Chicken Pathia Sweet & Sour Curry
Chicken pathia or patia is a spicy, sweet and sour curry that has origins in Persia, but it is now a favourite in British Indian restaurants.
This delicious curry is pretty quick too; it will go from your fridge to your table in around 40 minutes, and it is definitely on the spicier end of the "scale".
A Sweet and Sour Indian Curry
When I lived in the UK, there was a phase when a chicken pathia or patia curry was the only thing I ordered from an Indian menu.
Not because I didn’t like or understand the other stuff. But purely and simply because it was my favourite thing on any menu!
As a result, it was only going to be so long before it ended up joining my long list of Indian Curry Recipes here on Krumpli!
As with all phases, they pass, but a pathia curry remains one of my favourite dishes. Fabulously spicy and with a distinct sweet and sour vibe.
If you would prefer to avoid the sweet thing, then you must check out my Acahri Chicken recipe!
The usual habitat for a pathia curry seems to be a British curry house. Although it is far less well known than the likes of Chicken Tikka Masala, Chicken Rogan Josh or a Vindaloo.
This fiery, sweet and sour number with Gujarati leanings should be shown a lot more love.
As with all of my recipes, this dish is a reflection of me and my love of food. It is not an attempt at smoothing out the wild differences in pathia curries from around the British Indian food scene.
It is rare for food bloggers to declare favourites, but this is hands down my favourite recipe on my website. I love this dish!
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use tamarind concentrate?
You can, but you will need to use your judgment as to the amount used.
I never use concentrate because I think it can be tricky to judge the amounts, and adding too much leads to an almost "metallic" taste to a recipe.
Most concentrates sit between 4 and 10 times concentrated, so you will need to add anywhere between 5 and 15g.
What mango chutney do you use?
Mango chutney is not usually an ingredient in a traditional pathia curry, but I find that it adds a wonderful complexity and the right level of sweetness.
I got the idea from a British Indian curry called chicken chasni, a dish that hails from Glasgow with a similar sweet vibe.
I used to make homemade mango chutney when I lived outside of the UK. Now that I have returned, I usually use Geeta Premium Mango Chutney (Mild).
Can I make this in advance?
Yes, this dish is awesome made in advance, it will freeze for up to 6 months and will be fine in the fridge for 2-3 days if stored correctly.
Gently reheat in a covered pan, with an extra splash of water, until the chicken is piping hot.
I will quite often make the sauce in bulk (2-4 times the size), portion it into freezer bags, and pop them in the freezer. Then all you need to do is fry off some chicken and onions and add the defrosted sauce.
Serving Suggestions
I almost always sprinkle my chicken pathia with some extra chopped chilli peppers and some fresh coriander leaves.
I like that raw chilli heat alongside the thick sweet and sour sauce. It also means you can increase or decrease the heat for those less in love with chilli heat!
Then, of course, there is rice. I usually opt for plain white rice, but a good pilau rice is always a nice option
Flatbread is an essential side for a curry, and I usually serve this fantastic sweet and sour curry with a tandoori style naan bread.
However, the thick, almost sticky sauce lends itself to a thinner flatbread like chapati or roti.
I'll also round out the experience by serving a pile of poppadoms, kachumber salad and some mint raita to kick off the meal.
Equipment Used
I only mention brands of equipment if I think that they make a material difference to a recipe. But if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section below the recipe.
- Hob/stovetop.
- 15cm or 6" saucepan.
- 30cm or 12" frying pan.
- Stirring and serving spoons.
- Kettle to boil the water for soaking the tamarind.
- Small mixing bowl.
- Small fine mesh sieve.
- Chopping board.
- Kitchen knife.
- Mini Blender
- A combination of weighing scales, a measuring jug and or measuring cups and spoons.
Chicken Pathia Curry Recipe
Ingredients
- 350 g Chicken Thigh Meat 12oz
- 1 Large Onion 250g
- 4 Cloves Garlic
- 3 tablespoon Ghee
- ½ teaspoon Asafoetida
- 1 teaspoon Dried Chilli Flakes
- 1 teaspoon Turmeric
- 1 teaspoon Ground Cumin
- 65 g Tamarind Pulp 35mm or 1.5" cube
- 2 tablespoon Tomato Paste
- 2 tablespoon Mango Chutney
- 6 Cardamom Pods
- 1 Bay Leaf
- 1 Lime
- 1 tablespoon Dried Fenugreek Leaves
- 125 ml Water ½ Cup
- ½-¾ teaspoon Salt
Instructions
- Soak the tamarind cube in 60ml or ¼ cup boiling water, and mash occasionally.Push the tamarind through a fine mesh sieve; you should end up with around 50-60ml or ¼ cup of paste.
- Peel the garlic cloves.
- Peel the onion and cut it in half. Roughly chop half of the onion, place it in a mini blender with the garlic cloves and blend to form a smooth paste.
- Take the second half of the onion, slice it into 8 wedges and set aside.
- Cut the chicken into a 2-3cm (¾-1¼") dice.
- Heat two tablespoons of the ghee over a medium-high heat in a 15cm or 6" saucepan, and when it is hot, add the asafoetida and chilli flakes and cook for 30 seconds.
- Add in the onion and garlic paste, reduce the heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes; the onions should begin to colour and be fairly dry.
- Stir in the turmeric and cumin, then stir.
- Add the tomato paste, mango chutney and tamarind, then throw in the bay leaf, cardamom pods and the juice of the lime. Check the seasoning and add salt as required, and allow the sauce to simmer for 15 minutes over a low heat.
- Heat the remaining ghee in a 20cm or 12" frying pan over a medium-high heat. Add the chicken and onion wedges, then cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add the sauce to the chicken and crush in the dried fenugreek leaves. Pour in the water, stir to form a sauce and cover with a lid.Cook until the chicken is cooked through, which will take a final 7-12 minutes.
Hi Brian
For info I live in the UK but travel and live world wide through my work , currently in China.
I have been eating Indian and Pakistani food since I was 18 ,now 61.
I have been a fan of your recipes for quite some time.
Just thought I would share , like you my fav dish for ages was a Chicken Patia.
Also like you phases pass but then I was introduced to a Chicken Tikka Patia a whole new level.
Still my fav dish to date you might wish to try this 😀
Cheers
Paul Pennington
Hey Paul, I'll keep my eyes open next time I am out for a curry 🙂
This is a great recipe. I'm trying chicken saag next. I'm am ex pat from the midlands too living in Spain and have been trying to replicate our local curry house for over 15 years. One curry they used to do, it was out of this world good and so unique that I can't find any recipe for it. It was CHICKEN TIKKA JAIPURI. Have you ever tried this or tried to replicate. It's very spicy but sweet aswell. Would hugely appreciate a recipe for this if you could muster one up🤭 as everything else of yours is very close to what we are used too at "home" 😁 many thanks
Hi Faye, glad you are enjoying my curry selection, they are born of me wanting a taste of "home" when I spent 13 years living in Central Europe.
I've never heard of Chicken tikka Jaipuri, it seems like a curious creation the Jaipuri chicken that I am aware of/have memories of has a base of blended onions and had lots of fennel which the chicken is marinated in, then the marinade is fried until the oil splits and the chicken is cooked in that... The tikka would make that a but odd.
What are your memories of the sauce, texture, colour flavour etc, I'd be happy to give it a shot and do some research, there are a couple of local takeaway places that offer a Jaipuri, although none of them tikka Jaipuri, and I'd gladly give them a try, just for research purposes of course 😉
Cheers
Brian
Yes, this is very clever. The mango chutney versus the tamarind and lime works brilliantly. The portion I ate the day after making it was even better.
Glad you enjoyed it Paul, the flavours do play so well nicely together, especially on ay 2... Sadly I rarely have leftovers 😉
this was so nice, I had to substitute the tamarind paste as I could not find any (UK is having some supply issues right now). I used a lemon and Worcestershire sauce mix substitute I found online. I can't wait to make it with actual tamarind paste and taste the difference. Halfway through the cooking, I was thinking I had made a grave mistake as there was no way my kids were going to eat it, but we have clean plates all around. For anybody who is cooking for children and needs to be heat aware, without the added chillies on top I would say this hit at about the heat of a rogan josh, me and the teen were fine, the younger two needed to stretch it slightly further with the sides but weren't overwhelmed by it. It has gone on the list of our regular meals by unanimous vote.
Glad you enjoyed it Marie... The Worcestershire sauce and lemon mix is an interesting one. I moved back to the UK at the end of last year and I feel your pain on supply issues, it's all very frustrating/.
@Brian Jones, 2023 and if you think the supply problems were bad back then !!
I lived in the backside of nowhere back then, so even given the problems we face now they pale into insignificance compared to the semi-regular 500km round trips I used to make to go shopping 😉
Brilliant. Used a lot of other Pathia recipes that involve fewer ingredients but this was worth the extra effort. Only difference was I didn't add bay leaves and chucked in some coriander at the end. Just to be awkward, I used more tamarind than Raven down there and I loved it.
Glad you enjoyed it Paul, I love this recipe, it is my favourite curry. I took all of the aspects of pathia that I loved and made it my own, I love seeing other people take that on and make their own dish!
the only changes that I made was using homemade "wheat meat" some extra veg and a teaspoon of cane sugar.....but it tasted like the Pathia that I've had from the takeaway, delicious! Thank you x
Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
I made this Pathia last night. It was gorgeous. Lovely flavours from the tamarind, lime and mango chutney. The consistency was perfect. Lovely, authentic recipe that I highly recommend.
Tried this last night. May I just say that two teaspoons of my tamarind paste (store bought) was just too much for me and so too much indeed for most anyone else. I will make a note and adjust for next time .... that said, this is a repeater for sure. Thanks for the recipe.
Hey Raven, glad this is a keeper... Sorry about the amarind can be a real pain, I will amend my recipe to encourage more "adding a little at a time" approach, I do mention it a little with regard to tamarind concentrate but not with ready to go jar stuff.
This was sooooooo delicious! Didn’t have any mango chutney so used my home made jalapeño jam, and threw in some red pepper strips when frying the the chicken and onion, for extra veg. Your recipes are always so tasty and reliable, Brian! Slowly working my way through them.... ?
Thank you so much Lynne, I have been very honest about this being my favourite curry recipe! Love the idea of a jalapeño jam in this, in fact I just love the idea of a jalapeño jam!
Cant wait to try this out!!! Sound yummy!!
Thanks Helen... Of all the recipes on my site so far (nearly 500) this one is probably my favourite 😮
Really enjoyed following this recipe, and was delicious. I found the tamarin pulp tricky to get right. Do you have more detailed instructions on weights etc?
Hey Ian... Glad you enjoyed this I will rewrite the Tamarind section in the next couple of days and look at adding a new post on creating tamarind paste from a block of pulp in the coming weeks 🙂
Been trying to find a recipe to replicate a restaurant takeaway taste. Well, I've just found it. My wife is not a lover of home cooked curries as she say's no one can do it as a curry house. She loved it, and we both agree this is a keeper.
Thanks Brian so like a curry house curry, thank you so much.
I've tried lots and lots of recipe's, I've lost count, will be doing the balti next. ABSOLUTELY delish.
My wife and I love experimenting with Indian dishes. We tried this for the first time tonight. Great dish and really enjoyed the sweet, sour, hot spiciness of the dish. I have a jar of ready to use tamarind paste that I bought for making Pad Tai (have yet to find a really good Pad Tai recipe) and two tablespoons of that concentration certainly gave it a nice sour kick. We always like to have some form of vegetable so we julienned a yellow bell pepper and sprinkled it on top for the final simmer. That worked out quite well. Thanks for sharing.
This looks incredible, I've not had a curry in so long, I'd love to make this!
Can't wait to try this. Mate just brought it in to work on nights shift in a slow cooker and it tastes amazing. Good job!!
thankyou Brian it's one of the nicest currys. very tasty indeed. if I'm looking to make a curry this is where I come 1st. your butter chicken is on my to do list. Cheers
Thank you for your reply. I will order the block of tamarind pulp so I can follow your recipes more precisely. Like I said, the curry was delishous, both sweet and sour as yiou describe. I am getting better with metric measurements, thanks to your site. Best, Gail
hi mate what do you do if your making it for 4 people I'm making it now. cheers
this is just great. Well done BJ
Wonderful recipe.I like this and I think this is very delicious. I am going to make this recipe for my family and husband Thanks for sharing
My wife and I love experimenting with Indian dishes. We tried this for the first time tonight. Great dish and really enjoyed the sweet, sour, hot spiciness of the dish. I have a jar of ready to use tamarind paste that I bought for making Pad Tai (have yet to find a really good Pad Tai recipe) and two tablespoons of that concentration certainly gave it a nice sour kick. We always like to have some form of vegetable so we julienned a yellow bell pepper and sprinkled it on top for the final simmer. That worked out quite well. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for taking your time to write to me Bob! So glad you liked this recipe, I know I am probably not meant to say this but this is my favourite curry recipe, I think it is like admitting you have a favourite child or something 😉 Cooking is most definitely all about the eater so the addition of peppers is great if it works for you!
I'm totally with you on a pad thai recipe, I have been trying to work on something I am prepared to put my name to for 6 months and am certainly not there yet!
hi any alternatives to tamarind pulp
Hey Mrs Garner... That's a tough one, Tamarind has an almost sweet and sour earthy flavour, you will never get it exactly the same without using tamarind but for this recipe I would suggest using lemon or lime juice.
You should have plenty of sweetness from the mango chutney, you need to balance that out with your souring agent. So taste as you go until you get a balance you are happy with.
If you can get it Mango powder which is also known as amchur will help with adding a bit more 'sourness and earthiness' to dish. Again you will need to do this to taste.
Which ever you add throw them in at stage 6 on the list and test as it is cooking down for the 15 minutes.
Enjoy and do let me know how you get on.
Brian
I used prunes and it was amazing, I’d use about 60g - 100g depending on how sweet and sour you want the curry. I used 100g and it was perfect for me, maybe a little rich so I’d probably use slightly less. I boiled the prunes to soften them and used some of the water to blitz them up into a paste and I guess you can just gradually add in each spoon until it tastes how you want
That is an ingenious idea that I am sure it tasted fantastic, you could soften them in all sort of interesting liquids too to change up the flavour profiles. Love it!
@Brian Jones, what about Maggi tamarind sauce it's like a spicy brown sauce that's what I use in my patia
It would be interesting, but I suspect the recipe would need rebalancing as the Maggi tamarind sauce is a table sauce in some ways and would add a significant amount of sugar that I have already covered with other parts of my recipe.
This looks incredible, I've not had a curry in so long, I'd love to make this!
Thanks Emily, this one s a real barnstormer... One of my favourites and one that always gets rave reviews.
thankyou Brian it's one of the nicest currys. very tasty indeed. if I'm looking to make a curry this is where I come 1st. your butter chicken is on my to do list. Cheers
That's wonderful to here, cheers ash... I am currently working on the take of a dhansak, still needs a bit of tweaking though, tweaking is my favourite part for obvious reasons!
hi mate what do you do if your making it for 4 people I'm making it now. cheers
Just double up the quantities, cooking time will remain pretty much the same although it may take a little longer to brown the chicken in step 7, enjoy!
Thank you for your reply. I will order the block of tamarind pulp so I can follow your recipes more precisely. Like I said, the curry was delishous, both sweet and sour as yiou describe. I am getting better with metric measurements, thanks to your site. Best, Gail
You are welcome Gail, have fun... There are a couple of new Lamb curries thtat I have posted in the last week that are glorious, particularly the Keema matar that just went live 🙂
As an American and being unfamiliar with the metric system of measurement, could you explain the 100ml of tamarind pulp? I was making this recipe and got to the tamarind and realized that the 100ml was over 1/2 cup and that just didn't seem right. I subbed a 1/2 cup water, making the sauce thin enough to simmer, then added tamarind concentrate to taste. It turned out great, but having never had pathia before, I wonder if I did it right. I served it with basmati rice and naan and it was a hit. Love your site.
Hey Gail, sorry I have been away so have not had chance to write the reply you deserve from my phone. Firstly I am so glad you enjoyed the recipe it really is a favourite of mine and you absolutely did the right thing in terms of making it taste right for you. It would seem that tamarind pulp means different things around the world (which is new to me so I am glad that you flagged it up), I'll be doing some more research and updating all of my recipes that contain tamarind to reference exactly what I use.
But in the interim and for your reference, tamarind in the main here in Europe is sold as a sticky large block which you cut a section off and soak in boiling water, the resulting mash needs to be passed through a sieve and forms the tamarind 'pulp'. I will need to try and understand what other forms it comes in order to make a full comment. However the joy of foods like this is that you can taste as you go, also one of the greatest perks. In short a pathia should be intensly sweet and sour so you need a lot of tamarind to sit along side the mango chutney, hence the 100ml which is just under half a cup.
I'm still looking for a solution that I can add for converting amounts from metric to imperial and cups but all of them end up being deeply disappointing in real use and I personally find googling a much more reliable result than relying on a website plugin.
Thanks one again for taking the time to write and whilst this answer is not yet complete I hope it helps a little.
Brian 🙂
Hi Brian.
This is the first home cooked curry I've done that's tastes as if it came out of a indian restaurant. ABSOLUTELY delish.
Tried hundreds and none have tasted as good as this.
For the tamarind I used 2 tsps of concentrate in 100ml of water and it was perfect and the mango chutney is ingenious!
Looking forward to doing the balti next.
Thanks, fantastic site.
Hey Laurence, I saw your review a couple of days ago and it made me very happy. Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment as well, I cannot respond to reviews, but can to comments.
So glad you enjoyed it, the Balti is p=one of my favourites but as a chap from Birmingham I am duty bound to have the balti as one of my favourite curries!
One of my favourite restaurant curries. I do a lot of Gujarati cooking and have a few twists on the Pathia too, often add my home made spicy (really spicy - made with peach nagas) mango chutney which works so well with this dish.
Cheers Will, that chutney sounds fantastic!
Can't wait to try this. Mate just brought it in to work on nights shift in a slow cooker and it tastes amazing. Good job!!
Thanks Ash! Enjoy!
this is just great. Well done BJ
Cheers Dan.
Wonderful recipe.I like this and I think this is very delicious. I am going to make this recipe for my family and husband Thanks for sharing
Thanks Maha, I hope he enjoys it.
Brian what a fabulous and rich looking curry this is. I love the golden glow in your photograph. It is very inviting and reminds us all how good curries are. They certainly play a big part in our diet.
Cheers Mark, the mango chutney adds such a rich shine and colour.
I am an Indian, but haven't ever tried this. That first shot definitely drew my attention and I now need to try it. The addition of mango chutney sounds like a great discovery and something I will definitely experiment with when I next cook and Indian chicken curry.
The mango chutney idea came from an Indian friend mayn years ago when living in the UK, I love the complexity it adds to the dish and apparently it was her Indian way of playing around with way Brits add Marmalade to an orange chicken casserole 🙂
This sounds so lovely and fragrant! I love a nice curry.
Thanks Kate, same here.
Love all the spices, bet this tastes really authentic. It's always worth using fresh spices for a curry
It certainly tastes like an authentic 'Anglo Indian' Curry, although they do typically vary a little from the curries I tried when I visited India and Pakistan many years ago although the base flavours are very similar.
I love Indian curries - grew up eating them - but this is my first time stumbling on a Pathia - I am fascinated by it's origin. Your rendition looks marvelous, btw.
Thanks Shashi, its appearance in the UK also seems very focused on the Midlands as I rarely saw it during my time living in the south of the UK or when visiting the North... It's fascinating how migrant populations bring very specific food with them, when they arrive on foreign shores, I know I have done the same with very specific British regional dishes now I live in Hungary 🙂