Red chicken curry

Once again, this is a post written a very long time ago but never got round to posting. Since the stove and oven (now repaired!) were of the fritz, I didn't do any cooking the past few days and the microwave is in the shop for repair (they couldn't repair it on the spot and had to take it away!). I hope to do some cooking over the weekend but that might depend on whether the microwave comes back or not cos I'm quite dependent on it for warming up leftovers. :-)

I'd recently posted about the gadgets in my kitchen with one of them being a Thermomix.

On the first night that I received it, I decided to give it a shot with cooking even though I had not bought it for that purpose (though it's sold and marketed for that reason!). I looked through their community website and found a chicken curry recipe that was fairly simple and it looked like I had all the ingredients on hand. (I didn't want to be out buying ingredients as I was trying to clear the fridge before a trip away).

The chicken curry turned out very tasty although the cooking experience with the Thermomix left much to be desired (I've since become much more of a fan of the Thermomix, which is a great machine if used for the right purpose). That said, I've decided to include the recipe here by converting it from a Thermomix recipe to a regular recipe that anyone can use.

Here's the RECIPE for a simple red chicken curry:

Ingredients:

• 500g chicken thighs cut into bite size pieces
• 1 tomato quartered
• 1 can 400ml coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon dark sugar
• 5 tablespoons oil
• Salt to taste

Ingredients for spices:

• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger minced
• 2 brown onions finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons tumeric
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 2 tablespoons chili paste (sambal olek)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Instructions:

• Add onion, ginger, oil and spices into a pot and cook for 5 - 7 minutes on a moderately high heat until the everything starts to brown
• Put in half the can of coconut milk and bring to boil, then simmer for 5 minutes
• Add remaining coconut milk, tomato, chicken, sugar. Bring to boil and simmer for 30 minutes covered
• Add salt to season and adjust to taste. Then bring back to boil and simmer for another 30 minutes covered

Note: this will cook the curry fairly quickly but still give it some deeper flavor from the simmering. If you want to really let the flavors catch, I would suggest using a cast iron pot and on the last simmer, put the pot into the oven at 90 degrees C for 1 or 2 hours, depending on your timing and when you want to eat.

When I was cooking this in the Thermomix, it being my first time cooking with the machine and needing to clear out my fridge, I got quite creative with my ingredients. To say that I did not follow the recipe exactly would have been putting it mildly.

Here's what went down:

• I used less chicken because there were only the 2 of us eating - so it was only 4 chicken thigh pieces that I used. I didn't weigh them, but I'm guessing it's less than 500g
• I had about 2/3 a punnet of grape tomatoes in the fridge that needed to be eaten (no regular tomatoes) so I used all of those instead, which is a lot more than just 1 tomato
• There was a large lump of ginger that needed to be used up as well, so instead of 1/2 teaspoon of ginger, I think I ended up with maybe 1 1/2 tablespoons of ginger
• I didn't have tumeric, so I used curry powder instead
• I didn't have ground coriander (who knew there were so many spices I didn't have?) and I chiffonaded (is that even a word?) a handful of fresh coriander instead and used that
• I was generous with the chili paste and used 2 generous heaped tablespoons and then for a little extra zing, I added a 1/2 teaspoon of my special blend of chili powder. Don't do this if you do not like a lot of heat in your curry
• Oh yeah, since I was doing it in the Thermomix, I skipped a step and forgot to fry off the spices. Totally stuffed that up and I think it would have tasted even better than it did, if I had done that step properly

I served it with some brown rice and steamed broccoli (done the old fashioned way *grin*) and it turned into a very nice dinner.

Are you a fan of curries? Do you like them mild, medium or hot? Ever tried one that's super hot? Red, green or yellow curries for you? Any particular ethnicity of curries you are specially fond of? Indian? Thai? Malaysian?



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