Mumma’s Chicken

Ingredients

Part 1

Part 2

Instructions

  1. Add the ingredients in part 1 to a large bowl. Mix well with a fork or your hands until all the chicken is evenly coated in a homogenous marinade. You can put in a few extra seconds to massage the marinade in, or poke holes in the chicken with a fork to get the marinade to seep in. Set aside while you prep other ingredients (like chopping the onion).
  2. Heat about 2 tbsp of cooking oil over medium-high heat in a heavy-bottomed pot or braiser. When the oil is hot, add the bay leaf and wait until fragrant, about 30s.
  3. Add the diced onion to the pot and stir well to coat in oil. Spread the mixture into as thin/even a layer as you can get in your pan. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes, until the onions start to soften, and the ones on the edges just start to brown. The onions should be soft, NOT crispy or seared. If the onions start to get crispy or overly brown, turn the head down to medium.
  4. Now, keep heating the onions, stirring often, until all the onions are brown and soft. If you think they’re done, stir and cook a little longer. They can probably get a bit browner than you think. The whole process should be about 15-20 minutes. If the heat is too low, you’ll end up caramelizing, which will make the dish sweet. So the heat needs to be medium/medium-high, and you need to stir often enough that nothing burns, but not so often that the onions don’t have an opportunity to brown.
  5. When the onions are sufficiently brown and soft, add the chicken mixture to the pot. Stir the contents of the pot so that the chicken/onions are evenly mixed, spread the chicken in as thin/even a layer as you can. Ideally each piece of chicken should touch the bottom of the pot. Wait for a few minutes so the chicken can develop a nice sear. You can lift up part of a piece with a spatula and check how the sear is doing, you want it not to be burned.
  6. Once it feels like if you left the chicken sitting any longer it could burn the bottom, stir the mixture once. Keep browning other parts of the chicken by stirring, flipping and watching. If things are starting to burn instead of develop an even red sear, lower the heat or stir more often (but again don’t lower it too much or the chicken will not brown it will just boil in its own juices).
  7. At some point the chicken will start to give off a liquid. This is a good thing, we have finished browning and are entering the braising step. Add the garam masala. Keep stirring, flipping and browning the chicken while it braises in its own broth. Eventually, the broth will start to reduce a bit (or will stop growing). Over time, the yellow marinade will start turning a light brown and then start darkening into the color of chicken curry. The other important thing that will happen is the mixture will start to sweat. As the liquid is reduced, the oil/fat will start to separate from the onion-y marinade. The liquid that was sizzling at the edges of the mixture will go from being homogenous to being split up between the water-soluble parts and the oil-soluble parts. This is when you know you are done.
  8. Add a little bit of water (1/2-1 cup) and stir to make the mixture even. Bring to a oil, then place a lid on the pot and let it simmer for another 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally so things don’t stick to the bottom of the pan. If your chicken is not dark enough, you can keep simmering until it is.
  9. Add salt to taste, start with 1 tsp and add more in 1/2 tsp quantities, tasting the gravy at every step.