Chicken curry is a perennial favorite food for many and it is one of mine too. Every now and then, I get a craving for curry chicken which must be satisfied. This Nyonya chicken curry is one of my favorite curry recipes and it never fails to whet my appetite for more.
There are many different varieties of curries and so many ways to cook it. The version that I’m sharing now is of Penang Nyonya origins and I love the aromatic blend of spices used. Instant curry paste is great for convenience but once you know how to make a curry from scratch, you’ll know the difference when you taste it.
Be prepared to spend some time in the kitchen if you want the best curry. You’ll be amply rewarded with a scrumptious and addictive curry for your efforts.
Related Recipe: Curry Chicken with Potatoes
Cooking Notes
1. Prepare the ingredients (refer to the recipe for the full list)
I found all the required ingredients in my local market. Get the butcher to chop up the chicken to save you some preparation time.
Clockwise from left: Dried chilies, lemongrass, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, potatoes, turmeric, shallots and garlic.
2. Grind/pound spices
Pound the dry spices (coriander seeds and cumin seeds) using a mortar and pestle. Make it as fine as possible. Otherwise, the curry will be a little gritty (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you don’t mind it).
If you want a smooth curry gravy, use an electrical spice grinder or this coffee grinder and spice grinder combo to pulverize the spices. Both methods of grinding spices will result in a different texture to the curry – slightly coarse texture vs a smoother texture.
For the rest of the spices, I used a food processor to blend them to a fine paste. Add some cooking oil if the blade does not rotate well.
3. Fry spices
This step is essential to bring out the aroma and flavor of the spices. Using low to medium-low heat, fry the spices with sufficient oil till fragrant and the oil separates from the paste. It has to be well fried so that no traces of raw spices remain.
Be careful not to burn the spices. I used my Happycall alumite ceramic pot. Compared to my other pots, I find that it prevents the curry paste from burning quickly.
4. Cook and simmer chicken
Let the curry simmer till the chicken is completely cooked and tender.
Traditionally, Nyonya curries call for coconut milk but I’m not a big fan of coconut milk so I did not use it for this Nyonya chicken curry recipe. I chose to add some homemade yogurt. It provided a creamy and slightly tart taste to the curry without the cloying richness of coconut milk. I LOVE it! But feel free to swap with coconut milk if that’s what you prefer. The leftover curry will taste good even on the next day as the flavors continue to come together.
The slightly tart homemade yogurt is a perfect pairing with the savory curry. And the delicious curry gravy just begs to be mopped up with some baguette or bread. You can eat it with rice or even plain bread too. Whichever way, it’s simply delicious!
It’s not hard to learn how to make a curry from scratch. All you need is some effort and time in the kitchen. This Nyonya curry chicken recipe is adapted from ‘The Penang Nyonya Cookbook’ by Cecilia Tan which you can find here. I have two of her cookbooks and they’re wonderful resources for authentic Nyonya and Chinese herbal recipes.
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- 1 fresh chicken (about 1kg) - remove head, feet and skin and chopped into pieces
- 5 tbsp cooking oil
- 3 potatoes
- 1 stalk of lemongrass - white part only and lightly smashed
- 1 cup plain yogurt
- 1.5 cup water
- Sea salt - to taste
- Optional: Mint leaves for garnishing
- Spices A
- 4 tbsp coriander seeds
- 1 tbsp cumin seeds
- Spices B
- 15 dried chilies - soaked in warm water until soft. Drain and snip each chili into 3 cm pieces.
- 10 shallots - peeled
- 5 cloves of garlic - peeled
- 20 gm ginger - peeled and cut into a few pieces
- 20 gm fresh turmeric - peeled and cut into a few pieces
- Lightly fry Spices A (coriander seeds and cumin seeds) in a dry wok till fragrant.
- Wash and drain chicken. Set aside and cover. Parboil potatoes in a small saucepan till three-quarters cooked. Let cool. Peel and cut into wedges.
- While boiling the potatoes, pound spices A and B separately till fine using a pestle and mortar. You can also use a grinder to grind the spices B if preferred.
- Heat oil in a pot. Add all pounded/blended ingredients and lemongrass. Reduce heat and fry paste till fragrant and oil bubbles through. Be careful not to burn the curry paste. Add 2 tbsp of yogurt if the paste becomes dry.
- Add chicken and stir to coat the chicken parts evenly with the spices. Fry for about 3 - 5 minutes. Add water. Stir, cover with the lid and let simmer for around 15 minutes. When the chicken is nearly cooked, add potato pieces. Continue to simmer for about 5 minutes more until potatoes are cooked through. Add yogurt and stir to mix well. Salt to taste.
- Dish out and serve hot with rice, baguette or bread.
2. Remove some of the seeds from the dried chilies after you cut them if you prefer a less spicy curry.
3. Use fresh spices if possible. Spices that have been kept for too long will lose some of its fragrance and potency.
4. You can add more water if you wish but not too much or the curry will be diluted.
What a great dish. Thank you for sharing it with us.
I used to taste an authentic curry mee back in Malaysia.
But they dont use yorgurt inside it.
As one of my child is lactose intolerance, can I just skip the yogurt part? Or do you have any suitable sunstitute for it?
Thank You
I like to use yogurt when making curries as I find it a healthier alternative to coconut milk. You may skip the yogurt if your child is lactose intolerant. Or if you like, substitute with some coconut milk.
Great nyonya chicken curry recipe, and oh my, the image looks so tempting! It sounds really easy to make as well. I am going to try making it tonight – I love all things spicy! Your step-by-step images are particularly helpful, as it helps to gauge if we got the recipe right. Thank you for sharing!
Definitely bookmarking this website! Feeling hungry now-looks very yummy! Great recipes in here. Can’t wait to try them all! Good info about not burning the spices. I’m guilty of this part!
I remember I tried to follow a curry recipe and it was pretty good but it just wasn’t spicy. The recipe didn’t have dried chili and I wasn’t sure what to add to make it spicy, I’ll try out this one instead – I am a huge fan of spicy food! Thanks for the recipe!
You’re welcome, Matt. Did you remove the seeds when you cooked the curry? If you took out the seeds, it will lessen the spiciness. Do try this Nyonya chicken curry and let me know how it turns out. Happy cooking!
Hi Ivonne and thank you for putting your daily experience into a website for the benefit of all of us!
I love cooking. I just had a group here in Italy in my “Paradiso Integrale” and I cooked for them my inventions. I am very bad in following recipes step by step, BUT I very much appreciate reading them and getting an idea what goes together with what. Asian cuisine is for me very inspiring, I am using Curry very much as a spice, but have never really done a Curry Chicken as you describe it. So my next chicken will be very much inspired by your story and your recipe here! Thank you again.
Heidi from my-cat.org
Hi Heidi,
Sorry for the late reply. Usually, I’m bad at following recipes too but I will try my best to follow as closely as possible the first time I try a recipe. This is so that I get to taste what the author has originally tried and tested.
I hope you’ll like how this Nyonya curry chicken turns out. Do let me know and thanks for commenting.
This recipe looks great! Thank you for the detailed instructions and pictures.
Wow, I’m getting really getting hungry now. What a great website you have created. I love the recipes and I also bookmarked your website for future references. Being that I love cooking, I will have to try some of your great recipes. Thanks for the wonderful article. Best wishes.
I love this Nyonya chicken curry recipe. Can’t wait to try it! Thanks for sharing.
Very delicious dish here. I have been going to school for cooking and we have a project coming up and my girlfriend recommended me to try this. If it is ok with you can I use your post as a guide and ask you questions personally if I get stuck?
Thank you and I hope to hear from you soon.
You can use my recipe but please rewrite in your own words and provide a link to my post. If you have any questions, you can post it here. Happy cooking!
Hi Yvonne,
Thank you for this great Nyonya chicken curry recipe. Personally as a man, I prefer to eat delicious foods but since you’ve wrote a delicious post with yummy pics, I would like to give it a try and cook it myself!
Hope to see more recipes about chicken from you 🙂
Another great recipe from you, Yvonne.
I never thought to change coconut milk with a yoghurt. This is something new that I should try. But will the taste be too milky rather than coconut creamy?
I am not a big fan of chicken. Can I substitute the chicken with beef?
Hi Arief,
Nice to hear from you again. I found that adding yogurt to the curry makes it creamy and slightly tart. It doesn’t taste milky. I prefer it over coconut milk which tend to be cloying if you eat too much of it.
I’m not a fan of beef. Ha! But I think it should be fine to substitute it with chicken.
I absolutely love this site! I love all the photos you have posted for the different steps as well.. You have officially made me hungry and craving this curry right now. I have found it difficult finding a site with good authentic curry recipes. I grew up in Asia and now that I am no longer there I miss the food so much. I will definitely be coming back for more!
Hi Nothando,
Thanks for your comments. I’m glad you like the photos. Do try out the recipes on my site and let me know what you think. Happy cooking! 🙂
Very nice! I am hungry now after reading your posts! I am going to have to try the nyonya chicken curry recipe! I enjoyed your website.
Thanks for your comment Shelley!
I love chicken curry and you always have such great recipes on your website. I am going to give this one a try as it has been so long since I have had it, and the directions look quite simple. I am just curious how hard it is to find Dried chilies and lemongrass? The rest of the ingredients should be simple to purchase.
Hi Leahrae,
It’s nice to see you again! You should be able to find dried chilies and lemongrass at Asian markets. They’re not hard to find and are essential ingredients for this curry so please do get them. Alternatively, you can also find the dried chilies and lemongrass online but I would recommend that you try looking for them in the market first.
Remember, the dried chilies can be rather spicy so if you prefer a less spicy curry, take out some of the seeds when you cut them.
Hope that helps.
Yvonne
Wow, so glad I stumbled across this site while searching for curry recipes!
I love a good curry, and I’m making a concerted effort to make more food at home, as opposed to eating out most nights, is this a good ‘starter’ curry or perhaps would you recommend something else?
Also, as I’m usually cooking for two at most what would be the equivalent quantities? Or is it a case of having to make a full batch and then just keeping the leftovers for the future?
Hi Kevin,
I love a good curry too! This isn’t exactly a starter curry because you’d need to spend some time prepping the spices as this Nyonya chicken curry recipe is made from scratch. I pounded the dry spices and blended the rest of the ‘wet’ spices. Even so, this recipe can still be replicated in your home. You’ll need to have the tools and do follow the instructions closely. 🙂
The curry paste in this recipe is enough for a whole chicken (approximately 1 – 1.2 kg). You can certainly make this and keep any leftovers in the fridge for a couple of days or longer if you stick it in the freezer. Personally, I find that since I’m putting in the effort to make this curry from scratch, I might as well cook a whole chicken with it. This way, it also saves me time from cooking another batch of curry.
I will work on an easy chicken curry recipe the next time so stay tuned. If you’re interested, you can subscribe to my site for the latest recipes and updates.
Thanks for your comments and happy cooking!
Yvonne
As I love curries I happened to come across your nyonya chicken curry recipe. Just looking at the pics makes me very hungry. I’m definitely going to have to try your recipe (or get someone who knows how to cook to make it for me lol).
This is a great post with quality pictures to match. I’m definitely bookmarking it!
Hi Darren,
Thanks for your comments. You’ll need to spend some time in the kitchen for this chicken curry recipe but the results will be so worth it. I think you’ll like it. Do let us know how it goes for you!
Oh wow, that is an awesome recipe. I love curries but I must admit I usually buy a paste at the supermarket. You make it look so easy and appealing. Could you also substitute the chicken for beef or seafood? Love this post. Thank you so much, Yvonne.
All the best from Anke
Hi Anke,
Thanks for your comments and questions. Sometimes I do use instant curry paste too when I’m busy but there’s nothing like a curry made from scratch. I’ve not tried this curry with beef or seafood but I think it would be delicious too. You’d need to shorten the cooking time if you’re using seafood. Do give this chicken curry recipe a try and let me know how it goes! All the best to you 🙂