Chicken Rezala

Chicken Rezala from a BIR (British Indian Restaurant) or a Take-Away will probably contain chicken with minced meat. Traditional recipes however do not usually contain minced meat and are cooked using milk, yogurt or a combination of both. The ingredient differentiating this offering is evaporated milk which adds a slightly burnt creamy background flavour which is delightful.

Ingredients

For 1	Continued...
2 tbspn oil	75 gm onion (prepared weight)
½ tspn fennel seeds	1 chicken breast
½ tspn hot chilli powder	2 tspn green chilli
¼ tspn ground cinnamon	1½ tspn rezala spice mix
¼ tspn turmeric	1 tspn ground almonds
¼ tspn fenugreek powder	½ tspn sugar
¼ tspn cumin seeds.	20 approx pistachio nuts
½ tspn garlic	100 ml approx evaporated milk
	2 tspn kewra water (optional)

Preparation

Chop the chicken into 1 inch cubes.
Finely chop the onion.
Crush the garlic and mix with a little oil to make a paste.
Finely chop the green chilli.

Cooking

Heat the oil over a medium heat and fry the fennel seeds, chilli powder, cinnamon, turmeric, fenugreek and cumin seeds for 30 seconds.
Lower the heat and add the onion and garlic paste and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 min.
Raise the heat and add the chicken, green chilli and rezala spice mix and cook, stirring regularly, for 5 min.
Lower the heat and add the nuts (add a little salt if not using salted nuts), sugar, almonds and a little evaporated milk and simmer for 5 min, adding evaporated milk as needed to maintain the required sauce consistency (the sauce should be fairly thick).
Turn the heat to low, optionally add the kewra water, and continue to simmer until the chicken is fully cooked (it should be white throughout).

Serving

Serve with rice and optionally garnish with a few raisins and freshly chopped coriander.

Notes

The pistachio nuts can be roasted and salted if you prefer.
Any remaining evaporated milk can be frozen in a jar or other suitable container for future use.
The heat can be adjusted by modifying the amount of fresh or powdered chilli.
This recipe was adapted from a video on YouTube from "Titli's Busy Kitchen" called "Balti Chicken Rezala".