Mango Chicken Curry

This healthy chicken curry recipe uses mango, yogurt, onion and garam masala to create a creamy, tangy yet light chicken curry.

I love making Indian chicken curries – they use a few common ingredients and spices in different proportions to produce a variety of flavourful dishes, are not labour intensive, can be made easily for a crowd, and only taste better the next day. A frequent problem with deciding to make curry spontaneously is that my chicken is never marinated, and the resulting curry often tastes like something served in an Indian restaurant in Europe! I’m still working on that, and in today’s recipe I fried the chicken before adding all the marinade to the kadhai.

Continuing my #MangoMission, I wondered if I could use mangoes in my main course. Most mango chicken curry recipes online seem to be Asian-inspired in flavour, with coconut milk or use a traditional Indian chicken curry base with large chunks of mango. However, I wanted something that tastes traditional – thick gravy, flavourful with spices, yet remains true to my household – using negligible oil, chillies and being light. Usually I healthify decadent recipes, but today I took up the challenge of coming up with my own ‘restaurant-style’ mango chicken curry!

Ingredients:

1. Chicken – 500g curry cut
2. Raw mango – 1, pureed (without skin and seed!)
3. Yogurt – 3 tablespoons
4. Chilli powder – 1/2 tbsp
5. Turmeric/Haldi powder – 1/2 tbsp
6. Coriander powder – 1/2 tsp
7. Salt – 1 tsp for the marinade, 1 tsp for the curry + as needed
8. Garam masala – 2 tbsp (I like to roast on a pan and grind 1 tbsp cumin, 10 black peppercorns, 4 cloves, 4 cardamom, 2 star anise, 1 bay leaf)
9. Onions – 1 cup, diced finely
10. Oil – 3 tbsp, for frying
11. Coriander, 1/3 cup.
12. 1 green chilli

Directions:

1. Marinade the chicken with yogurt, raw mango puree, chilli powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder and salt) overnight or at least 4 hours.
2. Heat the kadhai with oil, and fry onions on a medium flame till they are very soft and turning brown – about 15 minutes. Do not proceed till the onions have softened, else they will remain raw and crunchy in the curry.
3. Add the garam masala (whether freshly prepared or pre-made) to the onions and fry for 2 minutes.
4. Add chicken pieces without any excess marinade to the pan, and fry for at least 6-8 minutes till you get a good browning on the meat.
5. Add the remaining marinade to the pan, cover and let it cook for 5 minutes.
6. Add 1/2 cup water and a handful of chopped coriander, the slit green chilli, and let the curry thicken and reduce, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
7. Garnish with remaining coriander and serve with lemon wedges!

Points to note:

1. The most important step is to cook the onions till they caramelize. If you add the chicken prematurely, the onions will remain crunchy in the gravy. You can salvage this by separating the chicken and blending the gravy, and cooking it for 2-3 minutes further.
2. Alternatively, you can blend raw onions and fry it with the garam masala, if you want to save time.
3. If the curry is too tangy, you can add 1 tbsp white sugar or 10-15g of gur/jaggery to sweeten it.
4. If your mango is half-ripe, like mine was, you probably won’t need any sugar.