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Chicken & Tomato Balti Curry

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If you like tomatoes, you'll love this Chicken & Tomato Balti Curry It is a wonderful curry but, be mindful to make it when tomatoes are truely in season and really flavourful.

And by the way, this dish is really easy to make :-)

I bought vine ripened ones to create this dish, as they were absolutely beautiful and a decent price at the time. The best tomatoes to use are fresh plum tomatoes (NOT tinned!!!) as they contain considerablly less water, however, they come at a premium price that I'm not prepared to pay for on this occasion. I'll just omit adding any extra water to the dish.

As a rule of thumb when buying tomatoes — smell them — if they are fairly odourless, they are probably just as tasteless and may have been kept in cold storage, which does them no good at all (shakes head!) Also, buy them few days before you need them, so as to allow them to ripen up a bit more and create more flavour.

a bit more on tomatoes

If you want to make this dish when tomatoes are out-of-season, lacking in flavour and a little pale, you can add a tablespoon of tomato purée to give the curry a boost. However, you can't beat the fully ripened in-season fruit that hasn't been chilled. When possible, buy from a greengrocer or independant supermarket that doesn't keep them in cold storage, it makes such a difference to the taste. And, while we're on the subject, never store your tomatoes or any other fruit in the fridge, they may keep a little longer, but they do lose bags of flavour :-(

Click the Method tab below to see a step by step guide on how to make Chicken & Tomato Balti Curry along with some pictures as guidance.

chicken-and-tomato-balti-with-basmati-rice

ingredients

Here's what you need

Serves 4

  • 4 Tbsp vegetable oil
  • 6 to 10 fresh curry leaves
  • 1Kg (8 medium) ripe tomatoes
  • 1/2 tsp onion (nigella) seeds
  • 1/2 tsp brown mustard seeds
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp extra hot chilli powder
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 Tbsp garlic paste
  • 675g skinless, boneless chicken thighs - diced
  • 1 Tbsp sesame seeds - toasted
  • A handful of fresh coriander

method

As I said in the intro, the best tomatoes for this Chicken & Tomato Balti Curry are fresh plum tomatoes as the contain very little water, however, I'm not paying the price they're asking unless I have Royalty coming for dinner!

If you do use fresh plum tomatoes, you won't need to reduce the liquid so much in stage six.

Apart from that, this is an easy curry to make that only has a few spices, so gather everything you need and you'll have it plated in no time at all.

  1. Heat a heavy based wok or large pan & add oil
  2. Once the oil shimmers add:
    • onion seeds
    • brown mustard seeds
    • curry leaves
frying curry leaves with onion & mustard seeds
mustard and onion seeds frying with curry leaves 01
  1. Lower the heat slightly & add your tomatoes
  2. While they gently cook mix the following together:
    • ground coriander
    • ground cumin
    • extra hot chilli powder
    • salt
    • garlic paste
  3. Tip the spice paste into the tomatoes & stir well
garlic & spices added
garlic & spices added to tomatoes 02
  1. Lower the heat & continue to cook uncovered for a minimum of 20 minutes to reduce the liquid, stir occassionly
reduce the liquid
cook uncovered to redice the liquid
  1. Turn up the heat, add your chicken & stir for about 5 minutes until the chicken whitens then lower the heat & cook until the chicken is cooked through — about 10 mins.
add chicken
chicken added 02
  1. Get a small frying pan and dry toast your sesame seeds for just a minute.

nutty tip clean Move them around continually so they don't burn and they will gradually turn pale brown and start to 'pop' and jump about. You will smell a lovely nutty aroma when they are done. Pop them into something cold to cool them.

toast the sesame seeds
toasting sesame seeds
let them cool
toasted sesame seeds cooling
  1. To check the curry, pinch the chicken or pull apart with a fork, if done and the sauce is a good consistancy add the sesame seeds & fresh coriander

Don't forget the fresh coriander as we did in this picture!

chicken & tomato balti ready
chicken-and-tomato-balti-ready-in-wok
chicken & tomato balti
chicken-and-tomato-balti-with-basmati-rice

served with plain basmati rice

When you have such beautiful fresh flavours as there are in this Chicken & Tomato Balti Curry, the delicate flavour of plain basmati rice will complement them perfectly. Just sprinkle with a few more toasted sesame seeds and a sprig of coriander if you have them to hand.

nutty tip clean Please note: you can freeze this curry, however, it will squeeze out water from those tomatoes and will look a little runny — but still taste amazing!

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