Coconut coriander chicken

 

Thanks Sunil for sharing this light and delicious recipe!

Ingredients:
Chicken - 1 kg,
Ginger paste or shredded-3/4 tbsp,
Garlic paste- 1 tbsp
Turmeric pwd- 3/4 tsp,
Salt- to taste,
Onion -2 big size finely chopped,
Big cardamom-2,
Small cardamom- 4,
Bay leaves-1 to 2,
Cumin or jeera seeds- 1 tsp,
Coconut milk- 1 cup.

To make paste-
Green coriander leaves- 1 cup chopped,
Green chilli -3 slit,

Ginger - 1 inch cut into small pieces to make grinding easy,
Fresh grated coconut -2 tbsp heaped.

Oil - 2 to 3 tbsp.

Note- This is a semi dry chicken recipe!

You will need 1 small coconut  ( water inside )to extract 1 cup of milk and 2 tbsp of grated coconut.
Breaking,scrapping the skin of the coconut and then grating the coconut is a little time consuming.
Before I never liked making any coconut recipe for the simple reason of breaking the coconut and the time it took to scrape the inside of it.
But now I know the trick to break open and separate out the hard shell.
You just knead a hammer and a screw driver and a small size coconut!
First take a screw driver and make a hole at the top of the coconut. It has 3 black tender spots on top and just insert the screw driver to make a hole and take out the water  from inside.
You can drink this water.
Next using a hammer ! 
Hammer at the center  of the coconut all around ,and the shell will break open.
Keep hammering the hard shell till the inside of the coconut separate too or you can separate it with a knife.
Scrape the soft brown skin with a peeler or knife and then grate the coconut.

Once the coconut is grated,leaving aside 2 tbsp of coconut for the paste.
The rest of the grated coconut is put  in the blender with 1 cup of water.
Coarsely grind for few seconds ( do not make a paste ).
Sieve through a strainer to extract the fresh milk out of the fresh coconut.Press and extract the maximum.
The left out dry coconut can be used for stuffing or just mix it with the dough ( Sunil's idea ).
I mixed a little sugar and made stuffed parathas and it was delicious!

Method-
Extract the coconut milk from the coconut and keep aside.
Marinate the chicken with turmeric pwd,ginger garlic paste and salt.

Rub it around the chicken and leave it to marinate for 1/2 hour at room temperature while
you make the preparation.

Finely chop the onions and make a paste of green chillis,green coriander leaves ,ginger and grated coconut adding a small amount of water.

Keep aside the paste.

Heat oil in a non stick kadhai and as oil heats up,add the whole spices - cumin seeds,big cardamom,small cardamom,cinnamon stick and bay leaves.

As cumin seeds crackle,add the finely chopped onions.

The onions just need to be soft and translucent.

Add the marinated chicken and stir fry on high heat for 10 minutes.

Keep stirring as the chicken will have brown spots after 10 minutes.

Lower the heat to medium and add the coconut coriander paste with 1/4 cup water (  rinse the  blender  with 1/4 cup of water after taking the paste out of the container and use it in the cooking)

Stir for 30 seconds  and then add the coconut milk and salt.

Mix and let it come to boil.

Lower the heat to low and put a lid on.

Let it simmer and cook till chicken is tender ( depends on the size of the chicken- 20 to 25 minutes )

This is a semi dry chicken dish!
The coconut gravy will be thicken as it cools.

Goes very well with hot rotis!