C46 Chicken Balti Passanda

This was inspired by a recipe by Shehzad Husain from her book "BALTI cooking". It has been converted for a single portion with some ingredient changes and cooked in a BIR (British Indian Restaurant) style rather than traditional. Most passanda's in high street Indian restaurants are rather sweet, but this contains no sugar and is a very pleasant variation. It is a delicately spiced mild curry.

Ingredients

For 1	Continued...
2 tbspn oil	¼ - ½ tspn chilli powder (to taste)
50 gm onion (prepared weight)	300 ml c46 curry base sauce (see note 2)
½ tspn ginger (grated)	1 portion c41 pre-cooked chicken
½ tspn garlic (crushed)	1 tspn green chilli (chopped)
½ tspn garam masala	¼ tspn salt
¼ tspn ground cumin	1 tbspn ground almonds
¼ tspn cardamom powder (see note 1)	1 tbspn freshly chopped coriander
¼ tspn ground cinnamon	2 tbspn single cream or greek yogurt

Preparation

Finely chop the onion.
Grate the ginger, crush the garlic and mix together with a little oil to make a paste.
De-seed and finely chop the green chilli.
Finely chop the fresh coriander.

Cooking

Heat the oil in a suitable pan and fry, stirring regularly, the onion for 2 min.
Stir in the ginger/garlic paste and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds.
Stir in the garam masala, ground cumin, cardamom powder, ground cinnamon and chilli powder and cook, stirring, for 1 min, adding a little c46 base sauce if needed to prevent drying and burning.
Add the chicken, green chilli, salt and 80 ml of c46 base sauce and cook, stirring regularly, for 3 min, adding c46 base sauce as needed to maintain the desired sauce consistency.
Stir in the ground almonds.
Reduce the heat and stir in the chopped coriander and yogurt or cream and cook, stirring regularly, for 1 min.

Serving

Serve with naan (or rice if you prefer) and garnish with a little freshly chopped coriander.

Notes

(1) Cardamom seeds can be used if ground to a powder in a pestle and mortar.
(2) Dilute the 300 ml of c46 base sauce with 200 ml of water and heat before use. If defrosted from frozen the base sauce can be warmed and briefly blended to reconstitute the colour and consistency.

The main ingredients

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