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Staff Chicken Curry

Staff Chicken Curry is a traditional British Indian Restaurants (BIR) recipe for the curry typically cooked for the staff at the end of their shift. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: Staff Chicken Curry.

prep time

20 minutes

cook time

130 minutes

Total Time:

150 minutes

Serves:

4-6

Rating:

Tags : CurryBIR CurriesChicken RecipesBritish Recipes

I was really lucky to get this recipe. It was a quiet night in my local curry house and I managed to blag my way into the kitchen. They were preparing the curry that the staff would get at the end of the night the ‘staff chicken curry’ and I managed to get hold of the recipe. I’d forgotten about this for years, but recently I unearthed a cache of recipe notebooks that had food from Cape Verde as well as several curry recipes. Amongst them was this one, which I recently made for my wife and myself. So, I’m not transcribing it to present on my website. This is a classic British Indian Recipe (BIR) dish though it’s cooked in a different way (and much longer) than the typical BIR curry.

Ingredients:

2 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground cumin
500ml (2 cups) oil
1 cinnamon stick
5 cardamom pods, crushed
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
2 large onions, finely chopped
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp mixed powder
2 fresh tomatoes
500g chicken (legs and thighs, skinned)
2 large potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
Salt, to taste
Lemon juice, to taste
6-10 pickled green chillies, to taste

Method:

Add half the oil to a wok or deep saucepan and place over medium heat. Add the cinnamon, cardamom pods and bay leaves. Stir-fry for 3 minutes to ensure the spices do not burn.

Now add the finely-chopped onion and the ginger-garlic paste. Cook, stirring frequently, for about 6 minutes before scattering over the chilli powder, turmeric, spice powder, stirring in the tomatoes and adding the chicken. Cook for 30 seconds until the mixed powder is aromatic.

Add water to come to the level of the chicken and bring to a simmer then bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover and cook gently for 2 hours, until the gravy has thickened.

About 30 minutes before the curry is due to be ready add the potato chunks. These will both add bulk to the curry and will help thicken it.

Season to taste with salt, lemon juice and chilli powder. Stir in the pickled green chillies, if using, and serve.