Chicken Keema Curry: Ground Chicken Curry
This chicken keema curry is one recipe you want to try during your busy mid-week. It’s simple, easy, and quick to make. Yet, it offers a satisfyingly delicious meal.
This chicken keema curry is one recipe you want to try during your busy mid-week. It’s simple, easy, and quick to make. Yet, it offers a satisfyingly delicious meal.
Chicken keema curry
If you can only learn one recipe of how to cook a delicious chicken curry that gives you a comfortable homey feel, it should be this chicken keema curry recipe.
It is so easy to make, with simple ingredients, yet it gives a flavorful dish.
Chicken keema – which means ground chicken – is the primary ingredient of this recipe. And the very same words are also used to describe the dry curry made with ground chicken.
So, when you hear a Pakistani or anyone from the Indian subcontinent say chicken keema, chances are they refer to ground chicken curry.
Of all the curries you know and cook, this one is probably the easiest and quickest to make.
Because it only uses spices for ordinary curries. And given the nature of chicken meat, it doesn’t take a long time to cook it.
Cooking ground meat, whether it is red meat or white, is easier and faster than cooking meat cut in pieces anyway.
Keema dishes
There are many dishes in Indian and Pakistani cuisines that use keema, i.e. ground meat. Regardless of what meat it is. I mean, it can be red meat or white.
So you may come across the ever-popular aloo keema (potato and ground meat) and keema matar (ground meat with green peas).
And there are keema paratha (fried flatbread with ground meat filling), or keema karela (ground meat with bitter gourd).
Next time you go to your butcher, you know that you have more ideas to use the ground meat – which is relatively cheaper than the cut meat – to cook Indian/ Pakistani food.
Ingredients needed for ground chicken curry
Apart from ground chicken (chicken mince), you will also need brown onion, ginger, garlic, turmeric powder, ground cumin, Kashmiri red chili powder, yogurt, potatoes, salt, and cooking oil.
If you don’t have Kashmiri red chili powder, you can use cayenne pepper, or ordinary red chili pepper powder/ red chili powder.
Needless to say, you need plain flavorless yogurt to cook this savory ground chicken curry.
When it comes to vegetables, don’t limit yourself only to potatoes. Though the spuds are the most popular choice, you can always choose something else like sweetcorn, green peas, cauliflower, or broccoli.
As for cooking oil, any neutral oil will do its job. I personally prefer either rapeseed oil or sunflower oil. So I’d leave the choice to you.
How to make chicken keema curry
Firstly, you want to make a ginger-garlic paste. You can do so by using a pestle and mortar, a food processor, or a food chopper.
For me, I prefer using my chopper as it saves me a lot of time. And all of the food choppers that I have ever tried, this chopper is my favorite. Because it gives really good results even if I only do a small number of ingredients. My spice paste always comes out very smooth. And it comes with a grinder bowl too, so I can grind dried spices or coffee beans.
Anyhow.
Heat the oil in a cooking pan, and fry the chopped onion until it turns golden brown. Then add in the ginger-garlic paste and continue cooking for a minute or so before adding the rest of the spices and salt.
Let everything cook until it releases a delicious aroma. Next, you want to put the ground chicken in and stir well until all spices mix with the poultry.
Cook at medium-high heat until the chicken turns opaque. Then stir in the yogurt and cook for about 2-3 minutes until the yogurt is absorbed.
Lastly, add in the potatoes, stir well, and put the lid on to leave it to cook.
Do check every now and then to make sure the bottom does not get burned. It takes approximately 12-15 minutes for the potatoes to cook through.
Top tips for the most delicious chicken keema
- Try to make your own cumin powder by roasting the whole cumin seeds on a frying pan until it releases an aroma. Cool them down to room temperature before grinding them in a grinder. This way, your cumin powder will have a superior aroma and flavor to the ready-made cumin powder from the shop.
- When you fry the spices, make sure you do so until the spices release an aroma. Keep stirring so all the spices will cook evenly.
- Cut the potatoes into similar-sized pieces and if possible cut them in a small size. So that it won’t take long to cook. I like mine in ½-1 inch-sized chunks or cubes.
- If you plan to enjoy your chicken keema curry with rice, you’d want to leave a bit of gravy in your curry. If it looks dry, you can add a little water, about ¼ cup of water.
However, if you want to eat the curry with naan bread or chapati, it’s best to cook the curry dry. And because the chicken releases water, you may have to stick to medium-high heat to help the water evaporate. Just make sure you keep stirring it to prevent the bottom from getting burned.
Variation of the veggies
Although I use potatoes in this ground chicken curry, you can always put different vegetables that you like.
My suggestions will be green peas, green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, etc.
Ways to enjoy the curry
Like most dry curries, this chicken keema is usually eaten with any flatbread such as roti/ chapati, naan bread, or pita bread.
And if this chicken curry is served with rice, whether spiced rice like lamb biryani rice or plain basmati rice, it is usually served with other curries with plenty of gravy like aloo gosht or chicken shorba.
Having said that, you can always do more adventurous ways i.e. use this spicy ground chicken to fill your grilled cheese sandwich, sliders, buns, or even tortilla wrap. I often do this as my kids like it too.
Storing matter
This ground chicken curry keeps well in the refrigerator for up to one week. And you can freeze it for up to six weeks.
Make this chicken keema in bulk and store it away for when you have busy schedules ahead. It’s a good keeper.
More Pakistani chicken recipes
Thank you for checking this chicken keema curry recipe out. Hope you will want to try it. When you do, please let me know what you think about it in the comments box below. I really appreciate it.
Before you go, don’t forget to check out my other Pakistani chicken recipes that you may like.
Lastly, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. To sneak a look at what’s cooking in my kitchen.
Take care and all the best.
Chicken Keema Curry Recipe
Chicken Keema Curry Recipe
Equipment
- Equipment
- Chopping board
- Kitchen knife
- Cooking pan with a lid
- Wooden spoon
Ingredients
- 1.1 ground chicken/ chicken mince
- 1 medium onion peeled and chopped
- 3 cloves garlic
- ½ inch ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1 teaspoon cumin powder
- ½ Kashmiri red chili powder see the note
- 5 tablespoons natural yogurt
- ½ canned chopped tomatoes
- ¾ – 1 teaspoon salt or according to taste
- ½ red or waxy potatoes peeled
- ¼ cup cooking oil
- Green chilies optional, sliced
- Cilantro/ coriander leaves optional, sliced
Instructions
- Peel the garlic and ginger, then mince them into a paste. You can use a pestle and mortar, a food chopper, or just mince them as finely as possible using a kitchen knife. Set it aside.
- Heat the oil in a large cooking pan with a lid at medium-high heat. Then fry the chopped onion until light golden brown.
- Add garlic-ginger paste and continue cooking for about a minute.
- Then add turmeric powder, cumin powder, Kashmiri red chili powder, and salt. Stir well and continue frying for about a minute until the spices release an aroma.
- Put the ground chicken into the spices and cook until the meat turns opaque.
- Stir the yogurt into the chicken and let it cook for about 2 minutes until the chicken absorbs the yogurt.
- Next, stir in the canned chopped tomatoes.
- Lastly, you add the potatoes. Stir, put the lid on, and let everything cook at medium-high heat until the potatoes are cooked through. Do take care and stir every now and again to make sure the chicken won’t get burned at the bottom.
Notes
If you don’t have Kashmiri red chili powder, you can use cayenne pepper or red chili pepper powder instead.
Nutrition
Disclaimer
Nutritional info in this recipe is only estimate using online calculator. You should refer to it as a guide only. Please verify with your own data if you seek an accurate info.
