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While living in the UK, I developed a taste for curry. It's a nice fast lunch or dinner, filling and tasty. Well, it was in the UK, at least, where you could buy some tasty-enough curries in jars. You'd cook up the fillings, and then stir in the sauce. Pour it over some rice, and bob's your uncle. However, I've noticed a dearth of good curries in the areas I currently live, be it in a restaurant or a jar. So I threw together this recipe to fill the craving. Of course, it's a lot more work at first than the stuff in the jars was, but it works very well as something you can prepare beforehand and then eat over the course of a week. It's also tastier than the stuff in the jars.
Since it is an approximate recipe, there aren't any measurements. It's also not exact, as I list all the little variations I use sometimes. The result is that it's a very flexible recipe. I will justify this absolute laziness and inexactness by claiming that it is how my great-grandmother wrote down most of her recipes, and therefore I am simply being old-fashioned instead of simply being inclined to toss in a bit of this and a bit of that until it tastes right, and never writing down how much I have put in.
Ingredients:
Crushed ginger and garlic, and chopped up onions
olive oil
chicken
a can of coconut milk
a good dollop or two of cream
a cup or so of hot milk with several threads of saffron soaking in it before being poured into the pot.
Garam Masala to taste
a little tumeric
(optional: 'curry powder' spice mix. It's basically tumeric, onion, and coriander)
a little chili powder (cayenne is what i used)
some salt and black pepper
and some sort of stock - vegetarian, chicken, whatever, depending on what you will have in it. Vegetarian goes with everything, but obviously chicken with chicken.
optional: cilantro
stuff to fill the curry with (whatever you have on hand, or like best):
sweet potatoes (I recommend actual sweet potatoes, ,but jewel yams are also tasty.)
potatoes
rutabaga
peas
baby corn
chicken (needs to be fried up with the garlic and ginger)
raisins
Sliced almonds
Adjust everything to taste.
Directions:
Fry up the onions, garlic, and ginger and chicken (chopped up) in some olive oil. Add some tumeric (be careful with this stuff, a little goes a long way) and a lot of garam masala. When the chicken has been cooked through, add your (chicken) stock, some of the curry powder (if you have it) and more garam masala. Add your coconut milk. add your saffron/milk. Add your cream. Dump in your fillings. Add your cayenne (or whatever) pepper. Just a dash, though. Add the other flavorings if you want them- the mustard powder, the splash of juice, whatever. Be sure to add salt and pepper. Let simmer for a while. Add a bit of a roux or some very fine flour to thicken it up a bit. Technically, you could just let it simmer away to practically nothing, and then it would be at the right consistency. But adding the roux or flour is so much faster, not to mention yields more curry.
Serve over rice.
Since it is an approximate recipe, there aren't any measurements. It's also not exact, as I list all the little variations I use sometimes. The result is that it's a very flexible recipe. I will justify this absolute laziness and inexactness by claiming that it is how my great-grandmother wrote down most of her recipes, and therefore I am simply being old-fashioned instead of simply being inclined to toss in a bit of this and a bit of that until it tastes right, and never writing down how much I have put in.
Ingredients:
Crushed ginger and garlic, and chopped up onions
olive oil
chicken
a can of coconut milk
a good dollop or two of cream
a cup or so of hot milk with several threads of saffron soaking in it before being poured into the pot.
Garam Masala to taste
a little tumeric
(optional: 'curry powder' spice mix. It's basically tumeric, onion, and coriander)
a little chili powder (cayenne is what i used)
some salt and black pepper
and some sort of stock - vegetarian, chicken, whatever, depending on what you will have in it. Vegetarian goes with everything, but obviously chicken with chicken.
optional: cilantro
stuff to fill the curry with (whatever you have on hand, or like best):
sweet potatoes (I recommend actual sweet potatoes, ,but jewel yams are also tasty.)
potatoes
rutabaga
peas
baby corn
chicken (needs to be fried up with the garlic and ginger)
raisins
Sliced almonds
Adjust everything to taste.
Directions:
Fry up the onions, garlic, and ginger and chicken (chopped up) in some olive oil. Add some tumeric (be careful with this stuff, a little goes a long way) and a lot of garam masala. When the chicken has been cooked through, add your (chicken) stock, some of the curry powder (if you have it) and more garam masala. Add your coconut milk. add your saffron/milk. Add your cream. Dump in your fillings. Add your cayenne (or whatever) pepper. Just a dash, though. Add the other flavorings if you want them- the mustard powder, the splash of juice, whatever. Be sure to add salt and pepper. Let simmer for a while. Add a bit of a roux or some very fine flour to thicken it up a bit. Technically, you could just let it simmer away to practically nothing, and then it would be at the right consistency. But adding the roux or flour is so much faster, not to mention yields more curry.
Serve over rice.