Best Iraqi Curried Chicken Recipes

IRAQI CURRIED CHICKEN

Steps:

• Heat a Dutch oven over medium heat and add the oil.
• Add the chicken pieces and cook gently until browned on all sides.
• Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 3 hours, stirring occasionally.
• Yes, this is a long simmer for a chicken, but these are the instructions I was given, and when I tried it at home it tasted just like our meal at the camp. The potatoes should just about disintegrate, which thickens the stock, now turned sauce.
• Note that the fat and bones from the chicken will disengage from the meat - not very palatable for our tastes, but the Iraqi family seemed to have just ate around them. (I remove them and the cinnamon sticks before serving.).
• Serve over rice. We like to add cooked or steamed vegetables over the rice before drowning it with the curry. Box of frozen broccoli works for us. Oh - they also served whole pita breads with this, which they tore and passed on to one another to tear and pass and use as scoops. Neat!

CHICKEN CURRY IN A HURRY

Steps:

• Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, onion and sweet potato to the skillet and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Sprinkle the curry powder over the vegetables and continue cooking for another minute. Reduce the heat to medium low and pour in the coconut milk and broth, stirring to combine. Mix in the honey and salt. Allow the sauce to heat up until gently simmering.
• Add the chicken to the sauce, tossing to coat, and allow it to simmer until warmed through, about 3 minutes. Turn off the heat. Mix in the chopped cilantro, hot sauce and lime juice.
• Ladle the soup into bowls. Garnish with mango cubes, cilantro leaves and lime wedges.

IRAQI SHABBAT CHICKEN

Steps:

• Chop onions and place in a large oven casserole dish adding tomato puree and about 1 litre of water.
• Place chicken on top of onions and put into a pre-heated oven at about 150C for about 3 1/2 hours.
• When cooked, remove chicken and place to one side.
• Take half the juices with the puree and onions and put into a saucepan. Add the okra, salt, pepper and lemon juice and bring to the boil, simmer gently for 30 minutes. If tinned okra is used, drain well before use.
• Wash Basmati rice throughly and add to the rest of the juices in the casserole dish, add some more water to just cover and place back into the oven to cook for a further 1 hour.
• When the rice is cooked, portion up the chicken and add to the top of the rice and cook for a further 1/2 hour.
• The rice is now a wonderful reddy/golden colour with the taste of the chicken infused.
• Serve altogether with the Okra sauce.

IRAQI STYLE TABYEET CHICKEN

Steps:

• Heat the oil in a dutch oven over medium-high heat. Stir in the turmeric and brown the chicken on all sides. Add the water, tomato paste, spices, salt, pepper (I use a lot of pepper and not very much salt) and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to medium and cook for about 10 to 15 minutes. Remove the chicken.
• Return the cooking liquid to a boil and add the rice. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 15 minutes. If the rice is dry, add a little more water. Take the rice off the stove and cool for a few minutes, uncovered.
• Mix the garbanzo beans into the rice mixture and then spoon a cup or so of rice into the cavity of the chicken. Make a well in the rice within the pot and nestle the chicken, breast side up, into the rice.
• Take the eggs and carefully prick a hole in the round part of the eggshell (to let air escape) and then bury them carefully in the rice around the chicken. Make sure they are not touching the bottom of the pot. Explosions are not good.
• Cover with aluminum foil and then cover tightly with the dutch ovens lid and bake in a 200F oven overnight (10 hours). You can also bake the casserole at 350F for 2 hours, reducing the heat to 250F and cooking for 2-3 more hours.
• When ready to serve, remove the chicken carefully and de-bone it. Arrange on a serving platter with the rice mounded around it. Scrape up all the crusty rice from the bottom of the pan - its the best part. Arrange the eggs, peeled and halved, on top of the rice.

CHICKEN CURRY AND POTATOES

Steps:

• Place chicken into a large saucepan and cover with water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until chicken is no longer pink in the center, about 20 minutes.
• Meanwhile, heat vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat; cook and stir onion and garlic until onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Stir mild curry powder, hot curry powder, black pepper, and salt into onion mixture; continue to cook and stir for 5 minutes, then transfer mixture to chicken and broth.
• Stir potatoes into chicken mixture. Simmer until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes more.

IRAQI TAGHRIB (TASHREEB )

Steps:

• Fry the chicken pieces in some oil, or deep fry, and set aside.
• Fry the onion and garlic; add the liquid of the chickpeas; and put in all the spices.
• Add the chicken stock, chopped tomatoes and 2 liters water. Wait until it boils and than add the tomato puree.
• Add the potatoes, chickpeas, and chicken; let it boil until the potatoes are done.
• Serve over cut up bread or basmati rice. When you serve it over rice, make sure you use less water or more tomato puree, to make the sauce thicker.
• P.S. You can replace the chicken for lamb or chicken breasts, and you can add some veggies such as carrot, sweet pepper, green beans, etc., or you can even add some sweet potato or pumpkin.
• The Iraqi people put in whatever they have leftover; be creative and add what you like.

IRAQI CURRY POWDER

Steps:

• Blend together as many freshly ground spices in the ingredients list as you can get and mix with the rest of them pre-ground.
• Taste and if you like and add more cayenne depending how spicy you like it.
• Enjoy in an Iraqi recipe calling for curry powder.