Dhonepata Murgi Kosha (Bengali Coriander Chicken Curry)

Chicken kasha, a traditional bengali dish, has always been my go to whenever I wanted to have something spicy. “Kosha” is a bengali word which means dry gravy. It is usually made with mutton, but I avoid red meat as much as possible. Hence, this recipe is made with chicken. The same can also be cooked with eggs, especially Duck eggs. Coriander leaves are not used in the traditional mangsho(mutton/chicken) kosha , but I have used it to give the age-old recipe a twist!

I am a person who loves to experiment and modify existing recipes to try something new. Check this recipe out and give it a try! I am sure you will like it. Let me know in the comment section below how your experience was!

Preparation Time : 10 mins + 1hour of marination

Cooking Time: 45 mins

Course: Main Course

Serving: 4 – 5 people

INGREDIENTS

Mustard Oil

Whole garam masala

Water

HOW TO MAKE

NOTE: The recipe has been divided into sections and each section has slides. please swipe right or left to see all the pictures step-wise.

• Peel the ginger and garlic. Slit the chillies.
• Roughly chop the tomatoes and add them to a mixer jar with the ginger, garlic and chillies and make a paste.
• Add the coriander leaves to this paste and blend them all together into a thick paste. This is the main marination for the chicken.

• Add 1 tsp cumin powder, 1 tsp turmeric powder, 1 tsp red chilli powder, 2 tsps salt, and 1/2 tsp garam masala powder to the chicken pieces in a bowl.
• Now, pour in the marination paste into this bowl.
• Lastly, add 2 tbsps mustard oil into this and mix it well.
• Set aside the marinated chicken for 1 hour.

• Peel the potatoes and cut them into halves ( as shown in the picture).
• In a pan, pour 2 tbsps of mustard oil. Heat the oil and add the potatoes in it.
• Sprinkle a pinch or two of salt and turmeric powder.
• Fry the potatoes until golden brown.
• Once they are done, make small cuts in them (refer to the last picture in this slide) so that when you add them to the curry in the end, the curry can seep in to the potatoes.
• The remaining oil in the pan can be left as it is to fry the onions later in the next step.

• Peel and slice the onions.
• Pour 2 tbsps of mustard oil into the remaining oil in the pan and heat it.
• Add the onions and fry it on medium flame till they turn golden brown.
• Once done, set them aside to cool for 5 minutes.
• Next, put it in a mixer jar and make a paste of the fried onions.

• Pour 2 tbsps mustard oil in the same pan and heat it.
• To this, add 1/2 tsps of sugar and fry it on medium flame till it melts and turns reddish. (This step ensures that the gravy will be darker in colour since chicken/mutton/egg kasha is always dark brown in colour)
• Following this, add the whole garam masala into the oil.
• Once the garam masala pops, add the remaining 1 tsp cumin powder, 1 tsp turmeric powder and 1 tsp red chilli powder into the oil and fry it for around 2 minutes on low flame.
• Finally, to the fried spices, add in the marinated chicken and cook on low flame for 20 minutes.

• Once the chicken starts to release juices, mix the fried onion paste into the curry.
• Keep stirring the dish for 5 minutes on high flame.
• Next, cover the pan and let the chicken cook further on low flame for about 15-20 minutes. Occassionally, stir the dish so that it doesn’t stick at the bottom of the pan.
• At this stage, if required add some salt because the fried onions will most likely make the curry taste sweet.

Lipsmacking Dhonepata Murgi Kosha (Bengali Coriander Chicken Curry) is ready. Serve it hot with roti, paratha, rice or pulao. Tastes best with luchi (Bengali puri), or roti.

NOTE: Even though I have mentioned ‘water’ in the ingredient list, I haven’t added any in my recipe. Chicken Kasha is a semi-dry dish, hence it wasn’t required for me to add water as the chicken itself was juicy and released a lot of oil and water. But, if you feel your dish is dry, add 3-4 tbsps of water after adding the fried onion paste.