Chicken & Saag Curry

Ingredients

  • 1 lb chicken breasts cut into 1 inch pieces
  • 1 lg onion finely chopped
  • 2 Tbs vegetable oil
  • 2 cloves of garlic or 2 shallots minced
  • 2 Tbs finely chopped fresh ginger
  • 1‌1⁄2 tsp kosher salt
  • 1‌1⁄2 tsp ground coriander
  • 1‌1⁄2 tsp garam masala
  • 1 tsp ground turmeric
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1⁄2 tsp ground cardamom
  • 1⁄4 tsp Kashmiri chili or cayenne
  • 1 Tbs tomato paste
  • 1⁄2 C water
  • 8 oz fresh baby spinach, washed and dried
  • 1⁄4 C plain yogurt
  • 1 tsp of methi (dried fenugreek leaves)

Directions

  1. Toss your onion, shallot or garlic, and ginger into a food processor and pulse it a couple of times to finely chop it.
  2. Heat 1 Tbs vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
  3. Add the onions, garlic (or shallot) and ginger. Sauté everything until it’s softened. This takes about 4 or 5 minutes. Keep stirring it , if it starts to get too dark lower your heat
  4. Add in the spices, and stir them on medium low heat till they get fragrant. This takes about 30 seconds. Dissolve your tomato paste in the 1/2 cup of water, stirring it well. Then pour it all into the pan with the spices. You’ll get a thick spiced sauce.
  5. Add your uncooked spinach. Stir it in a bit gently to combine it. Your going to have a full skillet because of the spinach. Now cover the pan and raise the heat to medium high. This will wilt the spinach. Take the lid off and give it an occasional stir, then cover it again until most of it has wilted.
  6. When most of it has wilted take the cover off the pan and finish it up by stirring the spinach around. Now take all the spinach and spices and put them into a blender or food processor and puree it until it gets smooth, but still has a bit of chunk and texture. Give it a taste and adjust the salt or spices to your taste.
  7. Wipe the skillet you were using, clean or not, it doesn’t matter, put it back on medium high heat, add 1 Tbs of oil and when it’s hot add in your chicken. Sprinkle some salt over it to season. Cook the chicken until it’s almost cooked through. This takes about 5 to 7 minutes. Pour the spinach mixture back into the pan cook for another 2 to 3 minutes so the flavors can meld and the chicken can finish cooking through
  8. Stir in the yogurt and you’re all done, good to go. Sprinkle the methi leaves over the chicken and mix it in, serve it up.