Pepper Chicken Recipe

Pepper chicken recipe – Learn how to make pepper chicken with easy step by step pictures. South Indian pepper chicken is a delicious, aromatic, hot & spicy side dish to serve with rice or chapati. This is great to enjoy during monsoon or winters. This pepper chicken recipe is super quick to make as it needs no grinding masala, no elaborate cooking and is made with simple and basic ingredients.

South Indian cuisine is diverse and each region has their own way of making this dish. The recipe shared here has always been a winner at home for the unique aroma and taste.

The key to this delicious aromatic dish is the freshly ground pepper which brings a mild heat to the dish.

Pepper chicken is unique in a way from the other Indian Chicken curry recipes I have shared earlier. The quantity of red chili powder and garam masala used is less here when compared to other chicken curries.

This recipe will give a moderately hot & spicy dish. To make it more spicy add more chill powder. If you are looking for a chettinad pepper chicken masala then you can use the chettinad masala which i have shared below.

This pepper chicken recipe can be used to make both versions of the pepper chicken dry and gravy. To get the right taste, do stick on to the exact measurements.

More Indian chicken recipes
lemon chicken
garlic chicken
chettinad chicken
kadai chicken

Photo Guide

How to make Pepper Chicken (Stepwise photos)

Preparation

1. Marinate chicken with ginger garlic paste, salt and turmeric. Set aside till we use it.
2. Chop onions and tomatoes very finely. Crush pepper coarsely and set aside.

3. Optional you can use any ready made garam masala or make chettinad masala from the below ingredients
3 tsp coriander seeds/ dhaniya
1 tsp fennel seeds / saunf
½ tsp cumin / jeera
1 ½ tsp pepper corn
4 green cardamoms/ elaichi
3 cloves
2 inch cinnamon stick
3 red chillis (skip if using chilli powder)
Dry roast the above ingredients and powder finely. Add it in place of garam masala.

4. Heat a pan and add oil. Add cumin, cloves, cinnamon and cardamom. When they begin to sizzle, add curry leaves and ginger garlic paste.

5. Fry till the raw smell of ginger garlic disappears.Take care not to burn it.

6. Add onions.

7. Fry till they turn lightly brown or golden.

8. Add tomatoes, sprinkle salt and fry till the tomatoes turn mushy and soft.

Make Pepper Chicken

9. Next add crushed pepper corn, red chili powder and garam masala.

10. Fry everything well till the moisture from tomatoes evaporates completely and begin to get the aroma of pepper and garam masala. This takes around 3 to 4 minutes on a medium flame.

At the end of this step you should have an almost dry onion tomato mix. If you wish to have a smooth masala, cool this, add to a blender jar and blend it till smooth with little water. I went ahead without blending.

11. Add marinated chicken and fry for about 3 to 4 minutes or till the chicken turns white in color.In case you have blended the mixture, add it now after frying chicken.

12. Lower the flame to minimum. Cover and cook.

13. Occasionally stir in between. Under 7 to 8 minutes, moisture from the chicken oozes out. This may differ from the variety of chicken used. For the chicken we get in Singapore, i don’t need to add water at all.

Chicken lets out lot of moisture and that is enough to cook the dish. If there is no moisture, pour very little water to cook.

To make Gravy

14. when the chicken is cooked fully, you can switch off if you like the pepper chicken gravy. You can also pour 3 to 4 tbsps of coconut milk to this. Stir and cook till it bubbles.

The gravy tastes great when the chicken is cooked on the lowest heat or flame for longer time.It almost takes 20 minutes for me to cook the chicken to tender.

15. If you wish to have a pepper chicken dry, once the chicken is soft cooked. open the lid and fry till the moisture evaporates and the masala clings on to the chicken well.

Serve with onion wedges, rice and rasam,or naan or chapathi.

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