Chicken Kofta Curry/Spicy Chicken Meatballs Curry

‘Kofta’ is a type of meatball, and it’s a popular dish in Afghan, Azerbaijani, Arab, Armenian, Balkan, Bangladeshi, Indian, Palestinian, Iranian, Jordanian, Kurdish, Moroccan, Pakistani, Romanian, Lebanese, and Turkish cuisine. In the simplest form, koftas consist of balls of minced or ground meat—usually beef, pork or lamb—mixed with spices and/or onions. In North India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey and Iran, koftas are usually made from lamb, beef, mutton or chicken. (Text source)

Few days back when hubby brought home some minced chicken, I asked him, ‘why this?’

Is there anything particular in your mind, I said.
The answer was ‘No’.
Then why you bought this! I told him promptly.
Make whatever you wish, he replied.

I wish. Well, when it comes to my wish my mind gives me too many ideas for one thing. And some time I get confused. But, this time the first thing came into my mind was ‘Meatball’. I murmured ‘meatballs’. Yes meatballs! 🙂 The next day I cooked this simple Chicken meatball curry, and it turned out really good. I didn’t have fancy things in my pantry that day. So I used very basic Indian spices and cooked a simple Garam Masala spiced Meatball curry. It was comforting and delicious in taste. We had this with Peas pulao. Try this; I hope you too will like it! 🙂

Chicken Kofta Curry/Spicy Chicken Meatballs Curry

Serves: 3

Ingredients

For koftas (chicken meatballs)

Yields: 10 chicken meatballs

• Minced chicken- 250g
• Ginger-garlic paste- 1 tbsp
• Salt- ½ tsp
• Cumin seeds- ¼ tsp
• Black pepper powder- ¼ tsp
• Roasted cumin seeds powder- ½ tsp (Dry fry the cumin seeds in a frying pan. Cool them. Grind to a fine powder using your mixer/grinder.)
• Beasn/Gram flour- 1 tbsp
• Vegetable oil/Olive oil for frying

For the curry

• Tomato puree- ½ cup
• Paste of two medium sized onions
• Ginger-garlic paste- 1 tsp
• Cumin powder- 1 tsp
• Coriander powder- 1 tsp
• Turmeric powder- ½ tsp
• Kashmiri mirch powder- ½ tsp
• Green chilies- 4 (slitted)
• Salt to taste
• Garam masala powder- ¼ tsp

For tempering

• Bay leaf- 2
• Whole dry red chili- 1 (broken)
• Green cardamom- 4 (roughly crushed)
• Cinnamon- 1″ (two pieces)
• Cloves- 4

Method

In a frying pan dry fry beasn for one minute. Do this on medium flame. Keep aside.

In a bowl add everything mentioned ‘for koftas’. Add roasted beasn into this. Now mix lightly using your fingers. When everything is incorporated; grease your palms with oil and start making lemon sized balls from the minced chicken mixture.

Heat ½ cup oil in a wok/kadai/deep frying pan. Fry the koftas on medium flame until golden in color. Don’t fry them for a longer time; otherwise they will turn hard and chewy. Keep aside.

In the remaining oil (there should be 3-4 tbsp oil in the kadai to make the curry) add all the ingredients mentioned ‘for tempering’. Add the onion paste and sauté for a minute on medium flame. Next to add tomato puree, turmeric powder, salt, cumin powder, coriander powder, ginger-garlic paste, green chilies and kashmiri mirch powder. Mix well. Sauté this on medium flame until the masala starts leaving oil. Add 1 cup of water into this, mix well. Give this a quick boil on high flame. Lower the flame; cook the curry for 10 minutes. Next to add the fried koftas. Mix gently and cook for 10-12 minutes on low flame. Add garam masala powder, mix well. Remove from heat.

Your’ Spicy Chicken Kofta Curry’ is ready to eat. Serve hot with Pulao, Fried rice or Parathas. Enjoy!

Note:

Don’t over mix the minced chicken. And try not to make tight balls. Chicken has less fat than mutton, lamb or pork. So the koftas may get hard after cooking if you make tight balls.

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