Lemon Chicken Recipe

Lemon Chicken , a tasty and delicious dish , is flavorful and easy to make with ingredients all easily available on your kitchen shelf. Lemon chicken is marinated with lemon juice , then roasted with few spices and fried onions in oil and lastly cooked with curd , which gives a thick gravy . As the name says it all , the main Ingredient is but ofcourse Lemon , but as you can not add alone lemon to the chicken which in turn will make the dish too sour , so I added have honey to it . In fact when initially I made , I had added sugar but then this time I replaced it , with honey and the results were better.






Some add fresh sugar cane juice where as some add orange juice too to reduce the acid in lemon , but I have added honey to it . Without much ado , Here is my recipe of Lemon Chicken ....!





INGREDIENTS :

750 gms chicken ( with bones ) 
1 lemon 
2 small tsp coriander powder 
1 cup beaten curd 
4 -5 green chilies slit 
1/2 tsp turmeric powder 
1/2 tsp paprika powder ( optional ) 
1/8 tsp turmeric powder  
3 -4 tbsp oil
3-4 tbsp ghee - clarified butter  ( optional ) 
1 tsp cumin seeds 
2 medium sized onions finely chopped
1/2 small tsp garam masala powder 
3 -4 cloves of garlic crushed or chopped 
1/2 inch ginger crushed or finely chopped
1 small tsp honey 
salt 

METHOD : 

1. Clean , wash and marinate chicken pieces with salt , turmeric powder and half lemon juice for an hour. ( If your chicken pieces are huge enough, before marinating them slit or prick with knife so that the flavors reach deep inside , which in turn will give a good taste ) 
2. In a kadhai add oil and ghee ( if you adding ) with cumin seeds , let it splutter .
3. Add ginger , garlic and roast for half a minute , now add onions and fry until they turn slightly golden in colour.
4. Now add salt ,turmeric powder ,coriander powder , paprika powder ( if you adding ) garam masala powder and roast until oil separates .
5. Add little water and roast again until oil separates , again repeat the procedure of adding half cup water and roasting the ground masala.
6. Now add chicken , slit green chillies and half lemon juice and honey , mix well so that the masala coats well to the chicken. Roast until the oil separates.
7. Turn off the gas , add beaten curd to the chicken gravy, mix well . 
8. Now cook again lemon chicken on gas for 7 -10 minutes or until chicken is completely done . Adjust salt and lemon juice . ( here at this stage if you need to add more lemon juice , you can adjust it by adding 2-3  tbsp lemon juice to the chicken if you feel it's less and the taste is not balanced)
9. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with chapatis / phulkas or tandoori naans and salads.

NOTE : 

• Increase or decrease the number of green chillies as per your preferences.
• The measurement of lemon here mentioned above is of small sized lemon , but we all know that the size may vary , so when you add half lemon juice to the chicken for marination , you can add less lemon juice here at this stage , and when you add lemon juice while preparing the chicken too , there also add less lemon juice , now check the taste and if you feel that it's less then add more depending on the taste.
• Adding the lemon juice may vary from person to person as the lemon sized may not be exact of my mentioned one here , so if you feel that the taste needs more sour taste then add more only after you taste.
• The taste should not be too sour , perhaps the flavours should be balanced.
• Adding of paprika powder is optional so you can skip it.
• If you want you can first roast the chicken in oil / ghee for few minutes , remove and keep aside . Now in the same oil add garlic , ginger and continue the above mentioned procedure.

PREPARATION TIME : 30 -40 MINUTES.(EXCLUDING THE MARINATION TIME) 
SERVES : 3-4 PERSONS.

If you like my recipe , please do forward recipe link to your friends and family.