Mauritian kalia recipe: chicken curry with yoghurt and potatoes

Kalia is a Mauritian chicken curry cooked in yoghurt with whole spices and fried potatoes. The two published recipes read for this page both serve four and use a jointed chicken (1 kg in one of them), 125 to 250 ml of yoghurt, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves. The chicken marinates for 1 to 3 hours and then cooks for 20 to 40 minutes. Serve it with rice.

What kalia is

Kalia is a creamy curry made with yoghurt and potatoes. The Mauritian author Assad Bhuglah lists it among the popular dishes, alongside halim. A vegan food blog notes that the original recipe uses meat or fish with yoghurt, and that the curry came to the island from northern India. You can recognise it by the yoghurt in the marinade and the whole spices (cinnamon, cardamom, cloves). For a curry without yoghurt, try the basic chicken curry.

Chicken is the usual choice. Both recipes follow the same logic: the chicken marinates in yoghurt and spices, then cooks in that marinade with a little water or fat.

Ingredients

Quantities from one published recipe for four people (restaurants.mu).

• 1 whole chicken, cut into pieces
• ½ cup yoghurt (125 g) and 1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
• 2 tablespoons briyani spice mix, 1 tablespoon ground cumin, salt
• 1 handful each of chopped coriander and mint, 2 chillies, 2 handfuls of fried onions
• for the blended mix: 1½ onions, 2 tomatoes, 1 handful of coriander, 1 handful of mint
• for cooking: 2 large potatoes in cubes, 2 cinnamon sticks, 5 cardamom pods, 1 tablespoon cumin seeds, 5 cloves, ⅓ cup water (75 ml), a few saffron threads, 1 teaspoon ghee
• peas, and 4 hard-boiled eggs if you like

To finish: coriander, mint and fried onions.

Step by step

1. Marinate the chicken

Blend the onion, tomatoes, coriander and mint. Mix the chicken with the yoghurt, ginger-garlic paste, briyani spices, cumin, salt, chopped coriander and mint, chillies and fried onions, then stir in the blended mix. Leave it for 2 to 3 hours.

2. Fry the potatoes and spices

Fry the salted potato cubes until golden and lift them out of the oil. Pour off some of the oil, then fry the cinnamon, cardamom, cumin seeds and cloves over a medium-low heat.

3. Cook the chicken

Add the marinated chicken and stir over a medium heat. Pour in the water and cover, then uncover to add the saffron. Season with salt, cover again and cook for 15 minutes. Uncover, stir in the ghee and cook for another 5 minutes without the lid.

4. Finish

Add the fried potatoes and the peas, then the hard-boiled eggs if you are using them. Cover for a moment, turn off the heat and top with coriander, mint and fried onions.

A second, simpler recipe

Another recipe, on Cookipedia and sent in by a Mauritian visitor, sticks to the essentials. For 1 kg of chicken it uses 250 ml of yoghurt, 2 cinnamon sticks of about 3 cm, 3 split cardamom pods, 4 cloves, 2 tablespoons of ground cumin, 2 slit green chillies, a pinch of turmeric, 1 teaspoon of grated ginger and garlic, 5 tablespoons of chopped coriander, and salt and pepper. Add 2 sliced onions, 120 ml of mixed oil and ghee and a pinch of saffron.

The chicken marinates for at least an hour. The onions are fried in the oil and ghee until golden and crisp, then set aside, and the fat is poured over the chicken. The saffron, soaked in half a cup of hot water, goes on top. The pan is covered and cooked over a low heat for about 40 minutes, and the fried onions go back in for the last 3 minutes.

The cooking times differ a lot, and neither source says which is closer to tradition, so choose by the time you have. Only the first recipe includes potatoes, even though the description of kalia quoted above mentions them.

How to serve it

The restaurants.mu recipe suggests plain white rice, cumin rice or roti, with a salad, pickles, chatini or chilli. Cookipedia suggests white rice, cumin rice or parathas. A vegetable achard also goes well alongside.

More from the island’s kitchen

For a festive rice dish, see the Mauritian biryani, whose spices are also used in kalia. Other specialities are gathered in our guide to Mauritian cuisine.

Sources and checks

• Restaurants.mu — Chicken Kalia (Mauritian Recipes)
• Cookipedia — Chicken Kalia
• Free Malaysia Today — Ramadan flavours, from Kashmir to Mauritius
• Vegan Lovlie — A twist on traditional gravy kalia