Pepper chicken

Pepper chicken masala made with basic spices and herbs in South Indian style. Tastes great with plain rice, chapati or paratha.

Prep time - 5 min
Cook time - 30 min
Servings - 4

Ingredients:
1 cup onions - finely chopped or pureed
3/4 tsp ginger garlic paste (or grated)
1 cup tomatoes chopped or 3/4 cup tomato puree (optional)
1 - 1 1/2 tsp peppercorn coarsely crushed
1/4 tsp red chilli powder or paprika
3/4 - 1 tsp garam masala powder
 1/2 tsp jeera (cumin)
2-3 green cardamoms
1 inch cinnamon (dalchini)
3 cloves (laung)
2-3 tbsp oil

Marinade:
500 gm boneless chicken
3/4 tsp ginger- garlic paste (or grated)
1/8 tsp turmeric
salt to taste

Optional
3-4 tbsp coconut milk

Method:
1. Marinade the chicken with all marinade ingredients. Keep aside.
2. Pour oil into a pan. Add cumin, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. Allow to sizzle.
3. Add curry leaves and ginger garlic paste. Fry till the raw smell of ginger garlic disappears.
4. Add onions and fry till they turn golden.
5. Add tomatoes and salt. Fry till tomatoes turn mushy and soft.
6. Add red chilli powder, garam masala and coarsely crushed pepper corns.
7. Fry well till the mixture loses all the moisture.

8. Add marinaded chicken, and fry for 3-4 minutes.
9. Cover and cook on low flame till chicken is tender and cooked thoroughly. Can add little water if needed.
10. Cover and cook till soft.
11. If you want a little gravy, can take off while there is still some moisture. Or can add 3-4 tbsp coconut milk.
If you want a dry version, cook without lid and fry till all the moisture dries up.
12. Squeeze some lemon juice over chicken before serving

Serve hot with rice.

Option:
Instead of garam masala, can make chettinad masala and use that.
3 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp jeera seeds
1 1/2 tsp pepper corn
4 green cardamom (elaichi)
3 cloves
2 inch cinnamon stick
3 red chillis (skip if using red chilli powder
Dry roast the above ingredients and powder finely. Add this in place of garam masala.

recipe - https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/pepper-chicken-recipe/

Note- I tried this recipe without the tomatoes, and made a semi-dry pepper chicken.