Chicken Jalfrezi

This Friday like every other Friday was making my expectations very high.....How would I enjoy the weekend and how I was determined that this weekend will be different from other weeknds in the sense, that I will do something very constructive, enjoyable and will not just laze around......So for me its the Friday dinner which sets the note of the weekend.....But but but....a hard day at my school left me with no energy for preparing special dishes in the evening......Yet to satisfy my expectations I had to churn out something delightful for the Friday drinks and dinner....So here it was Chicken Jalfrezi....sounds good....hmmm...restaurant like ...right???

 Ingredients:

500 gms of chicken breast (skin removed), well washed and cut into bite sized pieces

2-3 medium sized onion, cut into long pieces, not very thin

1 medium sized tomato, finely chopped

2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1/2 inch ginger, thinly sliced

Spices and other stuff :

Garam Masala (2 tsp)

Jeera (Cumin) powder (1 tsp)

Corriander powder (1.5 tsp)

Salt according to taste

Pinch of sugar

Red chilly powder according to taste

Turmeric (1/2 tsp)

Chicken stock powder (optional)

Cook It- 

Marination ...Now marinating is not very important for this dish, however since I find the chicken breast very fibrous, I marinate the chicken here with oil, 1 tsp of ginger garlic paste, chilly  powder and salt. Marinate it for about half an hour or so.

To start with we add oil in the pan, as the oil heats, I throw in the onion and the garlic, a pinch of salt, to sweat the onions fast, after the onions become translucent add a pinch of sugar to caramelize the onions. Now we add in 3/4 th of the chopped ginger, and the bell peppers. We let the bell peppers ooze some of the water out. At this stage, we add the powdered spices except the Garam Masala. Mix it well. Once the oil starts oozing out of the onion and peppers, add the marinated chicken . Now since this chicken is boneless it is gonna get cooked fast. So we toss the chicken well with the spices. After this we add in the sliced tomato.(You may add tomato puree also, depending on your convenience. But tomato ketchup is something which you may avoid adding, given the smell of vinegar.) Now we let the tomatoes cook. The chicken becomes tender with the juices from the tomatoes .You may add half a cup of water for slight gravy. We may mix the chicken stock powder in warm water (optional) and then add it instead of plain water. Cover the pan with a lid, put the stove on medium flame.  Once we see the chicken oozing out the oil, we check with a fork whether the chicken is cooked. Lastly spread the garam masala. Cover the lid and let the chicken stand and the fragrance of garam masala should sink in the chicken. Turn off the stove. Garnish your chicken with corriander, the rest of the ginger and a wedge of lemon.

Serve your Chicken Jalfrezi with Chapattis or Naan. Also goes well with Fried Rice. 

A perfectly colourful Friday night fast dinner! Bon Appetit!