Kashmiri Chicken

Kashmiri chicken close up shot in a pan.

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5 from 9 votes

A delicious sweet and sour chicken that can be eaten alone or with rice and naan.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Bohra Recipes, Indian

Keyword Kashmiri Chicken

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 20

Total Time 40

Servings servings

Calories 437kcal

Author Mariam Sodawater

Ingredients

500 g chicken pieces

Paste

4 to 5 whole Kashmiri red chilies see notes
¼ cup raisin see notes
2-3 cloves garlic
½ teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon coriander seeds optional
½ cup yogurt
¼ cup oil

Tempering

2 tablespoon oil
¼ teaspoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon mustard seeds
½ teaspoon black seeds
2 twigs curry leaves optional but recommended.
3-4 round red chilies (sabut gol mirch)

Instructions

Make Kashmiri Paste

Break Kashmiri chili into small pieces and grind it to powder. Soak Kashmiri lal mirch powder for 5 minutes in ¼ cup boiling hot water to bring out that vibrant red color.
Soak raisins for 5 minutes in boiling hot water to make them soft. Discard the water.
Blend soaked Kashmiri chili, garlic, soaked raisin, cumin, and yogurt together until you have a smooth paste. This will take some time about 2 minutes.

Make Chicken

Marinate chicken in kashmiri paste for 10 minutes in the paste.
Stir fry chicken for 2 minutes on high heat. Then cover and cook the chicken on medium heat for 20 minutes until the chicken is tender. Add ¼ cup water if needed.

Tempering

For tempering, heat oil in a pan and add curry leaves, cumin seeds, round chilies, mustard seeds, and kalonji (black seeds). Cook for a minute. Now add the tempering to the chicken and cover it to let the aroma infuse in the chicken very well.
Cook Chicken until it reaches desired consitency then serve.

Video

Notes

Kashmiri Chili: Kashmiri lal mirch or /Kashmiri red chili are large, long chilies that give a bright red color to the recipe and have a mildly spicy taste.

If you have difficulty finding it look in an Indian store. You can use 2 tablespoons of Kashmiri chili powder too for this recipe but the taste would depend on the quality and purity of the powder.

Chicken: I used chicken drumsticks in the pictorial. But you can use chicken leg and breast pieces or chicken cut into 8 pieces. In my experience bone-in chicken works best.

Raisin: You can switch raisins with soaked (overnight) cashew to thicken the gravy. Raisins would make the gravy mildly sweet while cashew would make it creamy. You may skip raisin altogether. It still tastes great.

Spices for Tempering: The main spices of tempering are cumin, and dried red chili (any variety). I used mustard and fenugreek seed for curried flavor. Fresh curry leaves taste amazing if you could add it.

Yogurt: You can use less or more yogurt depending on the amount of gravy you want in the Kashmiri chicken.

Nutrition