Chicken Varuval recipe

Since i moved to my new home, I usually cook dinner everyday after coming back from work. Usually I cook chinese food because it only takes a 10 minute preparation. But lately I've been trying Malay and Indian food. The latest recipes i tried are Fried Chicken 65 and Chicken Varuval. My Chicken 65 turned out ok, and my Chicken Varuval was yum yum yummy.

I can tell whether my cooking good when I ask Yin How about it. When ask him, "Is my cooking nice or not?" (with a slight threatening note at the end hinting that if you say it's not nice, then I won't cook for you again), he'll usually say "Nice....." meaning it's just so so. But when the dish is really nice, he'll say "Nice!! Ho Chiak!! Cook some and let my mum try".

Him asking me to cook for his mum means that the food is worthy enough for my mother-in-law's taste buds. My parents-in-law made a living by cooking at their restaurant packed with customers, and my mother-in-law is very judgemental on what food is good and what is not. Yin How told his mum that I wanted to challenge her cooking which made her laugh (i just meant it as a joke but he told her and I was horrified!) . No way am I going to let my mother-in-law try my cooking. I don't dare. :P

Yin How is a mummy's boy who loves his mum's cooking. When I first moved in with Yin How, his mum got so worried that he'll starve because that at that time, she knew i couldn't cook at all. During the first week after Yin How moved in with me, she fried around 5 fishes, and a few different meat dishes, took the bus to the Jetty to come to Penang (they stay in Butterworth), then took the bus to my place to bring us the 1 week supply of food for us to freeze in our fridge.

After that, I was determine to learn how to cook. So i went online to look for recipes and self taught myself how to cook. I think i'm doing ok though sometimes i still burn my garlic. :) And I insist on using measuring cups and spoons to measure everything in the recipe which makes Yin How impatient. Sometimes I purposely do things very slowly so that Yin How will get impatient, and he'll take over.

Anyway, this is the Chicken Varuval recipe i used. I'm gonna cook it again this weekend. Yum yum...

http://www.spiceindiaonline.com/chicken_varuval
Ingredients
1 lb Whole chicken cut into pieces
2 nos Onion (diced)
1 tsp Ginger garlic paste
2 nos Dry red chilli
½ nos Cumin seeds

6 nos Curry leaves
2 tsp Red chilli powder
2 tsp Corrainder powder
2 tsp Black pepper powder
¼ tsp Turmeric powder
1 tsp
Salt (or to taste)
3 tbsp
Oil

Instructions
Wash and cut chicken into pieces, heat oil in an iron kadai and splutter cumin seeds, red chillies and curry leaves. Saute onions until golden brown along with ginger garlic paste. Add chicken along with turmeric powder, red chilli powder, corrainder powder, black pepper powder and salt. Cook on medium flame until the oil separates making the masala slightly thick and dry. Good side for any rice dish.