Lockdown Green Chicken Curry

It is winter her in the Cape Town area. We are making hot food, soul food.  ‘Tis the time for stews, while all my foodie friends in the northern hemisphere are raving about summer fruit and vegetables, and fruity drinks alfresco.

 

This dish is the direct result of a challenge on handwriting, where I stuck my neck out on a dish that I have never made before.  A green curry using spinach. Yes, that stuff that nobody wants to eat.  So much for keeping a low profile.  An abject lesson in system linkage; news tends to travel across social boundaries.  I should have known.

The blended spinach. I doubled this quantity

 

A quick Google search came up with a load of recipes of varying ingredients.  I decided on my own fusion of flavours.  A basic dish using spinach, coriander leaves, and mint as the base for the sauce.  Add to this some roasted cashews for flavour, a dash of lemon juice and yoghurt for the sauce and we are in business.  I decided against lamb for the meat, as it takes long to cook.  More of this option later.  I opted for chicken breasts with the bone on.  The marrow and the cartilage add flavour and some texture to the sauce.  The sauce needs to be mushy, so take care not to burn the sauce.

 

This was an out-and-out experiment.  One of the better experiments in the kitchen I have ever had, if you will.  The dish is easy to make, and the result is astounding.  A serious contender for the top of my default recipe log. 

 

Dry roasted cashews

Asian spice dish recipes tend to come with a list of ingredients that is quite long, as they use their own mix of spices to make their masalas.  I have a masala that I make according to a Cape Malay recipe from Cass Abrahams, which I use for all my curries.  You may use your own.  The supply of chillies suitable for curry is intermittent here in my neck of the woods, so I standardised on a curry paste that will keep a month or two in the refrigerator.  You can find the recipe here. 

 

The green ingredients for this dish are all leafy.  So, we blitz the sauce with a blender to get a smooth consistency.  For flavour, I added dry roasted cashew nuts.  Just a ¼ cup will do. 

 

The meat can be either chicken or lamb.  I opted for chicken on this round, as the chicken cooks quite fast.  This time I used chicken breasts cut into bite size portions.  I left the skin on, as the fat adds some flavour to the dish. You will need a napkin and a dish for the bones, and you will need to use your hands.  Remember to lick your fingers clean before you start eating…

 

The blended coriander and mint

Fry the meat in batches until it gets brown, then keep aside.  If you want to use lamb, do the same, but then simmer the meat in some water until it is tender. The sauce of this dish is too thick to stand long simmering, it may burn.  Keep the stock from the lamb, you will need it to dilute your sauce as required.

 

I blended the green ingredients separately, but there is no need for that with a little planning beforehand.

 

Here is the recipe.

 

Ingredients

 

750 g chicken breasts, bone in, cut into bite sized portions

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

¼ tsp fenugreek seeds (methi)

¼ cup fresh mint leaves

1 medium size very ripe tomato, finely chopped

½ cup fresh coriander leaves

1 cup fresh spinach destemmed and coarsely chopped. Maybe more. I used about 120 grams.

1-2 tbsp chilli, garlic & ginger paste

2 tsp dry masala powder, your choice of flavours

½ cup plain yoghurt

Juice of ½ lemon

¼ cup cashew nuts, dry roasted

1-2 tsp garam masala to taste

Oil/ghee for frying

Salt

 

Process

 

This is the easy and fast version, not what I did.

 

Fry the chicken in batches in ghee/oil until it gets brown. Set aside. Fry the onions until they start getting brown, then add the curry paste or fresh spices and the chopped coriander and mint leaves.  Remember to add a little salt.  Stir fry for thirty seconds or so, the add the spinach, tomato and some yoghurt.  The acid in the tomato will pick up the caramelised meat from the bottom of the pan, adding to your stock.  The mix will be quite dry, so you may need to add a touch of boiling water or yoghurt.  Not too much, the sauce needs to be mushy.  Add the dry masala and the roasted cashews.  Stir carefully to prevent burning.  Then blitz with the blender until you have a smooth, mushy sauce.

 

Now add back the meat and turn down the heat to very low.  Add the lemon juice.  Simmer this for about half an hour or until the meat is tender.  In the case of lamb, you would have cooked the lamb until tender before adding to the mushy sauce.  When the meat is done, add the garam masala, mix through and turn off the heat.  Let the dish rest while you cook the rice.  My version came out slightly off-green, as my spice paste is made from red chillies. 

 

While the dish is resting, cook the rice.  I used basmati rice.  Don’t even bother to flavour the rice, the main dish has overpowering flavour.  However, with the thick sauce a roti may just be the optimal answer.

 

Now dish up.  I did not have the inclination for any additional side dish tonight.  This was enough balm for the soul on this cold Cape winter night.

 

Bon Appetit!

 

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2020-06-03

 

 

 

 

Chicken Curry In A Squall

 

Today was our first full day of working four hour shifts in daylight hours. We are already far enough west to have set our local or ship's time an hour back.

You need to set the ship's time to the time zone according to your longitude, else your day becomes shifted in terms of daylight time. You may end up with the sun rising at 02h00 in the morning!

We are now approximately on the same latitude as Luderitz in Namibia, perhaps a bit more south. It is effectively still winter, even though we are quite far north. I guess these are the last effects from the recent cold fronts passing in the South Atlantic.

We had some squally weather today, along with some nimbo stratus clouds. We even had a few drops of rain. However, the wind dropped back to around fifteen knots (from 24kts!) and we are still sailing merrily along.

I am almost through reading The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. There is some interesting parallels between life in the desert and life on the ocean. The people in these sectors appear to have the similar traits. Almost shying away from the mainstream urban social interaction, preferring the more intimate psychological aspects of social life on the ocean or in the desert. Definitely closer to nature.

The very famous Frederick Courtney Selous fell in the same category. He preferred a lifestyle closer to Nature rather than the social life in urban civilisation. He did dally in social circles before choosing to spend more time in the bush. However, from his writings in A Hunter's Wanderings In Africa it is clear that he preferred the bush over the social scene in England.

Nature definitely offers a freer form of lifestyle. One has a lot more freedom of choice than when living in an urban context where your behaviour is dictated by the masses and conformity is the order of the day. Never mind allowing you to think for yourself.

In addition, along with the freedom comes the responsibility for your actions. And Nature is merciless in dealing with the irresponsibles and chancers. People who do not understand and submit to the forces of Nature, thinking that they can be the masters of their own universes. Perhaps such behaviour may work in society, where one can wield one's power over others. But it does not work when trying this in the desert or the open ocean.

You learn very fast that Mother Nature wields the power, even though you may be allowed to harness this power from time to time.

It was my turn to cook, squall and all. As I opened the cupboard door to get the rice, the spaghetti came flying out and spilled all over the galley. An intricate game of pick up sticks then followed to retrieve the spaghetti. The cupboard was also tidied up, compliments of the squall that showed up our poor stowing practices. Mother Nature at work, I guess.

I made a chicken curry, complete with tomatoes, onions, potatoes and the requisite red masala paste. It came out quite tasty. Sensual may be a good word to describe the spiciness. Not your standard watered down pale version.

For this one I used butter to fry the onions and whole dry spices. Next time I shall use less aniseed, it tends to make the dish taste too sharp.

Ingredients:

400g chicken breast, deboned and cubed

1 can peeled tomatoes

1 onion, chopped Chinese style

3 medium potatoes, sliced

1 piece cinnamon bark

1 teaspoon masala paste

1 heaped teaspoon dry masala powder

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon garum masala

½ teaspoon aniseed seeds

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

3 black peppercorns

1 teaspoon salt

2 dessert spoons butter

1 cup rice

Process

Fry the whole spices in the butter, then add the onions. Fry the onions until they are translucent, then add the masala paste and the dry masala powder. Fry for fifteen seconds, then add the chicken. Fry the chicken until it gets brown and covered in spice mix, then add the tomatoes. You may add a little water during the frying of the chicken as the dry spices soak up all the moisture in the pan. Add the potatoes and simmer until the potatoes are done. Add the salt to taste and sprinkle the garum masla over the dish as garnish. Stir the dish to mix the spices, then remove from the heat and let it rest for ten minutes or so.

In the mean time cook one cup of rice. I added ½ teaspoon of cumin seed to the rice as garnish.

Then dish up.

Bon appetit!

Authored by Johan Zietsman.

Last updated on 2013-09-26

The Thai Chicken Curry on a Balmy Saturday Afternoon

We had a yacht club social event on Saturday in the form of a “Cooking around the World” event. The day turned out to be one of those exquisite days for which Cape Town is so famous.

I decided on a Thai style chicken curry.

Most of my South African friends keep spicy food recipes in reserve for cold winter evenings and they live and cook accordingly. They hold that such food will warm you up. The opposite is actually true. The most of the spiciest food is found in the tropics. Just take a look at South Indian style cooking compared to the North Indian, Pakistani and Nepalese style cooking. In the South Indian style saffron would disappear completely in the heavy spices used in these dishes, while it appears regularly in the recipes from the colder regions.

The spices actually make you perspire a little more. Ladies, however, only develop a slight glow, I am told. Whatever you call it, all of it will cool the body down a tad. Hence the spiciness.

My dish tended more to the Northern Indian style to allow for the tender palates of my sailing friends. Actually, I rather like to cook a spicy dish that is not too hot, but flavourful. And here in the Western Cape you get the most amazing spices on your doorstep thanks to our Malaysian and Indian connections of old.

This dish was cooked in my enamelled cast iron casserole. This cookware will stay hot for a long time after you take it off the flame, thereby adding to the cooking time. The dish also rests better in the hotter environment, I like to think. Then you tend to get better flavour development. The pot may take a little while to warm up, but you get the heat back at the end. This is something everybody that has ever used a cast iron pot knows. The cast iron sides are also thick, adding heat from the sides, as opposed to some popular stainless steel cookware having thin sides.

This recipe, as always, gives an idea of what I did. The quantities will get you more or less to the same taste, but these recipes are never the same each time I cook them. Use chef's licence. The process is more important than the actual quantities.

Thai Chicken Curry

Ingredients

1 kg de-boned chicken. Any cut will do. I used breasts. Chopped into 2 cm cubes.
1 can coconut milk or cream. Or an envelope of coconut powder, which is what I used.
2 medium onions, chopped
½ sweet pepper, chopped. This is for some colour. Use a red or yellow one.
1½ dessert spoon green masala (Recipe here)
1½ dessert spoon masala powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon mustard seeds. I used black mustard seeds.
½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
½ teaspoon coriander seed
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
small stick cinnamon bark
1 pod cardamom (elachi) pipped. You only use the pips
1 dessert spoon chicken stock dissolved in half a cup of water.
1 cup fresh coriander leaves, chopped
1 dessert spoon garum masala
small bunch chives as thick as your thumb, copped into 1cm lengths. This is garnish.
350 ml jasmine or basmati rice. I used jasmine rice
1 teaspoon aniseed seeds
Some cooking oil. Not olive oil, it clashes with the other spices
Some salt to taste

Process

Marinate the chicken in the green masala paste for 20-30 minutes.Then start with a dry pan, pot or casserole. Heat the whole dry spices (not the aniseed, that’s for the rice) until the flavours start to come out. I normally crush the whole spices in a mortar and pestle to have some smaller bits. The flavour comes out better with smaller bits. Then add a dollop of oil. Add the onions and sweet pepper and fry these until they are translucent. Add the dry powder spices and fry until the flavours come out. Be wide awake that you don't burn anything at this stage, because then everything will be bitter and you will start from scratch.

When the dry spices have married with the onion mix, add the marinated chicken cubes and fry them in the onion mix until they are nice and brown on the outside. They may turn only white because of the amount of fluid, but that is not something to worry about, Just keep on frying them till you think they are done. Not more than five minutes, though, otherwise the chicken dries out.

Add some oil during the frying if the pan gets too dry. The dry spices will soak up all the fluid. When the chicken looks done, add the stock and some water, set the heat to low and simmer the dish for 30 minutes or so. Test the chicken for tenderness and add some salt to taste at this stage.

When the chicken is tender enough to your taste, add the coconut milk. I used powdered coconut, which I dissolved in one cup of water. Check the amount of water in your dish, that you do not end up with a flavourful chunky soup. You may need to use less water or take the lid off and allow the water to cook off naturally.

The coconut milk will thicken the juices anyway, so watch out again for burning the dish. Add the chopped coriander leaves and the chopped chives, along with the garum masala. Bring to the boil, stir through and switch off the heat. Allow this dish to rest for twenty minutes. I rested the dish for the time it took to cook the rice. You can rest it for longer, the flavours keep on developing.

For the rice I used a lot of water and some salt. Cook the rice until it is almost done. The water will look milky from the starch. Wash the rice in cold water until the water is clear. Pour off most of the cold water and bring the pot to the boil again. Add the aniseed seeds and some salt to taste. Allow the rice to steam a little, then take it off the heat. You can reheat the main dish once you washed the rice.

Allow everything to cool down a bit, then dish up.

Bon appetit!

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2012-12-12