Jeera Chicken Recipe

Jeera Chicken“Your son should eat spinach to increase the power in his arms”, hollered the swimming coach to me last Wednesday. I nodded glumly as I know that the son only eats spinach in India: all my lies of Sachin Tendulkar eating spinach all day long having now come to bite me (maybe I should have picked Monty Panesar?).

So the boy and I had a business meeting to look at how we could add more nutrients to his standard diet of dal, yoghurt, potatoes and rice. The consensus was that I would cook more chicken at home and Waitrose would continue to provide us with their very tasty “salmon in a bag” at least once a week.

My first offering was Jeera (cumin) Chicken, my style. Which means that I had no recipe in my mind and just did things on the fly. Here it is

Jeera Chicken

Serves 3
Prep time 15 minutes
Cook time 10 minutes
Total time 25 minutes
A delicious and nutritious dish of chicken with cumin seeds and other spices.

Ingredients

  • 400 gms chicken (cut into small pieces)
  • 4 deseeded chillies (cut into small pieces)
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 3 tbs. cumin seeds
  • 2 tbs. garam masala
  • 1 pinch of turmeric
  • 3 tbs. plain yoghurt
  • 4 tbs. sunflower oil
  • Juice of half a lime
  • Salt to taste
  • Coriander to garnish

Note

Remember not to burn the cumin seeds. If you do so, the taste will be quite different.

Directions

Step 1
Put the yoghurt and lime juice on the chicken pieces with some salt and mix thoroughly. Keep aside for about 15 minutes.
Step 2
Heat up the oil in a pan and add the chillies and the garlic. When the garlic starts to brown add in the cumin seeds.
Step 3
Fry for a minute or so.
Step 4
Now add in the chicken mixture, the garam masala and the turmeric.Fry, turning gently until the chicken is cooked.
Step 5
Garnish with coriander and serve hot with chappatis or naan breads.