Hersha Patel's best-ever chicken curry

Hersha links her Indian past to her British present by cooking on her YouTube channel Cook with a little Indian - where Hackney meets Chapati! She’s in our kitchen with an easy Friday night curry inspired by her mum - and it uses only a few main ingredients so you won’t have to make any special trips to the supermarket for tonight’s dinner.

Serves: 4

Ingredients

900g chicken thighs (try and use free-range organic, thighs are much cheaper)300g or 2 medium/large onions1 inch piece of ginger3 tbsp cooking oil - I use coconut but sunflower/olive (not extra virgin)/veg oil work too.4 small green chillis15g or 4 medium/large cloves garlic500g or 5 medium tomatoes, very best you can buy1 tbsp tomato puree2 tsp salt1 large tsp garam masala

Method

First up finely dice the onion and ginger.

Heat a pan under a medium heat with three tbsp oil and throw in the onions/ginger so the pan sizzles and they start to fry.

Give them a good stir, bring the heat down to a low heat and bung the lid on.

Cook them for 20/25 minutes stirring every five minutes or so, until they are caramelized and sweet smelling. Don’t rush this part!

Whilst all that’s cooking finely chop the chilli and garlic and chop up the tomatoes.

Throw the chilli/garlic in the pan and let that cook for a few minutes until the raw smell of the garlic dies down.

Then in go tomatoes along with salt and tomato puree.

Give it a good stir, bring the heat up to medium and let that cook down for another 20 minutes. What you want to end up with is a thick, dark, luscious consistency.

Throw the chicken into the pan, give it a stir and let that cook on a medium heat/high heat.. you don’t want it to burn or dry out but be cooking fairly vigorously for a good 20/25 minutes until you get a thick rich stew and the chicken is cooked.

Then finally add 1 large tsp of garam masala stir and cook for 5 minutes and bobs your uncle!

Serve with cucumber raita, chappatis or basmati rice or if you’re going light a grated vegetable salad!