Kozhi curry is one of my favorite chicken curries. It has a strong, spicy flavor, simply delicious! Here’s the recipe for a really good one!
Khozi Curry translates into: Chicken Curry 😀. Kozhi is simply the word for chicken in Malayalam, the language from the Indian state of Kerala. So, Khozi curries are typical chicken curries from Kerala. This in turn means that there is not one true recipe, but many different ones. Many have a base of toasted shredded coconut and fried onions with red chilies. Curry leaves are also typical of South India and ginger and garlic were also in all the recipes I found.
Take your time for frying a good chicken curry. Each of the frying steps is important. Onions have to really soften. So does the tomato. The coconut really needs to brown. The chicken itself is not really fried by the way. It is mixed together with the onion-spice mix in the pan, but then covered with water.
Spices added to the pan should also fry nicely. In the beginning the whole spices alongside the coconut, but also later the ground spices. They need to be fried. But not directly on the bottom of the pan. They need to be mixed into the onions, else they cause smoke. The onions give them some moisture which avoids that. It’ll also blend nicely into each other that way.
Since I was afraid that the original kozhi curry recipe I recreated would be too spicy for me, I halved the amount of green chilies at the bottom of the recipe. It was spicy enough as it was. And it was pretty darn tasty 🙂
More on the cuisine from Kerala, and all my recipes from the region, can be found here.
Kozhi Curry – Kerala style chicken curry
Ingredients
- 1 kg chicken preferably on the bone, otherwise 700g
For the coconut paste
- 1 cup grated coconut
- 1 tsp fennel seeds
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp peppercorns black
- 3-4 sprigs curry leaves about 15 leaves each
For the curry
- 4-5 onions
- 3 Tbsp garlic chopped
- 3 Tbsp ginger chopped
- 4 green chilies (I use half, so only 2!)
- salt
- 1 Tbsp turmeric powder
- 1 ½ Tbsp red chili powder
- 1 Tbsp garam masala
- 2 tomatoes chopped
- 1 handful coriander leaves chopped coarsly
- ½ tsp cumin powder
- ½ tsp garam masala
- coconut oil or neutral oil, e.g. sunflower
Instructions
- Indian curries mostly use chicken meat on the bone, without skin. In this case, the larger pieces are chopped into pieces. This makes them smaller and they cook faster. Bone marrow is released, which makes curry more viscous and aromatic. If you don't like that, use chicken fillet and reduce the amount a bit.
- But for those who prepare the chicken chopped: after chopping, wash it once briefly and dry it with kitchen roll. Otherwise it can happen that you have bone splinters in your curry.
The coconut paste
- Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry the ground coconut well.
- Then add fennel seeds, black pepper, cumin seeds and curry leaves.
- Fry until the coconut is lightly browned and remove the coconut mixture from the heat.
- Now put it in a blender and grind the mixture to a fine paste.
The curry
- Cut the onions into thin slices and chop the tomatoes into small cubes. Set both aside separately.
- Chop ginger and garlic coarsly.
- Then heat some oil in a pan, add the chopped ginger and garlic, the green chilies and the onions and fry everything well.I always put ginger in the pan first, it takes away its spiciness. To prevent the garlic from becoming bitter, I add it quite late.
- Add some salt and fry everything until the onions are translucent.
- Then add turmeric powder, red chili powder, coriander powder and garam masala on top of the onions and fry everything well.
- Then add the chopped tomatoes and fry them well.
- Add the chicken meat and mix everything well.
- Now pour water over everything so that everything is covered enough to simmer with a lid on. The chicken meat should be soft and cooked without cooking it too tough.
- Then add the coconut mixture and mix well. If necessary, add a little more water and let it simmer for another 5 minutes.
- At the end, add a handful of chopped coriander leaves and some garam masala and cumin powder.
- Now take it off the heat and serve the curry with chapatis or rice 🙂.
Please rate my recipe before you leave 🙂:
Source of this Kozhi Curry Recipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJBz4cnHq0E
Cooked with lots of love ♥ on From zero to curry.
