A Gentle Curry

This was from the The Splendid Table website (http://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/chicken-curry-with-gentle-spices)

1 large onion, cut in half

6 large garlic cloves

1 3-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled

1-1/2 generous teaspoons of a blend of ground coriander, cumin and fresh-ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt 

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3 to 4 canned tomatoes

2 jalapeños, stemmed and seeded

1/2 cup water 

Give this a whir and you get a paste. 

You cook this in some oil, add 1/2 c of yogurt (I used my homemade yogurt which I make and eat all the time (see below) and cook that down.  Finally you add another 1.5 cups of yogurt, some water and 2 pounds of chicken and let that cook.  Serve it over rice.  Great taste.

Massaman - take 2

This type of curry, called Massaman curry, is a slightly less hot version of Thai curry. It is from the south of Thailand and you get that sense from the spices you find in it.  Later adventures will include some other curries but my wife has a limit to the heat she can take.  One of the ways it become milder is to roast the chili peppers and garlic and shallot.

Ready for roasting.

After roasting you let them cool and peel them.   You put the seeded, roasted peppers into a food processor and grind them.  Add the garlic and shallots, along with 1/2 c. chopped ginger (below), 1/4 c. water, 4t. lime juice, 4t. vegetable oil, 1 T fish sauce, 1 t. Five Spice powder, 1/2 t. ground cumin, and 1/2 t. black pepper.  Process until it forms a paste.  This is your curry paste and it will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks. 

To actually make the curry, we're going to use red pepper, potato, onion, coconut milk, chicken and cilantro.

First step is to fry some paste in oil to brown (below). Stir in 1. 25 c of chicken broth, coconut milk, potatoes, onions, pepper and salt.  Bring it to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are just tender, about 12-14 minutes.

Stir in chicken and simmer for an additional 10-12 minutes.   Serve with chopped cilantro and dry-roasted peanuts. 

You can see that once you have the paste, the rest is really easy.  You can buy curry pastes in the stores but part of this for me is finding out what's in them so I am doing it from scratch.

A curry for all seasons

I was looking through a Cook's Illustrated magazine and found a recipe for Thai Chicken Curry and I thought curry sounded good.  It is one of those dishes that is both regional and varied.  I also know my wife really likes it.  The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea.  Like gumbo, the protein can vary to suit mood, shrimp, chicken, beef, pork, even tofu.  There will also be a lot to explore between regional variations.

We also have a cookbook which we've had for many years which has a lot of different curries.

To start I'll go with the first one I found. 

I'll do a more detailed walk through of a later batch.  For this one I had to substitute dried chipotle chilis for the New Mexico chilis.   Otherwise everything was pretty much as written.   I didn't use rice.  The result was spicy.  Not too spicy for me but a bit much for my wife.  Flavor was good.  This was a good place to start.

Still haven't found what I'm looking for....

I'm going to spend some time this morning looking through Epicurious and maybe the Splendid Table website looking for inspiration.  What I really enjoyed about making gumbo is that it's one of classic regional dishes that is famous and made in a huge number of ways.  Chili would be another example and I am tempted to go that route if it hadn't been for the fact that I've made it a few times.  I've certainly never perfected it.  I may come back to that if my search is unproductive.