Reviving Old Dishes

কেচাপ দিয়ে মুরগী

Chicken Ketchup Curry

My first attempt at the curry

This dish is one of my earliest food memories. When I was about four, we lived in Hong Kong, and I remember one day mom made this chicken with ketchup combo so that we'd eat something a little different. Mom used to experiment with food quite a lot back in those days, and unfortunately I get the feeling she doesn't quite have that kind of time any more. This dish actually disappeared from our table almost a decade ago, but I called her up and pestered her for the recipe. I've since made it a few times and served it to other people, and the feedback has been positive. A Bangladeshi friend did mention though that quite a lot of Bangladeshi families have versions of this dish - so maybe it wasn't as original as I thought!

Ingredients

• 1.00 onion
• 1.50 tablespoon of garlic paste
• 1.50 tablespoon of ginger paste
• 6 to 7 cardamoms
• 4 to 5 2.00 cm cinnamon sticks
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste (I'd use 1.50 tablespoons because I love black pepper)
• Chilli powder, to taste
• 1.00 kg of chicken on the bone, cut into appropriate pieces
• 7 to 8 pieces of fresh green chilli
• 2.00 tablespoons of tomato ketchup
• Salt, to taste

Method

• Heat some oil in a pot, chop up the onions and fry them for a few minutes on medium heat until they soften and go translucent. Transfer the onions to a bowl and set aside. 
• In the same pot add the ginger paste, garlic paste and chilli powder and fry for 5 to 6 minutes, adding a little boiling water to the mixture now and again when it starts drying out.

The garlic, ginger and chilli mixture

• Add the chicken to the spice mixture along with cinnamon sticks, cardamoms, black pepper powder and salt, stirring to mix everything together thoroughly. 

I didn't cook chicken on the bone when I took
these photos. See the additional info section 
for changes to the method

• Turn the heat down to medium low and cook the dish uncovered for 15 minutes. When it starts to dry out, add 2 cups of boiling water to the pot.

The dish gets very dry, hence the water added at this step

• Turn the heat down low and partially cover the pot and cook for a further 30 minutes, adding the onions previously set aside at the 15 minute mark.
• After that add the fresh chilli and continue the cooking for anther 5 to 6 minutes.
• Finally add the tomato ketchup and keep the dish on heat for another 5 to 6 minutes.

The dish as its almost done,
though I've let it dry out a little too much

Additional Info

• Spice amounts get tricky when not all spices have the same strength. I've realised that a lot of spices bought from supermarkets are pretty pathetic. So the amounts specified above aren't always enough. Check how the dish smells as your cooking it - if you only smell cooking chicken and not fragrant spices, add more cinnamon, cardamom and black pepper little by little till you do.
• If you're cooking chicken breast as opposed to chicken on the bone, reduce the long 30 minute cooking step to 20 minutes, and reduce the amount of ketchup to 1.50 tablespoons.