Hockey Night (Chicken curry)

Today is an exciting day.... Canada plays hockey against USA in the Olympic games (Wahooo!!!), so I plan on making a homemade curry will all the trimmings, pilau rice and rotis. Mmm mmm. I'll have a busy afternoon but it will be well worth it. I can just imagine Ian watching the game with a beer in hand and a plate of gorgeous spicy Indian curry with lots of roti to mop it up with. It should also help me get rid of this head cold. Hopefully the spices should blow it away.

I always used to buy curry sauces but having caught the foodie bug I thought that I would have a try at making a curry from scratch. I first tried a recipe from Rick Stein where the chicken was cooked in a prepared curry sauce consisting of onion, ginger, garlic, cumin, coriander, paprika, green chilli and tinned tomatoes. It was great to create a fantastic tasty curry minus all the additives used in store bought curry sauce. Nothing beats homemade food!!! Since experimenting with Indian curries I now always add raw meat into the curry sauce as it allows the meat to soak up the flavors and turns out more tender than if you precook the meat. (The most common meat I use is chicken or lamb). The other important cooking stage I do is to flavor the oil in the skillet with all the spices needed, it  gives off a great aroma and depth to the curry. You can pretty much add any spice to the curry, I like to use the recipe below.

Chicken Curry

2 Chicken Breasts or 6 Thighs diced

1 large onion diced

1 Tin of Diced/ Crushed Tomatoes

Cream/Sour Cream (Optional)

3 garlic cloves minced

Small handful chopped Cilantro 

1 inch Fresh Grated Ginger

2tsp Ground Cumin

1tsp Ground Coriander

1tsp Paprika/ Cayenne Pepper

1tsp Ground Turmeric
1tsp Fenugreek seeds

1/4 tsp Ground Cloves

Curry leaves (Optional)

1 Sliced Green Chilli (use as much as you desire)

1/2 tsp Ground Garam masala

1/4 Stick of butter

Oil

Firstly melt the butter with a dash of oil in a heavy based pan and allow to turn slightly golden. Over a medium heat add the diced onion to the pan and cook until translucent. Add the grated ginger and minced garlic and cook for a minute while continuing to stir the mixture, then add the ground spices and continue to cook for a minute. Now add the tinned tomatoes and stir to combine with the spice mixture and bring to a simmer. At this stage you can either keep the curry sauce chunky or blend it to make it smoother, I prefer the latter. Once the curry sauce is simmering add the diced chicken, sliced green chilli's, cillantro and a few curry leaves and continue to simmer on a low heat for approximatley 30 - 40 minutes. If you are using lamb I would simmer it for an hour over a low heat. Add the cream at the last stage and warm through. If you find the curry is too thick add some water.

To go with this curry I make pilau rice which is so simple. I always go with the measure of 1:2 (1 cup of rice to 2 cups of water). This steams to create the perfect fluffy rice.

Pilau Rice

1 Cup Basmalti Rice

2 Cups Water

1/2 Onion finely diced

1 Clove Garlic minced

1 Cinnamon stick

4 Whole Cloves

4 Cardomen Pods

1/2 tsp Salt

1/4 tsp Turmeric (Optional)

Juice of half a lemon

Oil

Heat some oil in a pan and add the onion, cook until translucent, then add the garlic and rice. Coat the rice in the oil and then add the water, spices and lemon juice. Bring this to the boil with the lid off and stir once. Once it starts boiling reduce the heat to low, put the lid on top and allow to steam for approx 15- 20 minutes until the liquid has absorbed. Fluff the rice with a fork and serve. To really jazz this rice up you can add sultanas, chopped cilantro, roasted cashews and chopped pistachios once cooked.  Its sooooo good.

To make the roti's use my tortilla recipe minus the oil. Follow the recipe but allow the roti to puff up whilst in the skillet. Push the air bubbles gently with a spatula allowing the air pocket to get bigger. It does take time to practice and even if they don't puff up they will still taste great. I like to serve these with Indian pickles and salads.

Tonights feast is going to be awesome, lets hope the hockey is too....

Curry, Beer and Wii

Ian and I both had the same idea!! I had decided to make curry for dinner unbeknown to Ian and was just on my way home when I recieved a text from him saying, "Fancy a Wii night, beer, games and snacks". Excellent, so last night we had curry, beer and games. It was awesome.

Prior to this text I was wanting to make a nice dinner for Ian as he has been helping me out so much in taking and processing the photos for me book. He had also helped me with the new blog layout and spent most of his weekend doing it. So it was time for me to spoil him. I bought him a single red rose to show him my appreciation and started making him a gourmet curried meal. I had been toying with the idea of making a curried cauliflower soup for a while and thought a small bowl of this would be welcoming as a starter, followed by chicken madras and pilau rice. I am not too keen on cauliflower as I find it tasteless unless I eat it raw with a dip or have it in a piccalilli. I was determined to change my opinion of this humble vegetable.

I had a rough idea of what I wanted to put in the recipe, but I was unsure as to use coconut milk or cream. I didn't want it too sweet or too creamy, so I did a little taste test and took some of the soup and added the coconut milk, it tasted awesome. So I used a 1/4 cup in the main soup pan and thinned it out with regular milk. I finished the soup off with a small handful of chopped cilantro and served it with a spiced popodum. The soup was mild in flavor of both cauliflower and curry and worked well with the crunch of the popodom . It was served  alongside small bowls of  Indian tomato salsa and mango chutney. We scooped the soup up with the popodum not too dissimilar to a vegetable puree dip. It was gorgeous, I love picky food, so I was in heaven.

Curried Cauliflower Soup


1 Cauliflower cut into florets
1 medium carrot
1/2 White onion
3 Garlic Cloves
4 Cardamom Pods crushed
1 Tsp Madras Curry Paste (Any Indian curry paste can be used, Madras is my favorite)
1 Small potato
1Tbsp Butter
1 Tbsp Oil
Turmeric Powder
Salt & Pepper
2-3 Cups Chicken Stock
1/4 Cup Coconut Milk
Milk
Small handful of cilantro

Firstly dice the potato into small cubes and place in a roasting tin with the cauliflower and garlic. Sprinkle with the cardamom, turmeric, salt and pepper, then drizzle with oil. Roast in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for approx 20 minutes until the cauliflower turns golden brown. I like to keep the garlic cloves whole as they take on a nice subtle flavor when roasting. If garlic is chopped up finely it is likely to burn causing a bitter flavor.

Whilst this is roasting, dice the onions and carrots finely. Using a deep pan saute them in the oil and butter over a medium heat until the onions turn translucent and the fat turns golden in color. Add  2 cups of the chicken stock to the pan and the curry paste and continue to simmer.

Once the roasted vegetables are ready add them to the stock (if there is not enough liquid in the pan add the remaining cup of the chicken stock), cover and simmer until the vegetables are soft.  Blitz the soup to a fine puree and add the coconut milk and enough milk to loosen the soup to your desired thickness. Taste the soup and add seasoning if required or more curry paste. To finish the soup off,  finely chop a small handful of cilantro and stir in. Serve with spicy popodoms.