#229 Kid Friendly Tomato Chicken

A quick 'pantry' side dish, sorta frugal, quite easy to make, very very satisfying yet eye catching and colorful. Such a dish comes in handy when you are a working woman with young children to feed doesn't it? Who doesn't like small chunks of chicken sauteed in spiced tomato paste? It is as easy as 'pie' to make and serve it with fresh bread and it will become a kid-favorite. In fact, I haven't even bothered to chop onions this time because I found a resourceful bottle of chopped dry onion flakes in my pantry that came in handy. It just proves that all it takes to make a simple meal are a few handy staple ingredients you can dig out of your kitchen pantry. As for the tomatoes I had some over-ripe ones in the fridge to consume so I took an extra step- but hey, feel free to use store-bought tomato paste and shorten the steps further. None of that will change the finger-licking taste.. so try it out,  will you?



Ingredients:
Boneless Chicken breast-2 cubed
Tomatoes- 3 medium sized and ripe
Ginger- 1 inch piece
Garlic paste- 1/2 tspn
Kashmiri chili powder- 1 Tbplsn
Garam Masala- 1 tspn
Onion flakes- 1 Tspn
Vinegar- 1/2 tspn
Salt, black pepper to taste and
Olive oil as needed.

How to make it:
1. Clean, wash and cube the chicken into pieces. Marinate in salt, pepper and 1/2 tspn olive oil.
2. Take the tomatoes and cut into large pieces, chop ginger into small pieces.
3. In a saucepan add the tomatoes and ginger and cook well together until smooth.
4.When the tomatoes are cooked, remove from the stove and mash well with a masher until smooth.
5. Place the saucepan back on the fire and add onion flakes, garlic, vinegar, chicken, additional salt for seasoning, garam masala, the tomato mash and chili powder.
6.Add enough Olive oil and a litle water
7. Keep the pan covered on a very low flame until the chicken is cooked. about 5 mins.
8. Remove the lid and stir until all water has evaporated and the chicken is dry, cooked, moist but
the tomato paste has maintained its color. Make sure that the flame is medium and the masala does not turn brown.
9. But if you do, no harm done anyway. It will be just as good, only the red color just makes an appealing presentation!!