Looking for healthy recipe without going for a tradeoff in the taste is always my key interest. I am a deep chicken lover and chicken prepared in any form is fine for me. But most our traditional chicken recipes uses plenty of oil, which makes this rich protein source dish bit of non-favorable for regular diet.

In the recipe presented here, I tried to include some nutrition touch by adding drum stick leaves (optional) along with traditional spice ingredients. One problem of not using oil for roasting is that the dish becomes more chilli-hot. So you can either reduce the chilli content or use a little quantity of oil for final roasting.

Ingredients

1. Sliced onion : 3
2. Chopped tomato    : 1
3. Ginger- garlic paste : 3 T sp.
4. Curry leaves      : 2 sprigs
5. Coconut pieces    : 3 Tbl sp.
6. Drumstick leaves  : ¾ Cup
7. Chilli powder     : 2 Tbl sp.
8. Turmeric powder   : ¼ T sp.
9. Pepper powder     : 2 T sp.
10. Salt for taste

For marinating

1. Chicken     : 750 g
2. Chilli powder     : 2 T sp.
3. Turmeric powder   : ¼ T sp.
4. Garam masala      : ½ T sp.
5. Salt

Method

• Marinate the chicken with the ingredients form minimum half hour.
• In a mud pot/ kadai add the above ingredients- except garam masala-along with the marinated chicken.
• Mix everything together without adding water.
• Close the lid and cook the chicken in a medium flame.
• Re-mix in regular interval to avoid sticking in the bottom of the pan.
• Cook the chicken until soft.
• If excess water accumulates, open the lid and cook further to dry the water.
• Add the garam masala and mix it well and switch off the stove. 

Tips:-

• Drumstick leaves are optional, if you don’t like the taste just skip it or you can reduce the quantity.
• Here I used chicken thighs and chicken breast with bone.
• Quantity of ingredients may be varied for individual taste.
• If you have mud pot uses that for the real taste.
• Oil may be used in the final stage for roasting.
• Coconut also optional.