Chicken Potato Curry: Kyet Tha Aloo Hin
Deep-fried potatoes add texture and flavour to this tasty Burmese chicken curry from The Rangoon Sisters Cookbook. This recipe can also be easily adapted to suit vegans and vegetarians.
From the book
The Rangoon Sisters: Recipes from our Burmese family kitchen
The definitive guide to creating authentic Burmese dishes at home
Easy-to-follow recipes for noodle and rice dishes, curries, salads and more
From impressive dinner party centrepieces to quick weeknight meals
Introduction
Who doesn’t love a fried potato? And the potato in this curry is deep-fried before being added to the chicken to give it an extra bit of texture and flavour. You could even make this a vegetarian potato curry by replacing the chicken with some extra vegetables such as cauliflower, carrots or beans, and omitting the fish sauce.
Ingredients
| 2 tbsp | gram flour |
| 1 tsp | salt |
| 2 | large potatoes, peeled and chopped into 2–5cm chunks |
| Oil (vegetable, sunflower or peanut), for deep-frying potatoes, plus 6 tbsp and a little extra for browning the chicken | |
| 3 | medium onions, chopped |
| 6 | garlic cloves, peeled |
| 1 | thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled |
| 6 | skinless and boneless chicken thighs, cut into 5cm chunks |
| 2 tsp | paprika |
| 1 tsp | turmeric powder |
| 2 tsp | medium chilli powder |
| 4 | medium tomatoes, roughly chopped |
| 2–3 tbsp | fish sauce |
| Handful of | coriander leaves, to garnish (optional) |
Method
Combine the gram flour and salt and coat the potatoes in it lightly. Line a plate with a few sheets of kitchen paper.
Pour the oil into a wok or heavy-based frying pan to a depth of 5cm and deep-fry the potatoes until golden brown. Make sure you don’t overcrowd the pan. Scoop out the potato chunks using a heatproof strainer or sieve and transfer to the kitchen paper.
Heat the 6 tablespoons of oil in a large casserole dish set over a medium heat. Add the chopped onions and cook slowly, turning down the heat to low-medium and stirring every 4–5 minutes until softened and starting to colour lightly and become oily – this will take at least 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, crush the garlic cloves and ginger to a paste using a pestle and mortar or blitz in a food processor. Once the onions are ready, add the crushed garlic and ginger and fry for a few minutes until fragrant.
Add a splash more oil, then brown the chicken pieces with the onion/garlic/ginger mix. Add the spices, tomatoes and fish sauce and stir for a few minutes until the tomatoes have broken down slightly. Add the deep-fried potatoes with 80ml of water and mix well. Leave to cook over a low-medium heat for 15–20 minutes, uncovered.
Serve with steamed rice, garnished with coriander leaves.
Storage notes: This curry can be stored in a container in the fridge for up to 4 days or frozen on the day of cooking for up to 3 months. Defrost carefully and reheat thoroughly before serving.
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