And now for something...Savoury

For anyone counting we're on recipe three now with only another 197 to go! So it's about time I did something savoury, but what? When it comes to savoury, my soft spot always edges towards the cuisine of Asia (Thai, Chinese, Indian, Japanese). I'd eat curry every day for dinner and sushi everyday for lunch if I could get away with it! I've always felt an affinity to India in particular and as a child my parents would regularly take my sisters and myself out for lunch to Ipswich, Southend, Maldon or wherever the latest Indian restaurant happened to be! In fact, I chose to take a few friends for an Indian meal for my eleventh birthday treat! But of course, Indian food aficionados will know that most Indian restaurants are usually run by Bangladeshis, so what you tend to get is a fusion of Indian subcontinent dishes.

This time the book I've chosen is The New Curry Secret by Kris Dhillon and very well used it is too! The curry sauce recipe, which forms the basis for many of the recipes, can be time-consuming but well worth the effort and the trick is to bulk cook and freeze in batches; this then enables me to grab a bag from the freezer after work. One of my favourite fail-safe curry's is the prawn Malabar; every time I grind up those individual spices the beautiful fragrance of coconut, cinnamon and cardomom never fails to tantalise my olfactory glands! (Whoops, I'll come back down to earth now!).









The recipe I've chosen is Chicken Chettinad page 65 - a punchy, spicy affair that's not too hot but fully flavoursome. This was one of the very few recipes I hadn't tried from this book and knew it would be a safe bet. With most of the chicken recipes in the book you are required to pre-cook the chicken with some of the sauce or if you haven't got any spare you can chop an onion and cook with some turmeric, this then allows you to add the chicken later on and just warm through.

Conveniently I had one last portion of curry sauce in the freezer so it was a case of adding the spice mix and other ingredients to create this dish. When you look at the list of spices it can be a little off-putting as there are quire a few to say the least, but I am converted to cooking my curries from scratch because they do taste fresher and more authentic and you get a real satisfaction from doing so. I halved the ingredients becuase I was only cooking this for my husband and myself.

The recipe: Chicken Chettinad  (Copyright Kris Dhillon, 2009) http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Curry-Secret-Kris-Dhillon/dp/0716022044/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342110219&sr=1-1

Serves 4
Spice mix                                                                2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp olive oil                                                            4 curry leaves (I used dried)
1 tsp poppy seeds                                                     1 tomato chopped
1/2 tsp fennel seeds                                                   425ml curry sauce
1/2 tsp coriander seeds                                              1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black peppercorns                                         1/2 tsp chilli powder
3-4 dried chillies                                                        1 tsp paprika
small piece of cinnamon                                             1/2 tsp turmeric
5 green cardomom pods                                            450g chicken pre-cooked
2 cloves                                                                      handful cherry tomatoes
1 tbsp coconut                                                           juice of half a lime
                                                                                 chopped coriander

• Make the spice mix by heating oil and roasting spices and coconut for a minute. Cool. Grind to a fine powder

• Heat remaining oil and add curry leaves and chopped tomato. Cook until pulpy. Add spice mix and cook for 5 minutes.

• Add curry sauce, salt, chilli powder, paprika and turmeric and bring to boil. Simmer for 5 minutes.

• Add the chicken, bring back to simmer and cook for 3 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, like juice and coriander, and serve.

Pre-cooking the chicken

From top clockwise: dried chilli pepper, poppy seeds, cardomom pods, clove, black peppercorns,  coriander seeds,  piece of cinnamon and fennel seeds. Centre - desiccated coconut

Roasting the spices

Curry sauce (right)

Warming through the chicken in the sauce and spice mix

Cooking tomatoes until slightly pulpy

On this occasion I served the curry with some pilau-style rice which I added roasted cashews, raisins, onions, cumin seeds and cardomom. Cooking the rice in a little turmeric gives it that lovely yellow colour. After cooking rice I always let it dry out by spreading on a baking sheet and keeping cool before reheating in a frying pan with the aforementioned ingredients. Obviously with rice you do have to be careful so always make sure you keep it cool if you are going to reheat.

When it comes to serving, I always say you can never have too much coriander (not to everyones's taste I know), but it gives your curry a fresh, zingy feel and with a generous dollop of natural yogurt (which I always keep in the fridge to make in to raita or just use as it is), you've got one tasty meal.

Our verdict for this curry is that it's a definite winner! Cooking in olive oil makes it better for the waistline than using ghee which is widely used in Indian cuisine.

Chiken Chettinad served with rice

So what's next? I've got a busy few days coming up what with the end of term but have my village fete obligations to fulfill next week so thought I'd have a go at some new cake recipes - watch this space...