Chicken Curry and Beyond - The CurryFocus Blog

Hi, Ray here again.

It was time for another chicken recipe from the Curry Focus website after last week’s Lamb Biryani. I scanned the great recipes Curry Focus and decided upon the Jeera (Cumin) Chicken recipe.

As usual, it was a very simple recipe to follow which matched up well with my cooking abilities.

Jeera (or Jira) is Hindi for cumin and it isn’t surprising to see that there is a lot of cumin in the recipe – three tablespoons in total.

One thing that surprised me was that there is no onion in this recipe – there aren’t too many Indian curry recipes that don’t have onion in them.

There was only a small amount of preparation work by getting the chilli, garlic and ginger ready before starting to cook.

After only a few minutes the kitchen was full of the lovely aroma of roasting cumin.

The cooking went well but I got a bit worried when the spices were added (after the garlic and onion had been stir-fried). Why? Because all traces of liquid had disappeared and the curry was very dry. There wasn’t a trace of liquid in the frying pan. I added the chicken, mixed everything up pretty well, reduced the heat and covered the frying pan. At the same time, I boiled up some water in case I needed to add it to the curry.

But I didn’t need to have worried because plenty of juice/liquid was supplied by the chicken thighs and was retained in the frying pan because of the lid. I should have realised that the chicken would supply the liquid but, as I’ve said before, I’m not an expert cook.

I kept checking the chicken every five minutes and started the rice when the chicken was part-way cooked.

Everything was ready together and the chicken thighs were served on a bed of rice to the waiting dinner guests.

This is a simply stunning curry. It was a very tasty with a great cumin taste on well-cooked chicken thighs. I always think that chicken cooked on the bone is better than when it is cooked off the bone and this is particularly true with chicken thighs.

There was a nice after taste in the mouth when the curry was finished but it wasn’t really spicy.

The Jeera Chicken Curry received an excellent rating of 8.5 out of 10 with a heat rating of “mild to medium”.

If you like a great tasting chicken curry then you simply must try this recipe for yourself.

Hi, Ray here again.

The weekend is here again and it’s time to try another recipe from the great recipes on the Curry Focus website.

What I like most about the Curry Focus recipes is that they are very easy to follow. Non-cooks like me can make a great tasting curry without too much effort.

As I’ve previously said, I’m not a natural cook. I’ve spent years being fed and buying ready-made meals.

But that’s not what happens nowadays. I’ve started to know how ingredients interact with each other and how they contribute to the finished meal.

I can make a very basic curry without following a recipe but it really is a very basic curry.

But I do make a great curry when I follow the Curry Focus recipes.

There has been a lot of interest in Biryani recipes on the website so this week I decided to renew my acquaintance with this rice dish and decided to make a Lamb Biryani.

Once again, I had most of the ingredients and all I had to buy was the lamb and yogurt.

I got up early on Sunday morning, put the lamb into the yogurt to marinate, and then went back to bed for a well deserved couple of hours rest.

The cooking time arrived in the early evening. I’ve been asked how I know how long it’s going to take to make the meal, seeing that I’ve usually never cooked the dish before.

Well, it’s fairly easy to work out. I just add up the minutes in the recipe, then add 15 minutes for the initial preparation and then 10 minutes for getting things ready, such as heating up the oil or getting a curry up to simmering temperature.

So for the Biryani recipe, it’s 61 minutes cooking time plus 15 minutes preparation time plus 10 minutes – a total of 86 minutes. It takes a few minutes to serve up the meal so the Biryani probably took 90 minutes.

I know that the lamb marinated for a few hours but I can’t include that time in the cooking time, can I?

Back to the cooking. I followed the recipe, step by step, and about 90 minutes later the lamb biryani was served up to the waiting diners.

I was a bit anxious about the biryani drying out in the casserole phase but everything turned out fine. I checked the biryani 10 minutes, stirred it well to stop it sticking to the casserole, and it cooked just great.

The biryani had a lovely delicate flavor with very tender lamb and was well received by the diners, with “tasty” being the most frequent comment. The biryani had a medium heat rating and scored a good 6.5 out of 10.

I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of biryani but one of the guests was such a fan and said that it was great. Why not give the recipe a try and see for yourself?

Hi, Ray here again.

There is a recipe for Achaari Chicken on the Curry Focus website. I don’t think that I’ve ever tried (or heard of) this dish so now is a good time to check it out.

It looked and easy recipe to follow even though there are a lot of ingredients.

I needed to buy onion seeds and fennel seeds - I don’t think I’ve ever used them in cooking before now. Luckily my local Indian supply store has large containers of spices where you can take as much, or as little, as you need. So I only bought a little of the 2 types of seeds just in case I never used them again. Buying loose spices like this is very economical when compared to buying glass containers of spices from a supermarket.

As usual, the ingredients needed onion, ginger and garlic. I prepared these ingredients, along with cutting up the chicken and the red chillis.

I then prepared a couple of small plates with the spices so I could just tip them into the cooking.

Then I started the cooking.

I stir-fried the seeds, added in the other spices with the water and mixed the curry up well.

After that, in went the chicken which I stir-fried for the 3 minutes.

I started cooking the rice in the microwave whilst the chicken was being stir-fried.

Nearly there now.

I covered the frying pan and simmered the curry for 10 minutes.

Finally, I added the chopped red chillis and the cilantro before serving the curry on rice.

The Achaari Chicken Curry had a lovely texture and a great taste. All of the spices blended well and there was the delightful cilantro taste, amongst others. This is a light curry, but be careful, it is spicy hot.

The curry received an excellent score of 7.5 out of 10 with a spice heat rating of hot.

I usually keep clear of making dishes that have a lot of ingredients because they are “too complicated”. This curry has 10 spices and a total of 21 ingredients. But there are only 7 cooking steps in the recipe so it’s really easy to make. If you like a chicken curry then I can recommend that you try this curry, but you need to remember that it’s a hot curry.

Hi, Ray here again.

I love scrambled eggs, with it being such an easy and filling breakfast to make, and it’s a frequent Sunday breakfast in my house. Usually I just add cheese and have the eggs on toast with bacon and tomato.

I noticed a spicy scrambled eggs recipe on the Curry Focus website earlier this year but just hadn’t got around to trying it out.

So this morning I printed the recipe and checked it out.

I already had the ingredients and all I had to do was go into the kitchen and start.

If you look at the recipe, you’ll see how few ingredients you need and how easy it is to make the meal.

After only a few minutes, I had prepared the eggs, onion, chillies, tomato and cilantro and started the cooking.

It’s really simple stir-fry recipe – the onions and chillies to start, followed by the tomato and, finally, the eggs and cilantro.

I started the toast just after the tomato went into the saucepan.

In a little less than 10 minutes, the scrambled eggs were served up on the toast and being eaten by my flatmate and myself.

And they were delicious.

This is a really filling breakfast with a great spice taste.

The spicy scrambled eggs received a good rating of 6.5 out of 10 and a spice/heat rating of medium hot.

If you need a spicy, simple, breakfast then I definitely recommend that you check out this great recipe.

Hi, Ray here again.

I continued my recipe reviews with another Curry Focus lamb curry, after last week’s wonderful Keema Lamb Curry. I love the flavor that cilantro gives to a curry and decided to try the recipe for Cilantro Lamb Korma.

The recipe is for a large curry and serves from 6 to 8 people. I had lots of space in the freezer so the leftover curry can be stored away for later.

Yet again, this is a very simple recipe.

I prepared the first set of ingredients, mixed them up in my largest saucepan, and it wasn’t too long before the curry was nicely simmering.

I think that I may have put too much water into the curry because there was a lot of juice in the curry when it was only half way through the simmering phase. So I took off the lid completely to let more of the liquid to evaporate. The curry thickened up quite a lot because of this so I had made a good call.

I started to microwave the rice with about 15 minutes of simmer time still to go.

I added the milk and ground almonds into the curry when the simmering was finished. After mixing well, I mixed in the cream and cilantro.

The korma was served to the diners on the rice.

The curry was well liked. There was a lovely creamy taste with a great flavor of cilantro and almonds.

I was a bit worried about the large amount of onion in the curry. But there wasn’t a problem because there was not an overpowering taste of onions.

One thing that did confuse me was the addition of ½ cup of vegetable oil. Why was the vegetable oil needed? I can only assume it has something to do with the combination of flavours that are in the cooked curry. If you know why the oil was added can you email me and let me know?

The Cilantro Lamb Korma curry received a score of 7.5 out of 10 with a spice/heat rating of mild.

This is a great curry that is very easy to make, with delicate flavours, and won’t destroy your tastebuds.

Hi, Ray here again.

I’ve been checking out some really impressive curries from the Curry Focus website recently.

After last week’s review of the Curried Beef Sausage recipe, I again decided to test a recipe for a simple dish. I was also hoping for results that were a lot better than I got with the curried sausages.

I went for the Keema Lamb Curry. I really don’t know many people who don’t like ground meat and peas and a spicy version should be great.

I immediately thought that it would be a bit of a mission to find ground lamb but my local supermarket surprised me by having a lot of it. Maybe the ground mince is there all the time and I haven’t noticed before.

This is really a very simple recipe.

As I’ve often done before, I prepared the onion, ginger, garlic and chillis (it really is amazing how often a curry recipe starts with preparing these ingredients).

Then I started the cooking.

First, I stir-fried the prepared ingredients in the oil.

Then I added the curry powder and the whole mixture became incredibly dry.

Next, I added the lamb and stir-fried for 3 minutes, making sure that the mixture was always moving so it wouldn’t stick in the pan.

Then I added the peas, salt and lemon juice.

All OK so far except that now I had to simmer the curry for 15 minutes. But there was next to no liquid in the pan. So I added a cup of boiling water and simmered the curry at the same time as I cooked the rice in the microwave.

The curry was ready to eat in less than 30 minutes from starting to cook it. It was a very easy recipe to follow and a very quick meal to prepare.

I served up the Keema Lamb curry on the rice and the waiting diners quickly ate up the meal.

The diner’s comments ranged from “very good” to “tasty”. The curry had a great spice taste and was highly rated by the diners.

The curry received an excellent rating of 7.5 out of 10 with a heat rating of medium to hot.

As said previously, I needed to add some hot water so that the curry would simmer without burning the curry. Maybe I had the heat turned up too high. After the 15 minutes of simmering, all of the water had been absorbed into the curry. I changed the recipe so that it has the hot water as an extra ingredient – I’m sure that the submitter, J Baynes, won’t mind this small change to the recipe.

Hi, Ray here again.

I was checking out the recipes on the Curry Focus website and saw the was one for Curried Beef Sausages.

I eat lots of sausages and decided to make the very easy recipe.

I boiled the sausages in water, let them cool and then removed the skins from them. This really was about the most complicated part of the recipe.

I made the beef stock and prepared the onions and apple and then started to do the cooking.

The recipe was easy to follow and I didn’t have any problems.

The curried sausages were served on rice to the waiting diners.

And the verdict was that the meal was bland. There was not much spice/heat in the meal. Everything was cooked correctly but it was just too bland. In even looked bland and some colour would have helped.

And the portions were big. There were 3 sausages each and that is a lot. I think the curry would easily have served 6 people, rather than 4, as written in the recipe (I have changed the recipe to say that it serves 4-6).

Overall, the meal got a very average rating of 5.5 out of 10 with a spice/heat rating of mild.

This was a very disappointing meal, especially since I like sausages so much.

If you do try the recipe, then perhaps you could spice it up a bit with a couple of teaspoons of garam masala and a teaspoon of cumin – the spices could be stir-fried in the butter for a minute before adding the onions, apple and curry powder. And also maybe some grated fresh ginger root. And it wouldn’t do any harm to add a bell pepper (red or green) and garnish with cilantro to add a bit of colour.

Hi, Ray here again.

Once again the weekend arrives and it is time to chose a dish from one of the great Curry Focus recipes.

I checked my previous reviews and was surprised to learn that I haven’t tried a fish recipe since I started reviewing the Curry Focus website recipes. I saw the recipe for Fish Cakes. It has been a long, long, time since I’ve eaten fish cakes. And so it was the fish cakes recipe that I chose to make.

Most of the ingredients for the meal were already in the house and all I had to buy was the fish and spring onions (scallions).

It’s really such an easy recipe that it’s difficult to write much about it.

I cooked the fish and then let it cool while I boiled the potatoes and made the mash.

Then I crumbled up the cooled fish and mixed in all of the remaining ingredients.

I beat the second egg to use as a binder for the breadcrumbs.

Then I made the fish cakes. They were a bit small and quite crumbly and I had to handle them carefully to stop them from falling apart. The fish cakes were so small that I decided to make them bigger and I finished up with 12 fish cakes.

I heated up the frying oil and the oven and fried the fish cakes 4 at a time and kept them warm in the oven.

I served up the fish cakes with vegetables to the dinner group.

The fish cakes were quickly eaten by the diners and “tasty” was the main word that was used to describe them. They had a medium spice/heat flavour and received a good score of 7 out of 10.

One thing that could have made them taste even better was a sauce. Perhaps a tamarind sauce would have worked well with the cakes.

Overall, the fish cakes tasted great and I won’t leave it so long before I make them again.

Hi, Ray here again.

Once again it’s time to try one of the great curry recipes from the Curry Focus website and this time I chose the Beef Madras recipe. The recipe has been on the Curry Focus website for a long time and I’m a surprised that I haven’t tried it before now because I just love Beef Madras.

Like most of the Curry Focus recipes, this is a very easy recipe to follow and it only took just over an hour from starting the preparation to serving up the meal.

I bought some ordinary steak because the recipe did not say which type of beef cut to buy.

And I bought two stuffed paratha to eat with the curry.

I simply followed the recipe and everything worked out just fine.

The Madras kept getting dry near the end of the cooking and I added all of the masala gravy and also an extra ½ cup of hot water to prevent the curry from becoming too dry.

There was only two for dinner tonight, my flatmate and myself, and we both like hot curries. Which is just as well because this is definitely a hot, spicy, curry. The Madras was very tasty and with a strong flavor. The word “fiery” described the heat pretty well and I’m sure that the Madras was hotter than the Pork Vindaloo that I made not long ago.

Overall, the curry was given a rating of 8 out of 10 with a spice/heat rating of hot.

In my opinion, this is a simply a stunning curry and I recommend you should try the recipe if you like a delicious, and hot, curry.

Hi, Ray here again.

It is time to make another chicken curry from the wide range on the Curry Focus website and this week I went for the Jaipur Chicken Curry recipe.

I bought a couple of packs of chicken pieces for the curry with a pack of chicken drumsticks and a pack of chicken pieces.

I used the onion and chicken pieces to make the broth with the onion and chicken pieces and then left the chicken for about 10 minutes to cool down.

The meat easily came off the bones once it had been cooked and I didn’t even need to use a knife.

I just followed the simple instructions in the recipe and the meal was ready about an hour later.

I made some rice and it was timed to be ready when the curry was ready.

I soon served up the curry to the dinner guests.

The curry had a great creamy ginger taste. And most of the liquid had been absorbed into the curry so it turned out to be a dry curry with a good texture.

The Jaipur chicken curry received an excellent rating of 7 out of 10 with a spice/heat rating of medium.

This is an excellent curry that I recommend that you try.

It’s now time for a little confession. I made this curry last week using chicken breasts instead of chicken on the bone. I went shopping and forgot my shopping list. I knew that I had to buy chicken but forgot the type.

And 4 lb of chicken breast is a lot of chicken. Perhaps I should have put the chicken into the freezer, or chosen another recipe, but I went ahead anyway. The meat on the chicken breasts fell apart. It was a bit like eating shredded chicken. The curry was good but I was annoyed that I’d bought the wrong main ingredient.

The second making of the curry was a lot more successful using the drumsticks and chicken pieces. I remember reading somewhere that about 30% of a chicken is bone and fat. But I found that the drumsticks and pieces yielded less than 50% of the weight. Maybe I should have used a whole chicken. Maybe next time.