Yen Kangsoi
There are recipes where flavour begins with oil and a crowded spice box. Yen Kangsoi manages perfectly well without either.
Kangsoi is a brothy, everyday preparation from Manipur’s Meitei kitchens, built around vegetables simmered in water with ginger, chilli and ngari, the deeply funky fermented fish that does an extraordinary amount of heavy lifting. Add yen, or chicken, and the broth becomes richer while still remaining remarkably light.
This version uses country chicken, mustard greens, potato and fresh ginger flowers, which are treated almost like a vegetable rather than simply an aromatic. A whole bhut jolokia quietly infuses the pot and can be broken open at the end if you feel the afternoon has been going suspiciously well.
No oil. No powdered masala. Just chicken, greens, fermentation and one chilli with an extremely well-documented attitude problem.
Caril de Frango
This is what happens when a curry takes the scenic route. With roots leading back to Goa, caril travelled through Portuguese-ruled Mozambique before eventually finding a comfortable home in Lisbon, picking up a Portuguese refogado and losing quite a few spices along the way.
Unlike the more complex curries of Goa, this version is deliberately mild. Onion, garlic, tomato and bay leaf are slowly cooked in plenty of oil before commercial curry powder, turmeric and coconut milk enter the picture. The result is creamy, deeply yellow, pleasantly oily and fragrant without overwhelming the chicken.
The curry powder isn't a shortcut here. It's actually part of the dish's identity, with Lisbon restaurants traditionally using Portuguese brands such as Margão.
Three continents, several generations of migration and colonial history, all eventually condensed into a surprisingly uncomplicated pot of chicken curry.
East Indian Chicken Khuddi
Long before spice blends came with barcodes and ingredient lists, Mumbai’s East Indian families had bottle masala. A fiercely personal blend of spices, traditionally made in large batches, stored in beer bottles and passed down through families, with every household convinced theirs is obviously the best one.
Khuddi is one of the great places to put it to work. A proper East Indian Sunday lunch curry of chicken, potatoes and roasted coconut, deeply spiced with bottle masala and sharpened here with coconut vinegar.
Rich, tangy, comforting and ideally accompanied by fugiya, pao or rice. And if someone offers you their family’s bottle masala recipe, write it down immediately. You may not be asked twice.
Shengdana Chicken
In the kitchens of Vidarbha and Marathwada, peanuts have a habit of sneaking into everyday cooking and making everything considerably more interesting. In Shengdana Chicken, they are roasted, coarsely ground and cooked with Kanda Lasun Masala until they turn into a thick, nutty gravy that clings shamelessly to the chicken. There is no coconut, cream or fancy thickener required. The peanuts have that department covered. Spicy, earthy and unapologetically rustic, this is the sort of curry that makes a bhakri less of an accompaniment and more of an essential piece of eating equipment.
Chicken Datshi
Chicken Datshi is a beautiful example of how little you actually need to make something deeply satisfying. Chicken, a mountain of chillies and soft, tangy churpi come together in a light broth that slowly turns creamy as the cheese melts into it. Traditionally the datshi is made from yak milk. I'm using cow's milk here, but the principle remains the same: heat, acidity and a little patience doing most of the work. It's simple food, but the combination of heat, funk and richness is anything but simple.
Lahori Murg Chanay
This is one of those dishes that makes perfect sense once you think about it. Chickpeas are cooked slowly in chicken stock until they become rich and savoury, then the shredded chicken goes back in at the end. Nothing complicated, just a very efficient exchange of flavours. The chickpeas get the chicken, the chicken gets the chickpeas, and everyone wins. Chemistry, but delicious.