Chicken Curry

Chicken Curry

I took one of the whole chickens I bought on Friday and made a chicken curry with most of it on Monday (I pan-roasted the breast portion).

Chicken curry is something that vary a little from cook to cook.  Some saute the pieces of chicken first and then cook it; others skip the sauteing, altogether.  Some add tomato, others add vinegar, still others might add soy sauce.  But this is how I learned to make it when I was still a teenager helping my mother in the kitchen.  This chicken curry is a staple in my home and it is the taste of home for my daughter.

First, I cut it up and removed the skin.  Then, added curry powder, chili powder, a little salt, lemon juice, and curry leaves and kept it to marinate in the fridge for a few hours.

Marinating Chicken

Later, I cut up the rest of the ingredients: an onion, some ginger and garlic, a green chili, (shown below), plus a tomato (not pictured), stripped the curry leaves from the stem and removed the shell from the tamarind.  I added a piece of lemon grass, too, but I hadn't gone to the garden to pick it before I took the picture (I am still not used to getting everything assembled before hand to take pictures; usually, I am still gathering ingredients and cutting things up while I am sauteing the chicken!)

Ingredients:  Clockwise from the top - sprig of curry leaves, diced yellow onions, cardamom pods, cloves, sliced green chili, diced ginger and garlic, a piece of pandan leaf, and a whole tamarind, still in its shell

Then, I heated up a little oil in a pan and added the chicken and sauted it for a few minutes.  Then, added the rest of the ingredients and sauted everything.  After a few minutes, I added a little water, covered the pan and let the chicken cook for about 15 minutes.  Then, I added a can of coconut milk:

Coconut Milk Added

And allowed it to cook a little longer, until the flavors blended.  Ideally, no one flavor should dominate and the curry is spicy and flavorful without being uncomfortably hot.

If anyone wants to make a similar chicken curry but doesn't have some of the ingredients that might be unfamiliar such as curry leaves and pandan leaves, they may be omitted.  Or, a few bay leaves may be substituted for the curry leaves.   And, regular milk can be substituted for coconut milk.  However, the taste will not be quite the same.  

I had rice, chicken curry, cucumber salad and a little tomato chutney for my dinner on Monday and packed the same to take to the office for my lunch, today (Tuesday).  The rest of the chicken curry is in the fridge to be eaten over the rest of the week. 

It's not bulk cooking, exactly, (I'm not preparing a month's worth of meals, for example), but cooking a couple of main dishes a week like this (ground beef and chicken curry, this week) enables me to cook once or twice and eat for the rest of the week.  In addition to the ground beef and chicken curry, I also prepared the pan-roasted chicken breast (to be sliced and eaten with vegetables or for roast chicken sandwiches, or added to a green salad, etc.), and some tuna salad for variety.  All I need to cook during the rest of the week are rice and some vegetables, as side dishes. 

Do you do this type of "once a week cooking"?  Have you made chicken curry?  Is it something you might try making?