The Most Aromatic Chicken Recipe You’ll Ever Make (Kombdi, Jira Ghalun) | America's Test Kitchen

I was yesterday years old when I learned that cumin is not actually a seed, but a fruit. How about that? Well, it does explain why cumin has that almost fruity, floral aroma, especially when it's toasted and ground. Now Julia's here and she's going to showcase a recipe for us that centers and celebrates all things cumin. That's right. You're in for a treat because today we're making kumbadi jera galu, which is chicken with cumin. This recipe comes from the western part of India, and the cuisine there is known for their big, rich, elaborately spiced meat dishes, and this is a good example of that. But it is incredibly easy to make. Sold and sold. Yeah, and it starts by marinating the chicken, so we're going to make the marinade. Here I have a little bit of ginger, about a two-inch piece. I'm just going to peel off the skin, which I like doing with a spoon. There's no wrong way. I find the spoon works really well because you don't get a lot of waste. You really just get the skin off. Chop it up, add it to the blender. Next up, some garlic. Eight cloves. So I'm just going to cut off the little sort of stem end, and now I'm going to smash it with the flat of the knife and my palm. All right. Now we're going to add just a little bit of water. This is a third of a cup of water. A little bit of yogurt. This is a quarter cup of whole milk yogurt. All right. Now we're going to add a little bit of spice. Paprika and cayenne. This is one and a half tablespoons of paprika and one and a half teaspoons of cayenne. Last but not least, a little bit of salt, two teaspoons of salt. Now we're going to whiz this in the blender until it's nice and smooth, about two minutes. I'm going to stop the blender and scrape it down as I need to. Okay. All right. Watch the vapors. There we go. Now I'm just going to set this aside for a second because while we have the blender out, I'm going to puree just a few tomatoes. We're going to coarsely crush them right in the blender. It also helps get any of the spices that are stuck down under the blades to make sure it gets in the pot. All right. Now here we have that marinade. It's not a lot of marinade, but as you saw, it's potent. Yes. So here we're going to add the chicken and this is eight large drumsticks. You could use boneless, skinless chicken if you want to. The cooking time's a little different and you can find that information on our website. Perfect. Now you have to marinate these for at least an hour to get some flavor, but you can go up to 24 hours. And as always, the longer you marinate, the more flavor you get. So I'm going to cover them with plastic and into the fridge they go. Okay. Great. That chicken has marinated and it's time to build the braise using a nice big Dutch oven here. Perfect for braising. I have a quarter cup of oil in there heating over medium high heat. You can see it's just starting to smoke, which is perfect. Going to add an onion that's nicely chopped and a teaspoon of salt. I'm just going to cook this for about five minutes or so until the onions are nicely softened. Okay. Those look perfect. All right. Now in go the tomatoes that we pureed. All right. We're going to crank the heat to high. We're going to cook this tomato down until it's darkened in color, starts to stick to the bottom of the pot. Takes again about five minutes. Whoa. You can see those tomatoes have reduced down, color's darker, it's starting to stick to the bottom and the sides of the pan. Everything's getting better. That's it. All right. Time to add the chicken. Okay. Right into the pot it goes. And of course, I'm going to add all of this marinade because that is really good flavor. All goes in and of course, we need to add a little liquid to prevent this from scorching as it cooks. Just three cups of water right into the pot. I'm going to take a minute to really scrape up any browned bits from the bottom and the sides of the pan because that is just good flavor. You want that in the stew. So now I'm just going to bring this to a boil. Bridget, this has come to a boil. Time to put the lid on. I'm going to turn this down to medium-low. We're going to cook this until that chicken registers 175 or thereabouts, anywhere around about half an hour, maybe a few minutes less. Okay. Now, while this cooks, you notice it's called cumin chicken, but we haven't added any cumin yet. There's a huge ingredient missing so far. Et voila. Okay. Here's the cumin. Now the thing is, if you're going to make this recipe, really try to buy cumin seeds and toast them and grind them yourself. It is such a big difference in flavor. You get all the nuances that the fruit has to offer. If you're in a pinch, of course, you can use pre-ground, but use the good stuff. So that's three tablespoons of cumin seeds. Toasting it over medium heat until it's fragrant takes about three minutes. Okay. Oh, you can see when it's done and also you can smell it. Paradise. Now we're just going to grind this to a nice, fine powder. The cool thing is watch the smoke in the spice grinder. It's kind of hypnotic. Mmm. All right, this is ground and ready to go. We just have to wait for that chicken to finish. Love our in-depth reviews? Get the latest from our reviews team delivered straight to your inbox. Our well-equipped cook newsletter provides top product picks, no-nonsense buying guides, and must-try recipes. No extra fluff, just the smartest ways to shop, save, and cook. Sign up for free now at americastestkitchen.com slash newsletter. It's been half an hour, Bridget. Oh. The aromas have changed, right? Time to take the temperature of our chicken. Again, we're looking for about 175, 176. Yeah. Perfect. There you go. All right. So I'm just going to take these drumsticks out of this sauce because the sauce looks pretty watery, which is great because it meant that nothing scorched as it was cooking. Some extra liquid came out of the chicken, which just adds good flavor. And we're going to reduce this liquid down to a nice thick sauce. Takes about 15 minutes or so, and by the end, the sauce should measure two and three quarter cups thereabouts. Okay. All right. So we'll bring that to a simmer and let her go. In the meantime, let's make a little raita to go with our chicken dish. Raita is just a simple yogurt sauce. This is one cup of whole milk, plain yogurt. Now, Greek yogurt need not apply here. It's too thick. You want the looser texture of regular yogurt. Also, no nonfat, no low fat, full whole milk yogurt because you want that flavor. Yeah. So. Into it goes a little more cumin. This is three quarters of a teaspoon, half a teaspoon salt, half a teaspoon sugar. There we go. Just whisk these together. All right. In goes a little bit of onion, third a cup of minced onion, and a tablespoon of chopped cilantro. Beautiful. Yep. And that's it for this. We can set this aside. Let those flavors marry while that sauce reduces. Oh, that looks perfect. That looks beautiful. Nicely thickened. Now, it's time to add the cumin. Sprinkle it right into the pot. Oh. Gorgeous. Spectacular. All right. Back in goes the chicken and any accumulated juices. Let me roll this chicken around in here. Really get it coated. Coated. All right. That's it. I have a little bit of basmati rice on this plate. I was hoping there would be something like that because there's a lot of sauce in there. There sure is. Oh, yeah. The sauce is just magic. Mm. There you go. Mm. A little raita. Well, I have a feeling. I did see the amount of cayenne pepper that you put into that sauce at the very beginning, so the cooling yogurt might be just the thing. And some fresh cilantro. Gorgeous. How beautiful. Mm. I can't wait for you to try this sauce. Don't have to wait long. All right. I'm going to tuck in a little bit of that chicken. I love this sauce. Up until now, I have never been a huge fan of cumin. Really? But this is different. For full episodes of your favorite cooking shows, head over to ATK's full episodes channel on YouTube. You can stream complete seasons of America's Test Kitchen, Cook's Country, and more. See you there.