C46 Chicken Lal Mirch

This was inspired by a recipe by Camellia Panjabi and apparently originates from Madras and has a Parsee influence. It has been heavily modified to suit a single portion and cooked in BIR (British Indian Restaurant) rather than traditional style. 'Lal' means 'red' and 'mirch' means 'chilli', so it is a red chilli chicken. With the use of c41 spice mix it is similar to an 'old style' madras.

Ingredients

For 1	Continued...
1 - 2 tbspn oil	¼ garam masala
50 gm onion (prepared weight)	¼ tspn ground cinnamon
10 gm garlic	½ tspn ground cardamom
5 gm ginger	300 ml c46 curry base sauce (see note 2)
1 tspn chilli powder (see note 1)	1 tbspn tomato purée
1 tspn paprika	1 portion c41 pre-cooked chicken tikka
¾ tspn c41 spice mix	¼ tspn salt

Preparation

Finely chop the onion.
Finely chop the garlic.
Finely chop the ginger.

Cooking about 7 min

Heat the oil in a suitable pan and fry the onion, stirring regularly, for 2 min.
Add the garlic and ginger and fry, stirring constantly, for about 15 seconds.
Add the chilli powder, paprika, c41 spice mix, garam masala, cinnamon and cardamom and cook, stirring, for about 30 seconds, adding a little c46 base sauce if necessary to prevent drying and burning.
Stir in the tomato purée and 80 ml of c46 base sauce and cook, stirring, for 1 min, adding a little c46 base sauce if necessary to prevent drying.
Add the c41 pre-cooked chicken tikka, 80 ml of c46 base sauce and salt and cook, stirring regularly, for 3 min, adding c46 base sauce as needed to maintain the desired sauce consistency.

Serving

Serve with rice and optionally garnish with a little freshly chopped coriander.

Notes

(1) Traditionally a paste would be made from Kashmiri red chillies, but here the red colour is achieved from the chilli powder, paprika and tomato purée. I use Deggi Mirch chilli powder which is particularly red whilst not being overly hot and this can be purchased online or from many Asian outlets. If you can't get Deggi Mirch, then use ordinary chilli powder.
(2) Dilute the 300 ml of c46 base sauce with 200 ml of water and heat before use. If defrosted from frozen the base sauce can be warmed and briefly blended to reconstitute the colour and consistency.

The main ingredients

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The finished meal

Deggi Mirch

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