No real story. I came up with the recipe in an attempt to use the sealing function of the instapot. I’ve eaten similar dishes in restaurants and love the flavour of chicken cooked in the juices of succulent vegetables like carrot, potato, and pumpkin. One time I also added mushrooms to the mix! You can be creative as long as you leave the vegetable pieces quite large.
Season chicken with paprika, half the salt, and pepper. Put the instapot on sauté mode. Heat 1 tbsp oil, place chicken in and brown on both sides. Remove to another plate.
Put the remaining oil in the instapot. Add the cinnamon sticks and bay leaf. Once they sizzle, add the onion and garlic and brown them. Add all the veggies to the pot. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Saute for about 5 minutes until the vegetables are fragrant. Add tomatoes, all the spices, and the rest of the salt.
Close the pot, set the whistle to ‘sealing mode’, and cook on poultry mode for 7 minutes. (Total cooking time will be the time it takes to build steam = 7 minutes).
Serve hot with bun, pav, couscous, or cooked millets.
Refrigerate leftovers
This recipe can also be modified to a regular pressure cooker by adding half a cup of water. In the sealing mode on the instapot, all the juices are retained, and the chicken and vegetables cook in that.
If you find the dish is too sour, add 1 tsp brown sugar/jaggery.
