Chicken Curry and Beyond – The CurryFocus Blog

Hi, Ray here again.

Once again the weekend has rolled around. And we all know what the weekend means – curry time! I browsed through the great range of curry recipes on the Curry Focus website and found the South India Pepper Chicken Curry recipe amongst the large number of chicken curry recipes. This looked like a really easy chicken curry recipe to make, which suited a part-time cook like myself. Despite cooking curries for the last 4 years, I wouldn’t claim to be a master curry maker by any means. There’s just no way that I will be able to compete with cooks who have learnt to cook with the guidance of their mothers.

I picked up the chicken thighs and some coconut milk whilst out shopping. I really like recipes that use chicken thighs because I find that the meat is far tastier than chicken breast.

I saw that the first part of the method was marinating the chicken in spices so I did this first stage some 3 hours before needing to start the cooking. The recipe said to marinate for an hour but one thing that I’ve learnt is that marinating for longer usually means tastier meals. I was a bit perplexed at how to lightly crush the peppercorns until I realised that probably the best way would be to use my mortar and pestle. It was amazing that having this piece of kitchen equipment had fallen to the back of my mind since I invested in a spice grinder a couple of years ago. I suppose another way to crush the peppercorns would have been to use a rolling pin. Anyhow, I chopped up the chicken thighs and marinated them in the spices for 3 hours.

Cooking time came around in the evening and everything went smoothly – as I said earlier, this is a really easy chicken curry recipe. The one thing that I did notice was that the recipe only uses 1/2 a cup (125ml or 4 fl oz) of coconut milk so now I have the best part of a can of coconut milk in the fridge to use up (I’ll find a recipe to use the coconut milk – no way am I going to throw it away).

I cooked the curry without any problems, the curry tasters arrived about 15 minutes before the meal was ready and I served up the South India Pepper Chicken Curry on rice to the eager diners.

The chicken thigh meat was well cooked and the curry had the expected lovely coconut taste. The curry sauce was a runny but, being unfamiliar with the South India pepper chicken curry dish, I do not know if this is to be expected or not. It’s not really a problem though because the rice soaked up the gravy pretty well. There was a lot of pepper in this curry which gave the curry a bit of a kick with a hot aftertaste on the lips after the meal was eaten. But even though the curry received a spice/heat rating of “Hot”, it was not a mouth burning hot that you get with a vindaloo curry. Everyone enjoyed the meal and the curry received an average taste score of 8 out of 10.

This is a delightful curry and one that you really should try if you like a great hot chicken curry.

Hi, Ray here again.

I’ve commented more than once about the number of chicken curry recipes which are on the Curry Focus website. A recent arrival amongst the chicken curry recipes is one for an Easy Chicken Curry (there is more than one Easy Chicken Curry recipe and the new arrival is version 2). The curry looked really easy to make (so it would live up to its title) and I selected it for this week’s recipe test.

As usual, I already had most of the ingredients in the house and all I had to pick up when shopping was the chicken thighs, chicken stock and fresh coriander (cilantro). Normally I have lots of chicken stock in the freezer but Wendy has recently gone through a soup making phase and reduced my chicken stock level down to zero (I prefer making my own chicken stock than buying but did not have time to go to the butcher to get some bones).

Late Sunday afternoon saw me preparing the ingredients and I started to cook the curry before the curry tasters arrived (they just seem to saunter in when the food is about ready).

The diners arrived just as the rice was set underway in the microwave and so had time for a nice beer whilst catching up on the weekend activities.

There is nothing difficult about following this recipe at all and the recipe does live up the “easy” tag.

Pretty soon everything was ready and I served up the Easy Chicken Curry on basmati rice.

The curry was very runny and had lots of liquid. I had the heat cranked up pretty high for the last 5 minutes of cooking but there was still too much liquid at the end. Maybe all of the last 20 minutes of cooking should have been done without the curry being covered so that the liquid would be reduced more. Or maybe only 250ml (9 fl oz) of chicken stock should have been used instead of 500ml (17 fl oz).

Anyway, I served up the curry without too much liquid.

And how was the curry? Pretty average. The chicken was well cooked and the curry had a “clean” taste. The spice/heat level was mild and you could easily taste the coriander (cilantro). But even though the curry was very edible, it didn’t really make anybody say “wow” – the best comment that was made was “nice”. In the end, the Easy Chicken Curry received an average taste score of 6.5 out of 10.

The curry maybe needs a few tweaks to make it better – less liquid and more heat (maybe a couple of fresh chillies or more chilli powder).

It certainly is an easy curry to make but does not appear on my list of curries to make again.

Hi, Ray here again.

The last recipe that I reviewed was one for a leftover turkey curry. With Christmas fast approaching I thought that I should try out a leftover recipe seeing that there was a good chance that leftover meat would be around after the main day.

But we often have leftover ham to deal with, as well as leftover turkey, and so I thought that I should try out a leftover ham curry recipe. Luckily a leftover ham curry recipe has recently arrived on the Curry Focus website (you can find it amongst the pork and ham curry recipe category) and the recipe looked like a very easy recipe to follow. The recipe uses curry powder and I know a lot of people turn up their noses at using curry powder, preferring to use the individual spices when cooking a curry. However, I have no such qualms about using curry powder when necessary. And considering that the main cook will already have spent a lot of time in the kitchen preparing the traditional Christmas meal, it seems like this is an ideal time to use curry powder and minimise the amount of cooking time for the leftover ham curry.

I picked up the fresh ingredients when out shopping, as well as buying some lovely precooked ham.

Preparation of the ingredients is really quick and easy. In fact the only tricky bit was crushing the lemongrass. Lemongrass is an extremely tough plant and I had to use a bit of effort to lightly crush it. But it only needs a light crushing to break the skin and the result is well worth the trouble.

The total cooking time is only about 20 minutes and so I waited before the curry tasters arrived before starting to heat the oil in my trusty frying pan. I’ve had this cast iron frying pan for years now and it is still my first choice pan to cook curries (I even cook dal in the frying pan).

Anyway, back to the cooking.

Once the oil was hot enough, I fried the curry powder and then added the ham and spring onion (scallion or green onion). The ingredients became fairly dry so I had to stir them often. Not quite a stir-fry but not far from it.

Then in went the rest of the ingredients, followed soon after by starting the rice cooking in the microwave.

I didn’t need to add any extra water and the curry ended up being dry. I suppose water may have been needed if I’d cooked it at a higher temperature (I must have cooked this curry correctly!).

The recipe called for final cooking stage to be 15 minutes, which seemed a bit long to me. But I suppose you cannot be too careful when reheating cooked meat and the extra time would let the lemongrass blend into the curry.

Altogether the cooking time was 22 minutes and I was soon serving up the Leftover Ham Curry on basmati rice to the hungry diners.

And the curry was lovely. The ham was well cooked and the overall taste sensations included lemon and coriander (cilantro). The curry was dry and had a good consistency. The leftover ham curry received an average taste score of 7.5 out of 10 with a spice/heat level of medium to hot. I use a hot curry powder but you could reduce the spice/heat level by using a milder curry powder or just using less of it.

All in all, this was a very acceptable meal and definitely tops eating leftover ham sandwiches or salad. Just make sure you have some curry powder and greens over the holiday so you can try the recipe for yourself.

Hi, Ray here again.

Christmas is just around the corner so I thought that I would try out one of the leftover turkey curry recipes from the great range of Curry Focus curry recipes. There is a turkey curry category, which I looked at, and then I chose to try out the version 1 leftover turkey curry recipe.

I knew that I would be testing at least one leftover turkey curry recipes before Christmas so we all had a big turkey roast a couple of weeks ago and I packaged up the leftover turkey into plastic bags and popped them into the freezer. I had deliberately bought a turkey that was way too big for us so there was a lot left over. I even made some turkey stock with the bones and put that into the freezer as well. I think one of the big problems with Christmas turkey is getting the size right. Most people tend to buy a turkey that is too large and sit around picking at the meat over the Christmas holiday. I’d much rather have a curry.

This is a very easy curry to shop for and most people would have all of the ingredients in the house over the holiday period. As it was, all I had to buy was a banana, some coconut milk and fresh coriander (cilantro).

Preparing the ingredients before cooking was simplicity itself and everything was ready with 30 minutes to go until the scheduled eating time. I put some basmati to soak into a bowl and waited for about 10 minutes and before starting the cooking (this allowed for the dinner tasters to be up to 10 minutes late).

The cooking was easy and uneventful.

And the tasting panel arrived in plenty of time, as usual (I think they’ve only been late a handful of times over the 4 years that I’ve been testing out curry recipes).

I served up version 1 of the Leftover Turkey Curry on basmati rice to the assembled diners only about 15 minutes late.

And how was the curry? It was an average turkey curry. It had a nice taste and the turkey was nice and hot. The dark meat was tastier than the white meat (often the case). One of the diners said that the turkey was a bit chewy but it had been well cooked previously and the other 3 had no problem with the meat. I was a bit worried that the banana would make the curry too sweet but it wasn’t sweet at all really. One thing that I thought of afterwards was that I should have bought a red bell pepper and then the curry would have had a real Christmas look to it what with the peas and coriander (cilantro) providing the green.

The leftover turkey curry received an average taste score of 7 out of 10 with a heat/spice rating of “Mild to Medium”.

All in all, this is a reasonable curry and certainly preferable to the pile of turkey sandwiches that usually appear on Boxing Day. So this Christmas, make sure you have the spices (you do not need many), coconut milk and fresh coriander (cilantro) handy to try this recipe out for yourself. And if you need a hotter curry, maybe leave in the chilli seeds or throw in an extra chilli.