Peanut Curry Chicken - How to Make Chicken with Peanut Curry Sauce

Hello , this is Chef John from food wishes dot com with peanut curry chicken .

That's right .

It's peanut butter curry time and what this video lacks in dancing pixelated bananas .

It's gonna more than make up for in everything else .

And by the way , I should mention before we proceed that this isn't based on any specific recipe from any specific country or culture , but more of a composite of peanut curries I've seen from many different places and was actually inspired by a conversation I overheard but I'll go into that fascinating tale on the blog post for now .

Let's go ahead and get started with the spice blend .

So in a bowl , we're gonna start with some kosher salt and to that , we're gonna add some ground coriander as well as some ground cumin or cumin .

If you prefer .

I'm also gonna toss in a spoon of paprika .

I'm using a mild one but you can use a hot one and then we're also gonna do some turmeric a spice that I used to hate but I evolved and now I like it .

And then last but not least we will add our old friend Cayenne and that's gonna be it for our peanut curry spice blend .

So we'll give that a mix with our freakishly small wooden spoon .

And then once this is mixed up , we're gonna use it in two different ways .

We'll use half of it to coat our chicken pieces before we sear them and then we'll reserve half to add to the actual curry itself .

So we can set that aside for now and move on to the aforementioned chicken .

And for this , I'm gonna be using boneless skinless chicken thighs , which have been cut up into some fairly large chunks .

We'll call them two inch pieces .

Although to be honest , some are an inch and a half and some are 2.5 inches , the good news is it doesn't matter .

And then like I said , we'll add half of our spice mix to the chicken and we will stir that in until it's evenly distributed .

And as I always like to warn you , chicken thighs are famous for their nooks and crannies .

So take your time and do a thorough job .

And once our chicken chunks have been coated with our curry spice , we have a couple options .

We could wrap and refrigerate this for a few hours up to overnight to let that chicken really absorb those spices or you cannot do that and just start the recipe immediately , which is what I'm gonna do because I'm starving .

It's been over two hours since I had a meal .

So what I'm gonna do is head over to the stove where we're gonna brown these chunks of chicken in some vegetable oil over high heat .

And because we do want to get a nice sear on these , I do recommend doing them in two batches .

So I added in roughly half my chicken and we'll brown that for a couple of minutes on both sides .

And not only is that gonna give that meat a little extra color in flavor , but we're also toasting those spices , which is gonna give them a little deeper and a little more intense flavor .

And as those finish browning , we'll go ahead and transfer those into a bowl .

So I browned up the first half and then did the exact same thing with the second half .

And once all our chicken pieces have been brown , what we'll do is we'll turn our heat down to medium and in that same pot in what is now a very flavorful oil , we will dump in one chopped onion and we will cook that for about five minutes or so or until the onions start to turn translucent and get a little bit golden .

So we don't need to go too far , but we do want to get a little bit of color on them and they should sort of kind of look something like this .

And once that's happened , we'll go ahead and dup in some minced garlic as well as some finely grated ginger and we will stir that in and we're still on medium heat , by the way and we'll cook that garlic and ginger for about a minute .

At which point we can dump in the rest of our reserve spice blend and we will stir that in and cook that for about a minute .

And I generally don't like when chefs on TV , tell me they wish I could smell what they're smelling .

I find that a little disconcerting , but that's exactly what I was thinking here .

This smells so good at this point .

But anyway , like I said , we'll cook that stirring for about a minute .

At which point we can introduce our chicken broth .

I'm sure you could use water , but I don't want you to .

It's not as good .

In fact , forget I said that don't use water , use chicken broth and then we can at this point add our chicken back in along with of course any accumulated juices .

And then we're gonna need a little bit of tomato product and I'm gonna use ketchup and of course , I can hear some of you .

Now , there you go .

Another American chef dumbing down a curry recipe by adding ketchup .

Well , that is certainly not the case .

In fact , I'm smartening it up a little bit because of the aromatic spices in ketchup as well as the sweetness and the vinegar .

It is the absolute perfect choice for a curry .

So there and then it's time for one of the key ingredients , the peanut butter .

So I'm gonna go ahead and add in about three quarters of a cup of smooth peanut butter .

And I'm using one of those all natural pure peanut peanut butters , which contains no sugar .

And by the way , if you're wondering where to get all natural sugar free peanut butter .

Just stop the next person you see wearing leather sandals and ask them where they buy theirs .

Oh , they'll know .

And because mine did not contain any sugar , I'm gonna add a spoon at this point , which if you're using supermarket peanut butter you probably won't need .

And that is something I'm gonna talk about on the blog post .

But anyway , we'll go ahead and give that a stir .

And then what we want to do is raise our heat to high until this starts to simmer .

And then as usual , we will adjust our heat down to , I don't know , low to medium low , to maintain a gentle but fairly steady simmer .

And we will let that simmer stirring occasionally for 30 minutes , which is gonna give us plenty of time to get our veggies together .

And what I'll be adding is some of these silver zucchini , which I find very beautiful .

And then I'm also gonna do two kinds of pepper , some sweet red pepper as well as some green pola pepper .

And then because this is a peanut curry after all , we'll also toss in some whole roasted peanuts .

So that is what I'll be using .

And at this point , we can head back over to the stove where our peanut curry has now been simmering for 30 minutes .

You can see here it's turned into one of the most beautiful colors ever .

And of course , thanks to the sensation that is evaporation , your mixture will have thickened up a little bit and we can at this point , go ahead and dump in whatever vegetables we're gonna use and we'll stir those in .

And then our game plan to finish this dish is very , very simple .

All we're gonna do is continue to simmer it for approximately 30 to 40 minutes or until our chicken and hopefully , vegetables are fork tender .

And of course , we're gonna give it the occasional stir as well as monitor the liquid level .

So if at any time you think it needs another splash of broth , toss one in .

So I let mine continue to cook for approximately 35 minutes at which point it was looking and smelling amazing .

So right here , I figured I was pretty close to done , but there's no guessing in cooking .

So I grabbed a fork to make sure my theory was correct .

And then my chicken was perfectly tender , which it was and extremely delicious .

And of course , we also want to give the sauce a quick check for things like salt and heat and mine was good .

So I didn't need any adjusting .

So at that point , I turned off the heat and grabbed a ladle and you can't get a nice look here at what I think is the perfect thickness or the ideal viscosity is my good friend who I've never met Alton Brown might say .

So I'm gonna go ahead and ladle that up into a nice hot bowl and of course , garnish it with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream .

Just kidding , steamed rice .

So we'll add a scoop of steamed rice and finish that off with a little freshly chopped cilantro as well as a few more peanuts .

And that simple and stunningly beautiful peanut curry chicken is done but not ready to eat yet .

Before we dig in , I highly recommend a little bit of fresh lime juice .

That little bit of acidity is really going to cut through that rich peanut butter as well as brighten up those spices .

So I squeezed in about a half a lime and suggest you do the same .

And then finally it's time to grab a spoon and dig in and as gorgeous as that curry looks , the taste was every bit as beautiful .

I mean , the way the richness of the peanut butter plays against those spices , it just decadent enough without being off pudding and you'll hear foods described as addictively delicious .

And this is absolutely that , I mean , all you're thinking about is you finish one spoon , is that next spoon and when it comes to food in general and curries in particular .

That's exactly where you wanna be .

But anyway , that's it .

Peanut curry chicken , as I said earlier , I didn't base this on any specific recipe from any specific country or culture .

So , save your email on how I desecrated one of your national dishes because I didn't , at least not on purpose I could have accidentally , but that doesn't count .

So I really do .

Hope you give this a try soon .

Head over to food wishes dot com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy .