Indian Chicken Curry

How brown do the onions really need to be?

Deep golden brown throughout, which is far darker than most people take them and takes a good quarter of an hour. As the onions cook their water leaves, their sugars caramelise and their harsh sulphur compounds mellow into sweetness, and that transformation is the body of the curry. Onions merely softened to translucent give a thin, sharp gravy that tastes raw regardless of what spices follow. Keep the flame medium, stir intermittently rather than constantly, and if they threaten to catch, add a spoon of water instead of turning the heat down.

What does it mean for the oil to separate?

That the masala has cooked out. Water has evaporated to the point where the emulsion of oil, onion and tomato breaks and you see fat pooling at the edges of the pan and around the paste. It is the most reliable visual cue in Indian cooking and it means the raw taste of tomato and the rawness of ground spices have gone. Adding chicken and water before that point locks in a flat, slightly metallic taste that no amount of later simmering removes.

Bone in or boneless?

Bone in, if the aim is a curry with good gravy. Bone and the connective tissue around it release gelatin and marrow into the liquid, which gives body and a depth boneless cubes cannot match, and the bone also slows the heating of the meat next to it so it stays moist. Boneless breast is the fastest option and has its place in a weeknight, but it wants eight to ten minutes rather than twenty five, and overshooting that by even a few minutes gives dry, stringy meat.

How do you know when the chicken is done?

The meat begins to pull away from the bone, the flesh at the thickest point is opaque and white rather than pink, and juices from a pierced piece run clear with no cloudiness. Where a thermometer is available, 75 C at the thickest part is the standard to use. This is not a dish to serve rare, and any pink at the bone joint means it needs another five minutes covered. Overcooking is the more common home fault, and it shows up as meat that shreds into fibres instead of coming away in pieces.

Why does mine taste flat?

Usually one of three things: the onions were underbrowned, the masala was not cooked to the point of separation, or the whole thing was rushed with cold water. Adding cold water to a hot masala drops the temperature abruptly and halts the browning that was still developing. Salt matters too, and a curry needs more than people expect because it is eaten with unsalted bread or rice. Garam masala goes in at the end, since its aromatics are volatile and boiling them for twenty minutes wastes them.

How does it compare with mutton?

The method is the same and the timing is entirely different. Mutton curry needs an hour or more of slow cooking, or a pressure cooker, because goat has far more connective tissue to break down, and it takes a heavier spice hand. Chicken is forgiving on flavour and unforgiving on time. For a vegetarian version of the same base masala, egg curry uses it almost unchanged.

How does it fit a high protein diet?

Well, and better than most restaurant chicken dishes, because there is no cream or cashew here and the only fat is the oil you chose to add. The figures for protein in 100 g of chicken are worth knowing if you are counting, and cutting the oil to two tablespoons and using thigh meat with the skin off keeps it lean without making it dull. The sports nutrition course deals with how to build everyday meals like this into a training week rather than eating differently from the rest of the household.