Sri Lankan Cuisine

Chicken curry

Cuisine: Sri Lankan Created by Charmaine Solomon

This classic chicken curry is full of flavour and tastes best when using chicken on the bone.

Other popular incarnations of this dish include Burmese chicken curry; Indian coconut chicken curry; and Vietnamese chicken curry. For similar meal ideas, browse our curry recipes.

Ingredients

1.5kg chicken thigh cutlets
2 tbsp ghee or vegetable oil
¼ tsp fenugreek seeds
10 curry leaves
2 large onions, finely chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp fresh ginger, finely grated
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tbsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground fennel
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp vinegar
2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
6 cardamom pods, bruised
1 stick cinnamon
1 stalk lemon grass
1 pandan leaf
1 cup thick coconut milk

View Conversion table

Preparation

Heat ghee and fry fenugreek and curry leaves until they start to brown.

Add onions, garlic and ginger and fry gently until onions are quite soft and transparent.

Add turmeric, chilli, coriander, cumin, fennel, paprika, salt and vinegar and stir well.

Add tomatoes, whole spices and lemon grass.

Add chicken and stir over medium heat until chicken is thoroughly coated with spices. Cook, covered, over low heat for 40 to 50 minutes.

Add coconut milk, taste and add more salt and a squeeze of lemon juice if desired.

Do not cover after adding coconut milk.

Serve with stringhoppers or rice and coconut sambol.

Sri Lankan Restaurants

Displaying 10 of 34 Sri Lankan Restaurants.

Restaurant		Suburb
1.	Araliya	Hawthorn
2.	Blue Elephant	Pennant Hills
3.	Radio Cairo	Cremorne
4.	Annalakshmi on the Swan	Perth
5.	7 Spices	Applecross
6.	Woodapple	Hampton
7.	Tas Ceylon	Lenah Valley
8.	Banana Leaf	City
9.	Jazzi's Indian & Continental Restaurant	South Hurstville
10.	Flavour of Ceylon	Parramatta

15 Mar 2012 02:14 AEST

iamac

glen waverley

nice

I am having a go at Sri Lankan curries at the mo, and I have cooked this today and the smell wafting from the kitchen is awesome. I am going to serve it with string hoppers and pumpkin side dish also Sri Lankan, the recipe for which is on sbs website. keep up the good work. Thanks SBS and Charmaine Solomon and Maeve.

05 Mar 2012 04:06 AEST

Jennifer of

Chermside

So good to see . . .

So good to see a non-10-minute 'proper' curry And even better to eat it And it matures very well Thank you, SBS & contributors

20 Feb 2012 05:37 AEST

Alice

bardwell valley

very poor

Did not like this at all. Very dry on taste overpowered by the coconut milk. Very bland. Will not be making this again

19 Apr 2011 02:34 AEST

Sanjeeva

Spring Farm

Yum

Different to the way my mum cooks but absolutely yummy, I should say. I did remove the skin the chicken thigh cutlets.

17 Apr 2011 04:20 AEST

Alan

Mandurah

The BEST!!

Just made this for my crew, never seen five big burley blokes tucking in and carrying on how good it was, not much left in the pot believe me. To cut the cost used thighs with the skin on and took the skin off, as past experience has shown the curry may be too fatty with the skins left on, especially if cooking a big batch of it. The coconut sambol went down a treat too.

13 Apr 2011 07:33 AEST

Peter

Stafford

Fantastic

I have always made a traditional indian curry and it was great to try something different. It was just lovely; it looks and tastes sensational. I also added garam masala, potatoes and lemon juice...wow what a meal...the chicken soaked up the spices. I served it with rice and bread. Superb!!

03 Apr 2011 06:05 AEST

mary

Melbourne

Perfect

I just finished making this for dinner tonight and the whole family loved it ... best curry I have ever made so easy and yummy , I served it with Stringhoppers and WOW !!!

14 Jan 2011 07:58 AEST

Kirstie

East Brunswick

Easy & Yummy

Really quick and easy to cook. I added potato 20minutes before the end of cooking time..YUM!

05 Sep 2010 10:03 AEST

Aml

Chicken curry

We loved this curry. It was simple to make. I replaced the chilli powder with 4 big red chillies. I also roasted the whole spices and ground them. The curry was delicious. Now I will never go back to the curry powder sachets. Thank you Maeve OMeara.

21 Aug 2010 09:30 AEST

gavin

nickol

fantastic recipe

i made this with 3kg of thigh and drumstick pieces so made all ingredients double, and added some garam masala and crushed cloves, and it was probably one of the best curries i have made, the flavours are superb and the appearance is great, i made some dahl and rice to go with it and had lemon juice and natural yoghurt on top and it was sensational, my wife and daughter loved it, best thing is we have leftovers for tomorrow night! will make again for sure, and it really is easy to make

09 Apr 2010 01:16 AEST

Katie White

Narangba

Sensational

This is the best tasting curry I have ever cooked. We love to cook it for friends.

28 Mar 2010 06:52 AEST

Meaghan

Belli Park

the ultimate

absolutely the best chicken curry I've ever eaten let alone cooked! 5 stars. Thankyou Charmaine!

16 Mar 2010 10:54 AEST

Asanga

Parramatta

yummy

great ...just like my mom's chicken curry!

01 Mar 2010 02:36 AEST

inday

denmark,w.a

excellent

this is my favorate curry ,thank you

15 May 2009 03:52 AEST

helen

cairms

Fantastic

Have always had a mental block cooking curries from scratch. This one is easy and just so yummy.

15 Apr 2009 04:24 AEST

Alan

Donvale

Drool-worthy

Just fantastic ... not too hot and very well balanced flavours. This is a "keeper".

05 Feb 2009 08:55 AEST

shooshme

Carrum Downs

Great

This was great but would like to know their version of scrambled eggs?

16 Nov 2008 04:43 AEST

marsh

marrickville

cumin?

great recipe!!! but how much cumin is to be used as its missing from the list? i used 1 tsp which seemed pretty good.

Comment on this recipe

PLEASE NOTE: All submitted comments become the property of SBS. We reserve the right to edit and/or amend submitted comments. HTML tags other than paragraph, line break, bold or italics will be removed from your comment.