It’s part comfort food, part pick-me-up curry. My Quick Chicken Wok Curry is the perfect main dish for when you don’t have much time but you want something with the flavours of a curry. You stir-cook this dish and it’s easy to make, and healthy. It’s called Karahi Chicken (or Karahi Murgh which is the word for chicken) across South Asia because it’s usually cooked in a desi (South Asian) wok called a karahi (pronounced: karr-haee), but I don’t have a karahi and so I use a non-stick ceramic wok that my children gave me for a birthday present several years ago and it works just fine. If you don’t have a wok, that’s okay — your regular cooking pot will work, just turn the ingredients a little more frequently so that they don’t stick to the bottom.
The best part of making Karahi Chicken is that it’s incredibly versatile — in my recipe, there’s a subtle hint of green peppers or capsicum, and undertones of chilly (chili) flakes and cumin (this is optional, a variety known as royal or shahi cumin, available at most South Asian stores), and a bold garnish of fresh ginger and cilantro, and I do like it hot and spicy. Both my sons and my daughter in law and grandson too, of late, match my tolerance for spicy hot food, by the way! But you can have it with little or no chilly heat — and trust me, it will be just as delicious. You don’t have to add green peppers (Pakistani karahi purists do not). If you don’t have fresh ginger as a garnish, you can use frozen grated ginger. Or, you can improvise with other vegetables if you like as well. It doesn’t have to be chicken either. I’ve made it with beef, and even with vegetables like okra or, yes, believe me, fresh asparagus.(Recipes to come soon!)
The big thing about Quick Chicken Wok Curry is the style of cooking. So whatever you may have heard about how to make a typical Indian curry, that it’s going to take ages to cook, it’s time to rethink it. Karahi cooking is different. It doesn’t have to be cooked in a sauce, it takes far less time and it isn’t heavy at all, like many curries tend to be. Karahi food is a blue-collar favourite, originating in truck or lorry routes across Pakistan and India, with country style ingredients tossed about and left to simmer in their own juice, often on makeshift stove tops. We’ve refined and elevated it over time, especially in restaurants that offer it as a speciality cuisine these days. Two popular places in Toronto, Karahi Boys and Karahi Point, serve variations of this dish with hot naan and of the two, the latter is pretty authentic. That said, restaurant versions of desi cuisine tend to be a little more oily in general, which is why I recommend my healthy, and (even if I do say so myself) delicious, home cooked version.
I made Karahi Chicken recently on a slightly overcast day, with rain showers and a hint of thunder in the air. I was reminded of family reunions, my sons coming home from boarding school, and our live-in family retainer and chef extraordinaire, Inta, whipping this dish up seemingly effortlessly. This is Inta’s recipe, with helpful hints from my friends Badar and Ayesha, who are amazing home cooks, and my older son and daughter in law in Vancouver who tried it out with a combination of boneless and bone-in chicken thighs that turned out beautifully (see picture below). I thank them all!
Serve this as a main course, with store bought flatbreads such as pita, chappati or roti, or naan; or, if you are a Bangladeshi-Canadian at heart like me, with plain, steaming hot, boiled rice. Yum.
It’s best to prepare all the ingredients before you start cooking . My younger son tells me he’s run aground every time he’s cooked on the fly — getting things ready and prepping ingredients one at a time instead of right at the beginning. Yes, there are some steps that you can work on later, as the pot simmers for instance, but it’s something you learn with experience. Practice makes perfect.
Take a look below and you’ll see how I’ve chopped and sliced and diced and measured the main ingredients for my Karahi Chicken – Quick Chicken Wok Curry: onions, ginger, garlic, red chilly (chili) flakes, black pepper, fresh green peppers, fresh whole red chillies (chilies), tomatoes and cumin.
Recipe
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COOKING TIME: 1 Hour
- 1 kg or 2.2 pounds chicken bone-in (or boneless) curry pieces*
- ¾ cup cooking oil
- 1 ½ cups sliced onions
- 2 medium green peppers sliced
- 8 cloves finely diced garlic (or 2 tbsp, garlic paste)
- 2 tbsp grated or finely chopped ginger (fresh or previously frozen)
- 4 cm (1 ½ inch) piece of ginger julienned (or grated, previously frozen)
- 1 ½ tsp ground black pepper (less if you don’t want heat!)
- 1 tbsp red chilly (chili) flakes (less if you don’t want heat!)
- pinch of turmeric
- 3 medium tomatoes diced
- 1 cup diced cilantro
- 5 – 6 whole fresh chillies (chilies), green or red
- 1 tsp ground royal cumin (shahi zeera) or regular ground cumin*
- 1 ½ tsp salt (or to taste)
- 1 tbsp. ghee
*Chicken bone-in or boneless, cut into 12 or 16 pieces if you get a whole chicken. I prefer 12 because there is more meat on the bone. If you want or can only find boneless chicken, that is fine! Go ahead and use boneless only, but I’d combine boneless thigh and leg pieces with, if you like, breast meat, cut into 2 inch pieces. Breast meat on its own is too dry for my palate at least. My older son in Vancouver combined bone-in and boneless chicken thighs as the picture in my post shows and it turned out well!
*Royal cumin seeds (shahi zeera) are available at most South Asian stores (you’d grind them yourself, at home). But if you can’t find the stuff, don’t sweat, use regular ground cumin!
Set aside a small (about ¼) portion of onions, peppers, and all the julienned ginger to add later (see 4 below).
- In a large wok, heat the oil and on high heat, fry garlic (diced) for about a minute. If you are using garlic paste, go to the next step, don’t add garlic paste now.
- Add onions and salt to your oil and fry till the onions are medium brown, still soft, on the verge of becoming crisp. Add garlic paste now, if you haven’t added diced garlic in the beginning.
- Add red chilly (chili) flakes, black pepper, and chopped (or grated) ginger. Lower heat to medium, for about 2- 4 minutes. Make sure the mixture doesn’t burn so keep turning.
- Add chicken, a dash of turmeric, and cook for about 10 minutes on medium heat, then add the tomatoes and green peppers and keep turning, reducing the heat if the sauce or masala is drying up too fast. We want the chicken and spices to cook but not char. I usually take about 20- 30 minutes here, less if you have boneless chicken.
- Wait till the chicken has cooked: you can tell because the meat shrinks a little, and check to see if the oil has separated so that the sauce glistens and isn’t totally opaque.
- Now gently fold in the rest of the onions, peppers and all the julienned ginger (or grated, previously frozen ginger), lower the heat, cover and let it simmer for 30 minutes (less if you are using boneless chicken). If you don’t have fresh ginger, the grated ginger that you’ve frozen earlier, defrosted, is fine as it won’t change the flavour of the sauce, just that you won’t get a slightly crunchy texture in the sauce!
- Add chopped cilantro, whole fresh chillies (chilies), ghee, and (optional) ground cumin, preferably ground shahi zeera or royal cumin. The cumin adds a smoky flavour. Regular ground cumin is fine if you can’t get shahi zeera.
- Turn off heat and let it sit for 15 minutes. South Asian purists prefer steaming hot food, so reheat before serving; or not. I love my curry at room temperature, philistine that I am. Enjoy!
I made the chicken Quick Chicken Wok Curry and it is to die for. I did add extra pieces of boneless thigh to the chicken pieces with bones, and it was just divine. My family just lapped it up. Please try it. It is heavenly. Almas, waiting for more. I love the pictures, the descriptions and the delicious outcome.
Thank you Nazli! I am delighted the Quick Chicken Wok Curry turned out so well. I am working on more recipes as I write. Your feedback is most encouraging!