There are times when only the fire, sweetness and creamy sour hit of a Thai curry will do. I’d not cooked one before so I chickened out slightly and bought a ready-made paste. It was very tasty but a leeetle on the spicy side – I’ll use a bit less next time.
I agree that chestnut mushrooms and courgettes are inauthentic but the earthiness and body they offer really match up.
Fry the chicken in a little oil until coloured all over and remove to one side. Fry the courgette and mushroom in the same pan until they start to turn tender. Again, put to one side.
Fry the paste for a minute to release the oils, then add the pepper corns. Add the milk and stock and bring to a boil. Pop the chicken and veg back in the pan and continue to simmer for about ten minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce has reduced to a creamy consistency.
Add the lime leaves and nam pla to taste, and serve with inauthentic but really tasty basmati rice. Garnish with torn coriander.
I’ve recently discovered the charming site FoodForFriendsYeah! and have been enjoying the luscious photography and easygoing style. Last week a tantalising curry passed my RSS: butter chicken. Going a little curry gung-ho of late, I couldn’t resist. I had to try, particularly given it’s enthusiastic and passionate write-up. It’d come from a pretty authentic source too.
marinade
I set to marinating my chicken in what seemed like a little of everything of my spice drawer mixed with some yoghurt, and left it overnight to have a jolly good party. The real bonus is this is most of the work; next day is just frying onions and adding the chicken mix then baking. One line from the recipe did concern me though:
“Skim off the extra fat carefully (sometimes using kitchen rolls helps).”
What exactly was I dealing with here?! It was true to its word; I laid a piece of kitchen roll over the dish after it came out and within seconds it was sopping. God knows how much fat was left in it after adding a ton o’ cream, butter and yoghurt to it! To try and counteract this carb fest I invented some tori masala as an excuse to have some greenery.
tray baked butter chicken
The curry was very tasty but disappointing in some respects. I felt the chicken had toughened in the baking process. If I did it again I would brine the meat for a few hours beforehand to lock in moisture. The texture of the sauce was quite delicious though; creamy and sticking to the chunks of chicken and perfect to scooping up with warmed naan. The flavour itself was overwhelmingly saffron. While this wasn’t unpleasant in itself I felt I’d added a whole boat-load of other spices to no effect. I would be interested in trying it again without the saffron to see if the other aromatics had a chance to fight through. So on reflection a tasty curry, however I suspect with a couple of tweaks could be very great indeed.
P.S. Two days later I ate it warmed up for lunch, and the flavour had improved tremendously. The saffron had dulled and gave away to other spices, notably cardamom. I would recommend making it the day before and reheating for an enhanced dinner, as is so often the case with deeply spiced dishes.
Butter chicken:
For the marinade:
3cm long ginger, grated
4 cloves garlic, grated
80g ground almonds
¼ teaspoon red chilli powder
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon garam masala
4 cardamom pods, seeds only, ground
1 ¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon turmeric
A healthy pinch saffron
1 tin tomatoes
150ml thick, Greek style yogurt
1 kilogram chicken pieces, cut into chunks
For the sauté:
4 tablespoons butter
2 onions, thinly sliced
Handful of coriander leaves
1 teaspoon curry powder
5 tablespoons double cream
Combine the dry marinade ingredients in a bowl, mixing well. Stir in the yoghurt and tomatoes and add the chicken. Refrigerate overnight and bring out of the fridge an hour before cooking.
Preheat the oven to 200°C. In a pan melt the butter and add a splash of oil. Sauté the onions until browned and add the curry powder. Stir for a minute then add the chicken mixture and coriander. Continue to fry for a couple of minutes until everything reaches a simmer. Transfer to a baking dish, cover with foil and bake for an hour.
Remove from the oven and skim off the excess fat. Serve with plenty of naan.
This is a recipe I’ve plucked from the pages of the April delicious magazine. I seem to be drawn to each every curry-style recipe at the moment – I’ve another planned for Sunday! This one seemed utterly irresistible, with spicy, rich lamb combined with a crisp potato topping.
I decreased the chilli for my version – we prefer it a little milder – and I’ve been off sweet potatoes since the awful barefoot contessa persuaded me that combining them with orange juice would be a good idea. Those changes made, the cook was on. I begins as a pan stir-fry, then finished in the oven to cook out the potato topping. The trickiest bit is draining the potato of excess water – I need to think of a way to squeeze them out without scalding myself. That aside, this was enormously satisfying. Filling, savoury, meaty and a dense mouthful on every fork. Very tasty indeed.
Lamb keema sag with rosti topping:
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ chilli powder
2 onions, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ginger, minced
500g lamb mince
300ml lamb stock
1 tin tomatoes
300g spinach
1 teaspoon garam masala
Juice of ½ lemon
2 maris piper potatoes, grated
Fry the seeds in a dry pan for 1 – 2 minutes until fragrant. Grind to a powder and mix with the turmeric and chilli.
In the same pan fry one of the onions with the garlic and ginger for a few minutes until softened. Tip the ground spices into this.
Fry the lamb until browned. Tip away the excess fat and add the stock and tomatoes. Simmer for 20 minutes until the lamb is tender and the sauce has thickened. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Wilt the spinach in a colander by pouring over boiling water. Immediately run under cold water and squeeze off excess liquid. Add this to the mince with lemon and garam masala. Check for seasoning.
Back in the colander repeat the boiling water trick with the potatoes and other onion. Tip onto a tea towel and squeeze out the excess liquid. Mix with a little oil and season, then spread on top of the mince.
Put the pan into the oven and bake for about 20 minutes until browned in top.
I’ve gone a bit curry mad lately. A recent rerun of Floyd’s Indiadidn’t help, and Gordon Ramsay’s latest seriesisn’t going to quash it either. So tonight I really fancied yet another home-brewed curry.
A quick aside: I can’t find a gospel on how Indian food should be named. Sometimes it’s named by method (balti), sometimes by ingredient (dhansak = double onion). I don’t know what the formula is. So I’ve decided to make my own rules too, smashing the Indian terms for coriander and cauliflower together, to reach dhania gobi. I could’ve gone with vegetable masala, or courgette bargar, or carrot jeera. So pardon me for slapping almost any old name on it, but I like the exotic sound. (If anybody knows the real ‘rules’, let me know).
I had courgette, cauliflower and carrot on hand, so they were a lock. Then it was a case of picking and choosing my spices. Coriander ended up going in twice and was the main flavour, so it packed quite a citrussy punch. A little yoghurt at the end helped both thicken and sour the dish, and was pretty pleased with the result. This won’t be the last curry I cook this season, I’m sure!
Dhania gobi:
1 tablespoon coriander seeds, cracked
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, cracked
2 inch cassia bark
1 onion, sliced
1 tablespoon garlic and ginger paste
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon tomato puree
2 carrots, diced
2 courgettes, diced
½ head cauliflower, diced
1 litre vegetable stock
2 tablespoons plain yoghurt
1 tablespoon ground almonds
Chopped coriander leaves
Fry the coriander seeds, cumin and cassia in a little oil for a minute. Add the onion and soften.
Add the paste, turmeric, garam masala, puree and a pinch of salt and stir for another minute. Add the vegetables and coat well with the onion masala.
Add the stock and bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer and continue to cook for 15 minutes or until the veg is tender.
Take off the heat and stir in the yoghurt and almonds. Serve topped with coriander leaves.
