Capsicum Chicken Masala

After being an eggitarian for almost 23 years, when I started eating chicken, I was very picky and ate only specific dishes which looked good (oh yeah, looking good was the first and foremost criteria) and were spicy. Even now, I like only a very few, Indian varieties of chicken, which obviously, are not available in any of the Indian restaurants that are around in my area. So, I started making my own chicken dishes by following online recipes and tinkering them to suit my taste buds. This dish though, is a recipe which my youngest sister emailed me a few months back and is supposedly from one of her colleagues who cooks great chicken. And, how does my little sister know this colleague of hers makes great chicken? Yes, she eats them too!!! (now, don't you go and tell my Mom about that... he he). I gave it a try and just loved it :-).

Ingredients (about 2 - 3 servings):

Chicken - about a pound cut into bite-sized pieces
Onions - 2 to 3 medium sized ones finely chopped
Tomatoes - 2 medium sized ones finely chopped
Capsicum - 1 big cut into chunks
Cooking oil - 2 tablespoons
Ginger garlic paste - 2 to 3 teaspoons
Red chilli powder - 3 to 4 teaspoons (vary this to suit your taste)
Coriander powder - 3 teaspoons
Cinnamon stick - 1/2 inch stick broken into small pieces
Cloves - 2 to 3
Pepper powder - a couple of pinches
Turmeric powder - a big pinch :-)
Salt to taste

Procedure:

1. Wash the chicken pieces with turmeric powder, drain thoroughly and set aside.
2. In a wide pan, heat some cooking oil, add pepper powder, cinnamon sticks, cloves when the oil gets hot and then add the chopped onions and fry until they turn golden brown in color.
3. To step 2, add the tomatoes and fry until the get cooked.
4. Add the ginger garlic paste to step 3, fry for a few seconds and then add the washed chicken from step 1 and fry for about 5 minutes on low flame.
5. Add the chilli powder, coriander powder and salt to the chicken, sprinkle some water, put on the lid and cook on medium flame until the chicken gets soft. You might have to be careful when adding the water as the chicken itself leaves some water when it is cooked.
6. Open the lid when the chicken gets soft and let the contents of the pan to turn to a gravy consistency. This takes about 10 - 15 minutes on medium flame.
7. Now, add the capsicum chunks just 5 - 10 minutes before turning off the stove. Serve with steamed hot rice or rotis.

Since we add the capsicum at the very end and don't cook it for a long time, it gives the dish a little sweetness and a crunch. I made this for my colleagues at work (of course, with a little less red chilli powder :-)) and they all seemed to like it. Hope you will like it too!!!