Kerala Chicken Stew

 I decided to celebrate my birthday a day earlier - why not?!  Considering it is lockdown and I cannot do anything else anyway.  I got up early to day to make appam and chicken stew for the family.  This is such an easy dish and you can adjust the spice levels to suit your taste.  It goes well with freshly baked white bread - or any other type of spongy bread, like the Kerala Appam.

Ingredients:

500 grams chicken ( I used chicken with the bone, but you can use boneless pieces if you prefer)

2 cups of mixed chopped vegetables – whatever you may have handy at home. (beans, carrot, mushroom, potato) Hint: A torn cabbage leaf added at the end of cooking greatly enhances the flavour of this dish.

Crushed ginger and garlic – ½ a table spoon each

1 - 200 ml tin of coconut milk

2-3 cloves

2-3 cardamom pods

2 sticks of cinnamon

5-6 red or green chillies, sliced (use less if you prefer less heat)

1 large onion, sliced

For Tempering: 

 A table spoon of oil

½ teaspoon mustard seeds

1 stalk of curry leaves

½ a cup of milk if needed (optional)

Freshly ground black pepper – ½ teaspoon

Salt to taste

In a casserole dish, add the chicken, ginger garlic, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, green chillies, salt, vegetables, two cups of water and let it cook to almost done.  Next add a tin of coconut milk and let it simmer to almost boiling point.

In a wok, heat oil, add mustard seeds and when it crackles, add the curry leaves.  Add this to the stew. Check stew for salt, add freshly ground black pepper.   

At this stage, you can thicken the stew at the end with some fresh full cream milk if desired.  This stew can be completely made with vegetables as well. 

Serve hot with appams. The spongy appams soak up the stew and the dish just melts in your mouth.

This stew also pairs beautifully with fresh bread.