Chicken dopiaza

4.86 from 14 votes

Chicken dopiaza - Indian hotel style

Hotel style brings real depth of flavour to this chicken dopiaza.

Prep Time20

Cook Time20

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Indian

Keyword: chicken dopiaza, dopiaza curry

Servings:

Calories: 720kcal

Author: romain | glebekitchen

vegetable oil - to get back to 4 tbsp total
1/2 cup onion - finely chopped
1 tbsp garlic ginger paste - recipe link below
1 cup Indian hotel curry gravy - recipe link below. Dilute it with 4 tbsp water.
3 boneless, skinless chicken thighs - cut into 3 or 4 pieces each
2 jwala green chili aka finger hots - seeded and cut in half and then into 1 inch pieces (for a total of 6-8 pieces).
1 tbsp cilantro - minced leaves and stems

Make your spice mix. Combine all the spices and the salt into one small bowl. Cut up your green chilies and onions. Prepare your spice mix.
If you are going for the onion garnish heat 2 Tbsp oil in the pan you will be making your dopiaza. Add the onions and fry until they are well brown. This takes 10-15 minutes so make sure you do it ahead of time. This adds a little something nice. It isn't critical though. So don't worry if you don't have time to do it.

Add 4 tbsp oil to the pan you will use to prepare your chicken dopiaza. Look at how much oil is in the pan. You will need to top it up a bit to get back to the same level when you make your dopiaza.
Add the coarsely chopped onions (big pieces). Fry until softened and edges just barely start to darken. You want them soft so don't push your pan too hard. Silky soft. A little oily. And a bit of char on the edges. That's what you want.
Use tongs to remove the onions. Set aside.

Re-heat the oil in until the oil just starts to shimmer.
Add the onions and stir every few seconds. Fry until the onion edges turn brown.
Stir in the garlic ginger paste. Cook until the garlic ginger paste stops sputtering. This should take around 30 seconds.
Turn your heat down to medium low and add your spice mix. This is why you need to use all the oil. You want to fry your spices. Too little oil and you risk your spices sticking or burning. Nothing you can do will fix burned spices.
Cook your spices for about 30 seconds.
Add the Indian hotel curry gravy. Stir it really well to get the oil to combine with the curry gravy. You want everything mixed together at this point. Bring to a simmer.
Add the chicken. Cover loosely and cook for about 5 minutes.
Add the green chilies, pre-cooked onions and cilantro. Continue to cook until the chicken is cooked through. This should take somewhere between 2 to 5 minutes depending on the size of your chicken pieces. As always it is best to use an instant read thermometer and target an internal temperature of around 175F for thighs.
At this point your dopiaza sauce might be a little thick. Stir in chicken stock or water, a tablespoon at a time to get the consistency you want. As much liquid as you need. This step is feel. You want your dopiaze sauce lush.
Garnish with the fried onions and bit of cilantro if you like.
Serve with rice, dal and Indian flatbreads of your choice.

Make your Indian hotel curry gravy ahead of time. It takes time to make so think about doing it the day before.

I use this Indian restaurant spice mix in most of my Indian restaurant style curries.

For maximum flavour you should consider making your garlic ginger paste from scratch.