Chicken Curry

Tues 5 Feb 2008

Way back at the beginning of February, while we were making jambalaya, I used the left over happy chicken to make a curry from the excellent Curry. This is a brilliant book, with curries from all over the world, and every single recipe we've made from it has been a success.

The recipe of choice for the chicken was murgir jhol from Bengal - a home style chicken curry. Provided you have the spices to hand this should take no longer than an hour from start to finish though, as always with curries, the longer and more slowly you can cook it, the better. Naturally, as this is a home style curry you can depart from my method as happily as I departed from the book!

I began by heating some vegetable oil and crackling 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, 2 bay leaves, 3 cardamom pods and 4 black pepper corns. Then I added a large, finely chopped onion. When it began to brown, I added a large peeled, chopped potato and cooked for a bit before adding and browning the pieces of chicken.

I then added a some grated ginger and garlic, a tablespoon of ground coriander, some extra whole cumin seeds, some crushed chillis and some turmeric. All of this is a bit arbitrary ... I love cumin so I tend to over do that where possible. Anyway, I cooked up the spices and then added some tomato puree and some chicken stock. I brought it all to the boil then reduced the heat, covered and simmered.
The book suggests you should sprinkle with ground, roasted cardamom and cinnamon and finish with chopped coriander ... but I was too lazy for that: just plain rice.

This was tasty, quick ... and fantastic the next day for lunch!

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