If you love a madras though. Or a jalfrezi. Then garlic chilli chicken just might be your new favourite. If garlic and green chilies are your jam, read on. This is one of those curries that are really big in the UK. And not so big anywhere else. I don’t know why that is. It’s a shame. Garlic chilli chicken is tasty stuff. One of the best curries you’ve never heard of. My guess is because it doesn’t seem to trace its roots back to a traditional Indian dish. I can’t find reference to it anywhere outside the UK. Doesn’t matter though. I know. And now so do you.
Garlic is the backbone of garlic chilli chicken
There’s a lot of garlic in this dish. There’s sliced garlic. And garlic ginger paste. And garlic pickle. The fresh garlic flavours the oil as it cooks. It mellows as it cooks. Winds up being these little garlic flavour bombs. Garlic ginger paste is bright and assertive. If you cook any Indian recipes on glebekitchen you should know it well. Garlic pickle is earthy. Spicy. Salty. It adds a whole different dimension. It’s the triple crown of garlic. Don’t eat this if your date doesn’t. It won’t go well for you. No joke.
Get your garlic pickle at your local Indian grocer
You can make garlic pickle if you like. I really should have a recipe posted for it. But I don’t. Not yet anyway. Sorry. It takes time to make. Like a week. So you really need to plan ahead. Or you can just go to your Indian grocer and pick one of the many types they stock. I suppose you have to plan that too. But not for a week. Unless you are really busy. Buying it is easy. And I like the stuff in the jar. I don’t say that often. But in this case it’s true. Don’t start buying garlic ginger paste in a jar though. That stuff is still terrible. Ground up wet cardboard. Curry destroyer in jar. Can you tell I’m not a fan?
Green chilies add bite
Garlic chilli chicken is a spicy dish. Hot even. Not crazy spicy. But spicy. And you can’t really do much about it. There’s a nice balanced heat from the kashmiri chili powder. It’s pretty mild as far as Indian chili powders go. But it still has some kick. The garlic pickle comes packing some pretty good heat too. At least the brands I get around here. The bright flavour of the green chilies that make it what it is. You can’t not add green chilies to this dish. It just wouldn’t be right. Not when it has chilli in the name. You can roll back on the kashmiri chili powder some. And try to find a milder garlic pickle. And you can seed the chilies. I almost always do that. The big fire is the membrane inside the chilies. Take that out and you cut the heat. I love the taste of green chilies. So I always want to add more. Removing the membrane is how I keep the heat down and still get my green chili fix. Garlic from everywhere. Chili from everywhere. And Indian restaurant technique. There’s a lot here to love. If it sounds like something you’d like, give it a go. Let’s get the secret of garlic chilli chicken out to the rest of the world!
