Smart Chicken for Busy Days

I tried this recently and it came out very good, better than I expected from a pan with only chicken and a few things off the shelf in it. There is no oil in it. No marinating either, and most of the cooking time is spent waiting with the lid on.

If you are eating low calorie and trying to get more protein in, this is an easy one to keep around.

Ingredients#

• 500 g skinless chicken, boneless or bone-in
• 1 clove of garlic
• A very small piece of ginger, finely chopped
• Up to 3 green chilies, slit in half
• Half a lemon
• Salt, to taste
• Pepper, to taste
• Chopped coriander leaves or kasuri methi (optional)
• Turmeric powder and a little salt, for washing the chicken

The ginger and garlic can go in whatever form you have. Ginger garlic paste works. So does chopped ginger and garlic, and whole garlic cloves are fine too.

Method#

1. Wash the chicken well with turmeric powder and salt, then rinse it properly.
2. Put the chicken in a kadai. That's the deep, round-bottomed pan most Indian kitchens cook in. If you don't have one, a wok or any deep pan with a lid will do.
3. Add the garlic, ginger, green chilies, salt and pepper.
4. Add the half lemon as it is. Don't squeeze it, just drop the whole half in with the chicken.
5. Mix everything properly so every piece gets some of everything. There is no need to marinate. Once it's mixed, it's ready to cook.
6. Put the kadai on a medium flame and close the lid. Nothing else goes in: no oil, no flour. The chicken lets out its own juices as it heats up, and that is what it cooks in.
7. Cook for 10 minutes. By then the chicken will have released some of its juice.
8. Open the lid and mix everything well again. Make sure the lemon's cut side faces down into the juice, so the lemon juice spreads through the chicken as it cooks.
9. Close the lid and cook for another 10 minutes. What you get is somewhere between a dry dish and a gravy.

If you are not sure whether it's cooked, take one piece out and try to break it. If it breaks and the inside is white or a light whitish brown all the way through, it's done. If it doesn't come apart, or you still see pink, close the lid and give it a few more minutes.

Once it's cooked, taste a piece. You should get the salt and pepper first, with a little of the lemon coming through. If it needs more salt, add some now and mix it in.

Then turn the stove off. Finish by stirring in the coriander or kasuri methi, if you are using it.

Notes#

I keep the skin off. If you like chicken skin, leave it on. On a low-calorie diet I would rather not spend my calories there, and I get the fat I need from better sources like curd or egg yolks.

In the dish, if you want more spiciness you could add some chili flakes too while adding the pepper and salt at step 3.

I can't decide if this is a side dish or a main, and I don't think it matters. It's a dish. Pair it with anything you want.

Seven ingredients, no oil, one kadai, and about twenty minutes with the lid on.