Tamarind Chili Chicken

Submitted by Member 610488

"This is a dish given to me by friends from Sri Lanka. Tastes better the next day as the flavors mellow a little."

 

• Ready In: 30mins
• Ingredients: 8
• Serves: 2

ingredients

• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
• 8 -10 medium green chilies, de-seeded and diced
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 1 tomatoes, chopped or (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons tamarind pulp
• 1 tablespoon coriander seed, dry-roasted and coarsely ground
• 2 skinless chicken breasts, chopped into pieces

directions

1. Heat the oil in a wide saucepan and, when hot, add the mustard seeds.
2. Once the seeds start popping, remove the pan from the heat.
3. When the popping stops, return to the heat, reduce the heat and stir in the chilis and onion.
4. Fry for 8-10 minutes until the onions are soft.
5. Add the tomatoes and 1 cup water (if using canned tomatoes, drain juice into measuring cup and add additional water to equal 1 cup) and stir.
6. Stir in the tamarind and coriander seeds and season.
7. Add the chicken, mix well and cook over a medium heat for 8 minutes until cooked through.

Reviews

[JustJanS]

This was a simply flavoured, simple to make curry. I went light on the green chillies (used 8) I would use 10 or 12 next time to crank up the heat a bit. The freshly roasted and ground coriander really shone in this and I also added some garlic to it. I used chicken thighs as I prefer them in a curry. I cooked them for about 20 minutes.

 

[Muffin Goddess]

I wasn't sure how I was going to like this one when I chose this recipe, but I was pretty impressed. I was a little leery of using 8-10 hot peppers, but I think my worries were unfounded. I ended up using 6 serranos, plus one poblano to make up the missing bulk of the other 4 peppers (just what I had on hand), and it was only a mild heat. Toasting the mustard seeds was quite the adventure. I didn't realize how hot my stupid electric stovetop had gotten, and the seeds began violently popping as soon as they hit the pan. I think about 1/3 of the little suckers were a loss because they popped right out of the pan onto the stove, countertop and floor! No biggie, I swept up while I waited for them to stop popping and moved on. I opted for the canned tomatoes, and I used Mexichef tamarind paste because that's what I had in the fridge. This was really a great flavor combination -- Thanks for posting! Made for ZWT4

 

[LilKiwiChicken]

This was lovely Celticevergreen, thanks for posting. I used about 4 chilis, we do love spicy food but I had hot Thai chillis so 8 would have killed us! I also crushed about 6 garlic cloves and added this just after the onion, purely because I felt like I was getting a cold & wanted something to kick it out of my system. I did use the can of tomatoes and didn't read the recipe properly regarding the tamarind - I put about 2T of the block Thai tamarind in a bowl of hot water (about 1 cup) and let it soak until I was able to remove the fibrous seeds etc - just leaving the lovely tamarind water with the pulpy soft stuff in it. The taste was great, a lovely sourish/chilli flavour that was hard to beat. I also added some roughly chopped capsicums towards the end to bulk this out (meat being as expensive as it is). Thanks for the great recipe.