A simple and easy recipe for kadhai/kadai chicken – a north Indian chicken dish cooked in a wok in a tomato gravy with freshly ground spices.
I already have a recipe for kadhai chicken, a popular restaurant dish, on the blog. In fact it was one of the first few recipes to be posted; back when I had no clue about cooking and was still learning my way in the kitchen. There is also horrible photo that went along with that post.
Kadhai chicken is a popular north indian chicken dish, which is cooked in a wok/kadhai and probably thats why the name. The use of freshly ground whole spices, cooked with onions and tomatoes and chicken on the bone yields this lip smacking dish every chicken lover in India loves. I do prefer butter chicken, but since this is a quicker and easier dish to make, I have fallen in love with kadhai chicken now. In restaurants this dish generally has the addition of bell peppers too.
This recipe that I am sharing is slightly different from the recipe that I shared years back and there is a reason to it. This recipe was a request from one of my readers.
Gavin messaged me a while back with a request to recreate a dish that his wife and he get from their local farmers market, called “Maryam’s Lamb Karahi. He gave me the ingredient list on the side of the box and asked me if I could recreate it with chicken.
Using my old recipe as a base, as well as the list of ingredients on the side of “Maryam’s lamb karahi” box I set to work on a recipe for Gavin. This was a few months back in the summer. Once satisfied I sent the recipe to Gavin, for his input. Since he was leaving for vacation he was only able to put it to test last month and sent me his feedback after trying it.
In Gavin’s words:
In September I cooked your Kadhai Chicken and it was fantastic. I tried it with Lamb as well. I would not change a thing. This recipe is so simple it is brilliant. I love the marinade (I could not stop tasting it while I was making it). The grated onion was a great technique and the slower medium cook allows it all time to come together. A huge difference was the proportion of tomato purée …… yours was just perfect amount compared to the dish we (used to) get at the market and it allows all the flavours to come through so much better. I have made this 4 times already and this is now my base recipe for any protein I want to try with it. Needless to say your Kadhai Chicken is far superior to the dish at the local market.
Gavin calls this dish Shumaila’s Kadhai Chicken and even though I told him that I will be narcissistic enough to title it as such in the blog post, I didn’t. Having said that, I hope you do get to try my kadhai chicken recipe and in case you do please tag me on my social media handles or comment here with your feedback.
Happy cooking!
