World’s Best Chicken Curry

My Grand mom has the awesomest recipe for Maharashtrian style chicken curry.

Couple of week’s back I was at her place picking her brain to teach me how to prepare this “World’s Best Chicken Curry”. She agreed and asked me to help her out with all the ingredients. I got a kilo of whole chicken from the shop she suggested. Took out all the spices and grated the coconut for its cream, chopped up the chicken, washed and cleaned all the vessels that are required, etc. And got ready to document everything she did while preparing the world’s best chicken curry.

My Grand mom started with marinating the chicken in oil, green chili and coriander paste along with some salt and Indian masala. While the chicken was marinating she roasted some desiccated coconut along with some onions, ginger, garlic, cashew nuts, whole garam masala and poppy seeds (Khus khus); this mixture was ground to a paste and this forms the main content of the curry. Then came the tomatoes, she prepared some tomato puree after selecting the best three.

Now that all the raw material was ready to use the vessel was heated and some homemade desi ghee (non- processed butter) was heated and to it she added some finely chopped onion and ginger garlic paste. Once the onion was golden brown she added the tomato puree and reduced the mixture till some ghee oozed from the mixture. Then the marinated chicken went in and it was stirred till cooked properly and covered in all the awesome masala and onion-tomato mixture. Once the chicken was cooked she added the desiccated coconut mixture with onion, garam masala etc. prepared earlier.  She added some water to it and gave it a good stir. Then covered the vessel with a serving plate and filled the plate with water, this helps the steam with the flavor from the food to condense and fall back into the curry.

After about 5-10 minutes she took off the lid and tasted the chicken, added some Indian masala and salt to get that perfect taste. Then as the finishing touch she added the coconut cream and tasted it again just to make sure every this is still perfect. And then it was done.

It was now, my turn to eat….!!! I genuinely enjoyed every morsel of it. This is the time in life when everything is right, every worry disappears and I enjoy the moment to its fullest.

Couple of day’s back I recreated this recipe and made sure everything was done the way my grand mom did it, down to the last detail. I even bought the chicken from the same shop she suggested; I borrowed all the spices from her and even the desi ghee.

After about 2 Hrs. it was time from me to taste my creation and as I had guessed it, the chicken curry was OK. Just OK, I exactly replicated everything my grand mom did, down to the last detail and yet I could only come up with a chicken curry that tasted OK.

I called up my grand mom and explained how I did everything the way she thought me and yet my chicken curry was just OK and not even close to her ‘Best Chicken Curry in the World’. She paused for a moment and then with a smile replied “You did not the best grand kids in the world to taste your chicken curry.” She suggested “You should give it a try when you have grand kids and then you’ll get it right.”

With this I realized what I had missed. I missed some loved one to share the chicken curry with. Not that I don’t love myself, but it would have been better if someone who appreciates good food would have accompanied me for my chicken curry.  🙂