You Can Make this Chicken Curry in Your Air Fryer
Fragrant, rich and delicious, this is the perfect midweek fix
Chicken Ceylon is a curry house favourite, offering a taste of Sri Lanka. It is the perfect mix of savoury, sweet, sour and spicy flavours.
Serves
1–2
Prep Time
10 minutes
Cooking time
20 minutes
Ingredients
- 300g skinless chicken thighs or breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
- Oil spray (optional)
- ½ tsp kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
- ½ tsp garam masala
- Juice of 1 lime
- 2 tbsp finely chopped coriander to garnish
- Salt, to taste
- For the Sauce
- 2 medium onions, thinly sliced
- ½ red (bell) pepper, thinly sliced
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp rapeseed oil or ghee, or oil spray
- 1 tbsp garlic and ginger paste
- 125ml unseasoned passata
- 1 tbsp curry powder or Mixed powder
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ½ tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
- 250ml warm chicken stock
- 150ml thick coconut milk
- 10 cashews, soaked in water for 10 minutes or longer
- ½ tsp sugar (or to taste)
- 2 tsp mango chutney
- ½ tsp tamarind concentrate
- For the Tempering
- 2 tbsp rapeseed oil
- 15 fresh or frozen curry leaves
- 2 green finger chillies, finely chopped
- 1 star anise
- 2 green cardamom pods, lightly bruised
- 2.5cm cinnamon stick
- ½ small red onion, finely chopped
Method
If you have cooked chicken tikka, you can skip this step. If cooking raw chicken or raw marinated chicken, preheat the air fryer to 200C. Lightly spray your cooking basket with oil and add the chicken in one layer. Air fry for 10–15 minutes, turning halfway through cooking. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
Place the onions, (bell) pepper and salt in a bowl and add the oil. If you are on a reduced-calorie diet, squirt the veggies all over with oil spray instead of adding the oil. Mix well with your hands or a spoon. Pour it all into the cooking basket and air fry for 10 minutes,
stirring halfway through cooking. Carefully add the garlic and ginger paste for the last two minutes of cooking.
Pour it all back into the mixing bowl or a blender and add the remaining sauce ingredients. Blend with a stick blender or in the blender until smooth. Set aside.
Pour the oil for tempering into a small cake tin or another suitable metal pan that fits inside your air fryer. Heat the oil for one to two minutes and then stir in all the tempering ingredients.
If you are on a reduced-calorie diet, you could generously spray these ingredients with oil instead. If doing this, I recommend not adding the whole spices but instead adding a pinch of ground cinnamon and ground cardamom to the sauce. Air fry for about three minutes or until fragrant, opening the drawer to stir a couple of times. Pour in the prepared sauce and heat for 10 minutes.
If you used oil, after 10 minutes the sauce will be quite hot but warm if you used oil spray.
The top and sides will have darkened and caramelised a little. Stir that in for additional flavour. Add the chicken and continue air frying for another five minutes to heat it through, or until the curry is hot enough to serve.
To finish, add the kasoori methi by rubbing it between your fingers over the sauce and stir in the garam masala. Add salt to taste, then squeeze in the lime juice to taste and serve garnished with the chopped coriander.
