Globecooking recipe : Kadai Chicken or Tofu (Sri Lanka)

Sri Lanka is obviously a great country for vegetarian dishes. After trying out the Crispy Medu Vada-style Lentil Fritters last week, today I turned to another vegetarian recipe from my Kitchen Trotter box for Kadai Tofu. However, as nobody in The Madhouse is keen on tofu, I decided to substitute it for chicken - kadai chicken is another genuine recipe (I checked on google !) so you can choose if you want a veggie option or not.

The fried egg pancake is a hopper and you can find out how to make those here.

Kadai Chicken or Tofu

ingredients :

250g chicken breast or tofu

1 red pepper

1 green pepper

4 tomatoes

3 onions

a large knob of butter

10g dried tamarind

a pinch of saffron

10 curry leaves

5 cardamom pods

1tsp paprika

1tsp ginger

2 tbsp black curry (or just use normal mild curry powder)

a pinch of salt

Split the cardamom pods to release the flavour.

This is dried tamarind - weird stuff. It looks like monkey poo with undigested whole nuts in it !

Put 10g of tamarind in a bowl, cover with 50ml of boiling water and leave to infuse for 15 minutes while you chop the veg and chicken/tofu into large chunks.

Strain the tamarind through a sieve, pressing down on the pulp to squeeze through as much as possible. Discard the remainder.

Melt the butter over a low heat and throw in the herbs and spices (saffron, cardamom, black curry powder, paprika, ginger, curry leaves). 

Cook for 1 minute to release all the wonderful flavours and aromas. Make sure the butter doesn't burn.

Add the chicken (or tofu), onions and peppers to the pan and cook for 10 minutes, stirring, until the chicken is throughly cooked through. Add a pinch of salt.

Add the tamarind and tomatoes and cook for a further five minutes.

This could be served on its own, with rice or, for a more exotic accompaniment, with egg hoppers which are like coconut pancakes, garnished with a fried egg.

*** Don't miss my country-by-country globecooking recipe index ! ***