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Pre-cooked chicken for curries

The other half of the curry-house trick

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🕑 History Last edited 2026-09-21 👁 4 views #bir#chicken#make ahead#prep

British Indian restaurants poach chicken in advance in a lightly spiced liquid so it can be finished in a curry in five minutes. Doing the same at home is what makes BIR cooking work.

A BIR curry is cooked in six to eight minutes over a ferocious heat. Raw chicken cannot cook through in that time without either the sauce reducing to paste or the chicken staying pink. So restaurants cook the meat in advance, gently and mildly, and use the finished curry to warm and flavour it.

Skipping this step is the most common reason a home attempt tastes wrong.

Ingredients

Makes about 1 kg · 35 minutes

  • 1 kg chicken thigh, boned and cut into 3 cm pieces (breast works, thigh is better)
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1 tbsp garlic–ginger paste
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 1 tbsp mix powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 300 ml base gravy, or water

Method

  1. Heat the oil in a wide pan over a medium heat. Add the garlic–ginger paste and fry for 30 seconds.
  2. Add the turmeric, mix powder and salt and stir for 20 seconds.
  3. Add the chicken and turn it in the spices until coated.
  4. Pour in the base gravy or water, bring to a gentle simmer, cover, and cook for 15–20 minutes, until the chicken is just cooked through. Do not let it boil hard — you want it tender, not shredded.
  5. Cool quickly, and keep the cooking liquid: it goes into the curry with the chicken.

💡 Chef's tip

Cool it fast and refrigerate within two hours. This is cooked meat in a low-acid liquid — the same food-safety reasoning as make-ahead gravy, and the same reasoning behind the refrigeration failure.

Other proteins

Method Notes
Lamb Simmer 60–90 min until tender Diced shoulder; keep the liquor
Prawns Do not pre-cook Add raw in the last 3 minutes
Paneer Fry until golden, set aside Add at the end so it keeps its shape
Chickpeas / vegetables Boil or roast until just done Add with the second ladle of base
Quorn or soya pieces Simmer 10 min in spiced liquid Takes on flavour well

Storage

Chilled: 2 days. Frozen: 2 months, in curry-sized portions with a little of its liquid.

A freezer holding portioned base gravy and portioned pre-cooked chicken is a curry house in miniature. See cooking a BIR curry.

See also

More in British Indian restaurant

Cooking a BIR curry Base gravy recipe BIR base gravy BIR mix powder Small-batch base gravy BIR chicken madras BIR chicken jalfrezi