Another new dish for me. Taken from my food hero’s cook book – Rick Steins India written after his successful TV series of the same name.

A few reasons I was drawn to this recipe – 1. a cheap dish to make as I only needed to buy the chicken thighs on the bone which as you know is a cheaper way to purchase chicken plus thighs are the best for flavour. £3.45 for 1 kilo. I also had to purchase tomatoes but I had everything else in the house. 2. It was a one pot dish which I’m drawn to as it’s easier to clean up as you go along. 3. After a mentally draining week due to the few ingredients needed it wasn’t a taxing dish to create.

Firstly, before you start cooking….make sure you’re equipped with one of these!!!

As Rick details in his book, this recipe is a traditional home dish from Pondicherry in the south of Chennai. Another reason for trying this, traditional dish which isn’t westernised.

Ingredients- 2 tbsp of vegetable oil, small piece of cinnamon stick, 1 clove, 1 star anise, 2 onions diced, 10 garlic cloves crushed, 1 tbsp cumin, 2 tsp of Kashmiri chilli, 1/2 tsp of fenugreek, 1/2 tsp of turmeric, 1 tsp of salt, 500g of tomatoes, 1 kg of chicken thighs ( or drumsticks) 1 tbsp of white wine vinegar & 1 tsp of sugar.

Method – heat the oil in a heavy pan. Once the oil is hot add the cinnamon stick, star anise & clove allowing them to flavour the oil for a minute or so.

Then add the diced onion, allow this to cook down for 10-15 until softened and golden brown.

Crush the garlic cloves then after 15 minutes of the onions cooking away add the garlic & cumin powder. Stir this for 2 minutes coating the onion.

At this point the kitchen will smell amazing.

Then add the chilli powder, fenugreek, turmeric & salt then fry for another 30 seconds.

Add the chopped tomatoes, stir then leave to cook for 5 minutes or so until they start to break down.

Add the chicken. Coat the chicken and place the lid on and cook for 35 minutes. I made a small mistake at this point. I added a splash of water thinking it might be to dry…..wrong…..as the lid is placed on the pan the tomatoes will break down further creating a stock to cook the chicken in. So naturally I’d made this too wet so after 35 minutes I removed the lid and let this cook down for another 10 minutes.

The smell at this point was amazing. The dish was coming together naturally. Whilst this was cooking I made a dhal. I’ve used the same method for my dhal for years and it’s so simple. Hot oil in a pan, add cumin seeds and couple of cardamom pods and fry these until the cumin seeds pop. Add 1/2 a diced onion and a tsp of turmeric then fry for a couple of minutes. Add the orange lentils and coat them in this mixture. Add double the amount of water to lentils, lid on the saucepan and simmer removing any scum off the surface.

5 minutes from the end add the white wine vinegar and sugar.

I served this up with the dhal and some breads (shop bought).

All this for under £5!

Thank you as always for reading if you have.