Safza Chicken (Ayam Safza)

Yesterday, I cooked my husband's yet another favourite dish. It is basically curry. Oh well, being someone married to a man of Indian descent, curry is something that I must know how to cook. Since there is a saying, "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach", I try as much as I can to please my husband with my cooking.

As we all know, curry is something that can be cooked in variations. Being adventurous in the kitchen one day, I was tempted to cook my chicken curry in a different way. Like my mother always said, "You are the one cooking the dish so you can vary it in whatever way you want when you want a change. You can always edit cooking here and there." So, by inspiration, I just dumped whatever I felt like dumping into my curry pot. When my husband finallly tasted the cooked curry, he kept asking me, what was the name of the curry dish. I told him that it was basically chicken curry. My husband insisted to know the name of the curry because he really liked it and he said it did not taste like the usual curry I cooked. I told him that I don't know what to call it as it was just a dumping session that I did with the cooking but since he had liked it so much, I named this dish after him, "Safza Chicken". So, he ate happily ever after knowing that this dish has had a name at last. 

If you are looking for a change in your chicken curry cooking, you might want to give this recipe a try. I am sure that you will love it.

Still the usual spices: cinnamon, cardamoms, cloves and star anise.

I love red and ripe tomatoes in my dishes. I find that they enhance the taste of your cooking. I used strawberry tomatoes this time. Other times I also used cherry tomatoes. To me, tomatoes give a sweet and sour balance to the taste of curries.

This would also be a good time to get some good bacteria to start working in the stomachs as I used quite a bit of natural yoghurt in this dish. I think it is also the yoghurt that gave this curry its soft and light taste.

Should you be cooking in a smaller portion, you can reduce the ingredients by half.

The ingredients you would need:-

1-2 whole chicken cut into pieces or 1-2 packets of frozen drumsticks
1 large onion diced
1 stick cinnamon (about 3 cm)
3 star anise
4 cloves
4 cardamoms
10-20 pcs of strawberry or cherry tomatoes
5 green chillies slit in halves and cut into twos
3 tablespoon natural yoghurt
1 spoon sugar
1 spoon tomato puree
salt to taste
3 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon ghee
1 small bowl of water
1/2 a small packet of fried shallots
a small bunch of coriander leaves - cut or chopped into smaller pieces

(*to be mixed together with water into a paste)
2 tablespoon meat curry powder (I used House Brand)
2 tablespoon biryani powder (I used House Brand)

(**to be blended in a food processor with a little water to form a paste)
2 large onions**
4 shallots**
8 garlics**
3 cm ginger**

Method:

1. Heat oil and ghee in pot and add cinammon, cloves, cardamoms and star anise and saute for one minute.



2. Add in the diced onions.



3. Saute for another 2 to 3 minutes or until the onion is no longer opaque.



4. Add in the blended ingredients.



5. Saute for a further five minutes.



6. Add in the biryani powder and curry powder paste.



7. Continue to saute for another five minutes.



8. Add in the tomato puree, sugar and salt and saute till oil separates.



9. Once you see oil collecting at the gaps of your sauteing mix, the oil has separated. 



10. Add in the chicken pieces.



11. Fold in the chicken pieces till they are fully coated.



12. Add in the bowl of water and yoghurt.



13. Stir thoroughly and cover your pot or pan for about 15 to 20 mins or until the chicken pieces are cooked.



14. Take off the lid and stir.



15. Add in the green chillies and stir. 



16. Add in the strawberry tomatoes and stir.



17. Add in the fried shallots and stir.



18. Add in the chopped coriander leaves and stir and let simmer for 5 minutes.



19. Give a final stir and off fire.

This dish is suitable to be eaten with butter rice, biryani rice, white rice, bread or prata.

Enjoy and Happy Kitchen-ing!!