This recipe for braised chicken with garam masala and tomatoes is a healthy and gluten-free dinner option. Based on a highly rated recipe by food writer Anna Glover from BBC Good Food, it takes about ten minutes to prepare and fifty minutes to cook. It uses fresh seasonal tomatoes to create a light yet comforting spiced sauce. You can easily make a batch to freeze for later. Here is how to make this dish.
Grab your chicken and spices
Start by rubbing some salt and about a teaspoon of garam masala all over your chicken thighs with your hands. You can use two large ones or four small ones depending on what you have in the fridge. It gets a bit messy on your fingers but that is exactly where the good flavour starts.
Get a nice sear on the meat
Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a wide frying pan over medium high heat and put the chicken in skin side down. Let it cook for like six to eight minutes until the skin gets crispy and nice. Flip it over for another four minutes and then just move it to a plate since it does not need to be fully cooked yet.
Chop up your vegetables
While the chicken is doing its thing you can finely slice one onion and grate a thumb sized piece of ginger. Grate two garlic cloves into a paste and roughly chop up about 400g of vine tomatoes. I always end up crying when cutting onions but it is totally worth it for the final dish.
Fry the onions in the chicken fat
Throw your sliced onions into the pan with a pinch of salt and fry them for about eight to ten minutes. They will get soft and lightly golden while picking up all those leftover spices and fat from the chicken you just cooked. This is where the flavor base really happens.
Make it smell amazing
Toss the ginger and garlic paste into the warm pan with your soft onions. Cook everything together for one minute until it gets super fragrant. Your entire kitchen will start smelling totally amazing fast. It will smell just like a real restaurant making good food on a nice busy evening.
Cook down the fresh tomatoes
Toss in your chopped tomatoes and the rest of your garam masala. Let it cook for four to six minutes until the tomatoes break down and get really jammy and soft. It should look like a thick and rich sauce at this point.
Let the chicken simmer slowly
Pour water inside the pan and let it start bubbling on the stove. Put those chicken thighs right back skin side up so they cook good. Put the lid on partially and wait twenty to twenty five minutes. The rich sauce thickens up and all the meat cooks clear to the very middle.
Keep an eye on the sauce
You might need to add a splash more water halfway through the cooking time if the sauce gets a little too thick and sticky. Just check on it quickly and stir the edges so nothing burns to the bottom of the pan. You want a nice gravy texture to pour over your food.
Stir in the yogurt and herbs
Remove your hot cooking pan from the burner and fold three tablespoons of rich full fat yogurt into the dish. Cut up some fresh green coriander leaves real fast and stir them straight inside. Taste a bit of the gravy to see if you should toss in extra spicy powder now.
Serve it up nice and warm
Now your warm meal is totally ready to enjoy. You can serve the chicken and rich sauce over warm roti or a big bowl of rice to soak up all those tasty juices. It makes a super great dinner that feels fancy but was actually really simple to cook on a busy weeknight.
