Chicken Tenga

Sylheti cooking doesn’t require tomatoes - gravy is wholly made up of onions.  However, there is a fish dish (Tematoo Tenga) that we cook using tomatoes – this is my own twist to the recipe using chicken drumsticks and leaving out the onions and spices.  I ended up with tender chicken in a tangy sweet and spicy sauce – delicious!

Chicken Tenga

Serves: 3-4

Prep & Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

4 chicken drumsticks (or substitute with any other parts of the chicken to your liking)

1 tsp salt
½ tsp chilli powder (or 2 fresh green chillies chopped)
2 tbs oil
2 cloves garlic crushed & chopped
2 large bay leaves washed
10 black peppercorns
4 tomatoes quartered (peel if serving to guests, I kept mine on for more fibre)

Preparation:

1. Rub half the salt into drumsticks which are scored with cuts in the fleshiest parts.

2. Shallow fry in half the oil over moderate heat until golden and partially cooked.  Approx 5 minutes.  Set aside.

     

3. In a different pan, heat the other half of oil.  Tear the bay leaves and add to oil along with garlic and peppercorns.  Sauté for approx 1 minute.

4. Add tomatoes, chilli powder/chillies and remaining salt.  Cover and simmer over low heat for approx 2 minutes so that the tomatoes soften a little.

5. Add chicken and the stock from the other pan into the tomato mixture.  For approx 15 minutes; cover over low heat, turning the chicken over occasionally.

Remove from heat - enjoy with rice or quinoa!

Tips:

If cooking for guests, add 2 extra pieces of drumsticks in case some pieces fall apart during the browning process! 

If you would like a larger amount of sauce use more tomatoes.

If, like my father-in-law, you or your guests don’t like the look of ‘bland’ meat rub paprika or haldi on the drumsticks along with the salt in Step 1 to add a little colour to the meat!