Gongura chicken recipe
Updated: August 11, 2022, By Swasthi
Gongura chicken recipe is a variation of andhra chicken curry that is very popular especially in Andhra restaurants. Gongura means roselle leaves in Telugu. These leaves are the star of this recipe. Gongura chicken is a spicy and slightly sour tasting curry made with chicken, gongura, onions, chilies, spices & herbs.
Gongura chicken is served with hot ghee and rice. It can also be served with roti or chapati.
Gongura chicken is a very common dish in some regions of Andhra Pradesh and is consumed often. These leaves are also called as puntikura in some regions of Andhra & pulicha keerai in tamilnadu.
It is a rich source of iron and few other essential nutrients. So it is widely used in Andhra cuisine to make various dishes.
Gongura pappu, gongura mutton, gongura pachadi are some of the special dishes made with roselle leaves.
Gongura chicken turns out best when the sourness from the leaves is well balanced in the dish. Each home and restaurant has their own trick to balance this sourness.
We usually use either poppy seeds or cashews to do the job. Poppy seeds not only balance the sourness of gongura but also brings a rich, creamy & milky taste to the gongura gasagasalu. In restaurants they go the easy way and use cashew paste.
This recipe will give you a very delicious gongura chicken that is better than in restaurants.
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Photo Guide
Preparation for Gongura chicken
1. Dry roast or sundry poppy seeds until crunchy.
2. Make a fine powder of the poppy seeds first. Add very little water and grind to smooth. Very smooth else you will get the seeds in your mouth while you eat the curry.
If your blender is unable to make a fine powder, I suggest you to use smooth cashew paste instead of poppy seeds. Set this aside.
3. Marinate the chicken with ginger garlic paste, turmeric, red chili powder and salt. Set aside.
4. Pluck the leaves (discard even tender stems), wash thoroughly.
5. Heat a pan with 1 tsp oil, add these leaves along with slit green chilies and fry till they wilt off. Add little sugar as soon as you add leaves if you desire to retain the green color, but it has never helped me.
Set aside to cool. Once cool, grind the leaves & chilies coarsely. It is difficult to grind it to smooth. Grind it according to your desire smooth or coarse. Set aside.
How to make gongura chicken
6. Heat a pan with oil, add the whole spices and sauté till you get an aroma.
7. Add onions, green chilies, sprinkle some salt and fry till the onions turn brown.
8. Add ginger garlic paste and fry until the raw smell goes off.
9. Add chicken and fry on medium high for 2 to 3 mins, till the chicken turns white.
10. Pour enough water to partially cover the chicken. Add garam masala.
11. Cover and cook till the chicken is tender and fully cooked.
12. Add the poppy seeds paste or cashew paste and mix well. Let it begin to cook and bubble. Add gongura paste and mix well. You must be stirring to prevent sticking at the bottom.
13. Cook on a low flame for 3 to 4 mins or till the desired consistency is reached.
To adjust the sourness, you can add more poppy seeds paste or cashew paste.
Serve gongura chicken curry hot with rice, raw onions and ghee.
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Recipe card
Gongura Chicken Recipe
For best results follow the step-by-step photos above the recipe card
Ingredients (US cup = 240ml )
- ½ kg chicken
- 1 ½ cups gongura leaves (roselle leaves)
- 3 to 4 green chilies (adjust to taste)
- 1 cup onions chopped finely (about 2)
- ¼ tablespoon ginger garlic paste
- 1 to 1½ teaspoon garam masala (adjust to suit your taste)
- 2 tablespoon poppy seeds paste or 12 cashew nuts (refer notes)
- 2 tablespoon oil
- ¼ teaspoon salt or as needed
Whole spices
- 1 bay leaf or 1 sprig of curry leaves
- 2 green cardamoms
- 2 cloves
- 1 inch cinnamon piece
- 1 pinch cumin or jeera
Marination
- ¾ tablespoon ginger garlic paste
- ⅛ teaspoon turmeric
- ¼ teaspoon red chili powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
Instructions
Preparation
- Marinate chicken with ginger garlic, turmeric, red chilli powder and salt. Set this aside.
- Either dry roast the poppy seeds or sun dry them until crunchy.
- Powder them in a blender first and then add little water and make a fine paste.
- If you do not own a powerful blender, then you can use cashews instead of poppy seeds.
- Make a smooth paste with little water and set aside. This helps to get a delicious gravy.
- Clean the leaves and wash them in lot of water several times. Drain off aside.
- Saute the leaves in a tsp of oil along with green chilies. When the leaves wilt off turn off the heat.
- Cool and blend coarsely or smooth paste to suit your taste. You can blend it in the same jar used for poppy seeds.
How to make gongura chicken
- Saute cumin, cloves, cinnamon and cardamoms in hot oil in a pan, add curry leaves and onions.
- Fry until they turn golden. Then add ginger garlic paste and fry till the raw smell wards off.
- Add chicken and garam masala. Fry on medium high heat till the chicken turns white in color.
- Pour enough water to cover the chicken.
- Cover and cook till the chicken is tender and soft cooked. Add poppy seeds paste and then ground gongura paste.
- Mix well and cook for about 4 minutes or till it reaches the desired thick consistency.
- Add more salt if needed.
- Serve gongura chicken curry with rice, ghee and onions.
Notes
- Set aside a part of the blended paste, check the sourness first and then if needed you add the rest.
- To adjust the sourness, you can as well add more cashew or poppy seeds paste.
- Balance the sourness with extra chilies.
NUTRITION INFO (estimation only)
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About Swasthi
I’m Swasthi Shreekanth, the recipe developer, food photographer & food writer behind Swasthi’s Recipes. My aim is to help you cook great Indian food with my time-tested recipes. After 2 decades of experience in practical Indian cooking I started this blog to help people cook better & more often at home. Whether you are a novice or an experienced cook I am sure Swasthi’s Recipes will assist you to enhance your cooking skills. More about me
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Comments
Thank you – it looks fabulous. Do you make this recipe with boneless chicken or bine-in chicken and chicken breast or chicken thigh since they have different cooking profile, taste and texture? Also, can I use store bought bottled Gongura paste rather than making it from leaves (leaves not available at my local Indian store in US)?
It is made with whole cut bone-in skinless chicken pieces, which include breast, thighs and legs. We haven’t tried with paste but that should work. If it has additives like garlic or chili you may need to adjust the spice levels.
Thank you so much for this recipe! I just recently discovered Andhra food and have been working my way through every dish I can find since restaurants started opening up in my area. We loved the sourness of this dish when we tried it in a restaurant so will be interesting to see how a homemade version turns out.
Hope you get to try!
Thanks for the recipe. It looks very creative and I will be trying it this weekend. The steps say that add ginger garlic after onions turn golden but there is no mention of the amount of ginger garlic in the ingredients. It just lists the ginger garlic needed for marination but not for making the curry.
It is fixed now.
Unique n yummy recipe can u tell me d other nameof dis leaf so I can buy in mumbai
Thanks fr d recipes nice recipes n easy too
Thanks turned out great
Welcome
A must try recipe. Looks really delectable….:)
Super tangy recipe ! Yum ! Yum !
yummy green chicken…
I first heard of gongura when I was in hostel and
I remember girls from andhra pradesh would make a paste of it and apply to their hair!!
Your dish looks very healthy and has reminded of the good and ugly hostel days!!
That’s not gongura applied to hair. It’s gorintaku.
🙂
yummy dish ,too tempting!!
This is very interesting. I am not familiar with gongura leaves. But I am sure it is very delicious!
Truly delicious and this is in my mind, even yday I told my hubby to look for this leaves here. Love your version.
New type of chicken curry,yummy!
This looks wonderful !! I dont eat Chicken but could use the same curry base in some other veg Curry. <br /><br />Nice play with the colors 🙂
delicious…
Hey … This is something new :-)<br />Looks yummy and healthy !!!