Chicken Curry and Beyond - The CurryFocus Blog

Hi, Ray here again.

Once again it’s time to sample another yummy recipe from the Curry Focus website. I wanted to make a Lamb Rogan Josh (I love Rogan Josh) but hadn’t checked the recipe early enough. The lamb needs to be marinated overnight and the dinner guests would be here in 6 hours. So I chose the delicious Jamaican Chicken Curry that looked like it would be very easy to prepare.

I had to go out to buy the scallions (spring onions), chicken and chicken broth. I had already made up my mind that I would not buy a whole chicken. I read up on how to joint (chop up) a whole chicken but the process seems a bit too complicated for a novice cook like myself. I substituted with 6 large chicken thighs. Chicken meat cooked on the bone is great.

The time arrived to start so I prepared the ingredients – pretty easy stuff. I cut the chicken thighs in half, along the bones, to make sure that they would cook properly in just over 30 minutes.

I stir-fried the first few ingredients and then added the chicken broth.

After cooking for the recipe’s 3 minutes, I added the chicken pieces and mixed it all up. The mixture looked pretty dry so I boiled some water just in case I had to add some liquid later.

I simmered the chicken and parboiled and drained the potato.

The rice went on whilst the chicken was cooking.

Near the end, I added the parboiled potato and finished cooking the curry.

In the end, I didn’t need the extra boiled water and everything was cooked to perfection.

I served up the Jamaican Chicken Curry on rice and presented it to the small dinner party.

The food quickly disappeared with lots of words of praise. This is a spicy curry and with a distinctive, yummy, pungent taste. There’s a tablespoon of allspice and curry powder in the recipe and this has contributed a lot to the taste. The curry is fairly dry.

The curry received an excellent rating of 8 out of 10 with a heat rating of medium to hot.

This really is a delicious curry that is very easy to make and one that you should try. It is a very simple dish and I would recommend that you make some paratha or naan bread to go with the meal. And perhaps a bowl of raita for those who need to cool the curry down a little.

Hi, Ray here again.

It’s time to make another curry from the wide range of recipes on the Curry Focus website. This time I chose the Cumin Chicken Curry recipe.

I only had to buy the chicken as the other ingredients were already in the house.

This is really a very easy curry to make.

I cut up the chicken and mixed it up in a bowl with the spices, yogurt and lemon juice. Then I covered the bowl and put it into the fridge to marinate.

I peeled and prepared the onion and garlic and then heated up the frying pan.

I started to frying the onions and then got some rice underway.

Once the onion was ready, the chicken went into the frying pan.

Near the end I added the water.

I saw that the curry was going to be a pale so grabbed some fresh cilantro and chopped it up to add a bit of colour.

The curry and rice were served up with some fresh cilantro sprinkles onto the dishes.

The diners all agreed that the curry was delicious. This is a delightful curry with a delicate taste and a great aroma. It isn’t a spicy hot curry and, if anything, it’s a mild curry. The curry got a very respectable rating of 8 out of 10.

If you’re looking for a curry for somebody who doesn’t like a lot of heat then this is the one for you. It’s a very tasty meal and is amazingly easy to make.

May has been another month where again chicken has come out on top looking at our most popular recipes. We have added some more great articles as well and we hope you enjoy reading them.

What Is A Karahi?A karahi is a the traditional Indian cooking utensil that is similar to a flat-bottomed wok.

A karahi used to be made only of cast iron but, nowadays, a karahi can be made out of stainless steel or or some other metal that is coated with non-stick material, such as tefal…..

Pork Vindaloo Recipe Review My girlfriend wasn’t going to be here for my weekly curry so it gave me an opportunity to try a great Pork Vindaloo recipe that had been given to me by my flatmate’s mother. A vindaloo is a very hot curry (although not as hot as a phal)…..

Naan Bread Recipe Review I few weeks ago I made a great aubergine curry (here is the review of the aubergine curry).

At the time, I also ventured into making naan bread….

Easy Chicken Curry Recipe Review Curry time again so once more I scan through the Curry Focus recipes. This time I was immediately attracted by the word “Easy” in the Easy Chicken Curry Recipe. And it looked an easy dish to prepare….

We’ve had some positive feedback with the revised search processing where the search looks for common mis-spellings and alternatives for search words. Thanks for letting us know that the changed search is helping you find the recipes that you want.

One of the suggestions that we’ve had is to include the blogs in the search, as well as the recipes. The blogs cover a wide range of subjects and it would be good to let you search them. It won’t happen this month but we’ve moved this request up the list and will tackle it next month. We’ll let you know when this has been put into the website.

Top 5 Recipes for May

1 Easy Chicken Curry
2 Chicken Curry
3 Naan Bread
4 Chicken Curry (Kodi Kura)
5 Chicken Dhansak

Why not tell us the recipes that you like? You can submit a new recipe here and a restaurant here.

Hi, Ray here again.

It’s the weekend again and time for another yummy curry from the Curry Focus website.

This time I selected the chicken dhansak. The recipe is easy to follow and I really like the blend of spices, dal and chicken that are in the dish.

I already had most of the ingredients in the kitchen. Luckily I had run out of red lentils (masoor dal) and this gave me the excuse to go down to my favourite Indian store where I got the lentils, some fresh coriander, a can of pineapples and a packet of stuffed paratha. The stuffed paratha are not part of the recipe but they go very well with curries.

I started cooking the dal and prepared the ginger, garlic, chillis, onion and chicken whilst it was cooking.

I drained the cooked lentils and stir-fried the first set of spices before stir-frying the chicken.

Then I stir-fried the second set of spices before cooking the onions. The curry was getting quite dry so I added some of the pineapple juice to stop the curry from sticking.

Then the chicken, pineapple, cooked lentils, ginger, lemon juice and the cilantro were added to the frying pan. I mixed everything up, covered the frying pan and simmered the curry for 10 minutes.

The rice went into the microwave at the same time.

With about 3 minutes to go until the curry was ready, I started microwaving the stuffed paratha.

When everything was ready, I served up the dhansak on rice, garnished with a little more cilantro.

The curry was served up to the assembled dinner guests who quickly made the food disappear.

The dhansak was popular and scored a rating of 7 out of 10, with a medium spice heat.

It was an easy curry to make and the result was a delicious meal.

The first chillis arrived in India early in the 16th century, a short while after Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492.

Why did Columbus head west? One of the main reasons was to find a passage to India and the “spice islands” in the Pacific. Up until that time, pepper was carried from the “spice islands” to China (or Malaysia) and then transported across the Indian Ocean to India, then across the Arabian Sea to Africa, then overland to the Mediterranean and finally entering Europe via Venice or Genoa. Towards the end of the 15th century, the price of pepper was spiralling upwards the middlemen were blamed for the high prices, particularly the Venetians and Genoese. A western sea route to the spice source was needed to cut out all of the middlemen.

Columbus was convinced that he had found the western route when he reached the Caribbean and this conviction was strengthened when he saw the locals spicing up their meals with pepper.

But it wasn’t pepper that was being used in the Caribbean – capsicums were being used. Varieties of these capsicums had already been used in cooking for thousands of years in the Americas. One of the major users of the capsicums was, and still remains, Mexico. The Aztecs were a major force in Mexico for a long time and their word for the capsicum was “chilli”. This is where we get the word “chilli”.

So even though it was misnamed, the humble chilli pepper had been “discovered” by Europeans.

A few years later, in 1498, 3 Portuguese 3 ships, under the command of that great explorer, Vasco da Gama, sailed down the west coast of Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, crossed the Arabian Sea and landed at the Malabar Coast of India. And so the real sea route to India had been found (remember, this was long before the Suez canal was built).

The Portuguese established settlements in this area of India, with their capital at Goa, and trade flourished between India and Portugal. The Portuguese quickly took over control of the spice trade and built forts to protect their interests.

The Portuguese brought chillis from the New World and used them in their cooking in, and around, Goa.

The Portuguese ate a lot of meat, mainly beef and pork, and spiced up their dish of meat cooked in wine vinegar and garlic by adding chillis. The Portuguese for this dish is “carne de vinho e alhos” – “vinho e alhos” was badly pronounced by non-Portuguese and became “vindaloo”.

Although the Portuguese ate meat, most of the local Indian population usually did not eat meat – they were Muslims (who didn’t eat pork), Hindus (who didn’t eat beef) or vegetarians. But all that changed when the Portuguese introduced Christianity, especially when the Inquisition arrived in Goa in 1560.

The Inquisition converted (or coerced or forced) a lot of the Indian population to become Catholics. In 1550, around 20% of Goans were Catholics and this had reached around 67% by 1650.

The Catholic Church kept issuing edicts saying that it was OK to eat pork and beef.

And so, gradually, the local population began to eat meat.

The British invaded Goa in 1797 and discovered the vindaloo. And they loved it. The British left Goa after less than 20 years and took Goan cooks, and recipes, with them back to British India. After that it didn’t take long for the vindaloo to reach Britain where it established itself as a favourite dish, especially pork vindaloo.

Usage of the chilli gradually spread within the Indian sub continent from Goa. The chilli was as spicy as the Indian long pepper (that it quickly replaced), was easy to grow and easy to store (the Indian long pepper was hard to store because it was susceptible to mold).

So, contrary to popular belief, the chilli did not originate in India – it is a spice from the New World (the Portuguese did ship a lot of chilli from India to Europe, mainly in the form of chilli powder).

The blending of the Portuguese dish of “carne de vinho e alhos” and chillis resulted in the vindaloo, for which the rest of the curry-eating world is grateful.

There is a great Curry Focus recipe for Pork Vindaloo.