenne pepper to this recipe to give it a little "kick" (I *looooooooooove* spicy food). ;)