Anyhow, I've wanted to try my hand at preparing a curry from scratch for a long-ass while now, but laziness and other excuses prevented it from happening. My pa makes a pretty mean pot every now and again, so I decided to use his recipe as the basis for my own first attempt.
I think he bases his on a traditional Rogan Josh, which is usually made with lamb, but since I was cooking for four, and I'm the only one cool with eating supposedly 'cute' animals, I switched lamb for chicken.
So here's the obligatory ingredients shot. I'm missing a coupla things, like the basmati rice, and a lemon, but fuck it.
So, as ever, the first thing I did was the slicing and dicing. Blahblahblah dice your onions blahblahblah slice your garlic cloves. The fun part, which I've never had the chance to do before now, was preparing the root ginger. You don't need a whole lot, so don't use the ENTIRE root, just peel the outer layer off of one small part of the root, then slice this exposed section into veeeery thin slivers. The smell of this stuff is goddamn incredible, I would happily work for slave labour wages if it meant all I ever did was slice root ginger all day. Love the stuff.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, prepping the spices. First, light a low flame under a dry frying pan, and tip in 2 tsps of whole coriander seeds. Then tip in the same amount of cumin seeds. Give these just a couple of minutes to gently roast them, then empty your pan into your mortar. I've never used a mortar and pestle before, but since I'm kind of a nerd, I got a set from Annual Gift Man, and have been dying to use 'em since. Crush, grind, and generally pulverise your roasted seeds until they're basically delicious-smelling dust. Once that's done, add 1 tsp of red chilli powder to your mortar, and then the same amount of turmeric. Grind all of that together to produce a pretty consistent powder.
Once all that stuff... well, looks pretty much exactly as above, light a fire under a medium-sized pot, pour in a decent glug of sunflower oil, then chuck in all of your diced onions. Give those about...5-10 minutes, just to soften them up a little, before adding in the garlic and ginger. Tip in 3 tsps of garam masala powder, and then the rest of the spices from your mortar. I really like saying mortar. COVERING FIIIRE! ...ahem.
Once all of that is mixed together pretty nicely, until it seems like a dry paste, that's when you want to add in your tin of chopped tomatoes. Scrape every last drop from the tin, and stir that all together. It'll look pretty red and firey, so for a bit of colour correction (and for taste, obviously) you want to stir in 3 tbsps of organic yoghurt. This should give your sauce a rich, iron-y colour, and start to give it a pretty good texture too, just the right mix of chunkiness and smoothness. Quit yakking and move on already...
While your sauce is simmering away, it's meat mangling time! I'm no expert when it comes to handling chicken, I'm really not a white meat kinda guy, and obviously it's a little tricker to get juuust right, texture-wise, but the method I use for cutting it into chunks is perhaps a little different, and a lot more fun, than most people's. I think the phrase 'hung, drawn and quartered' just about says it all.
Impale the thickest end of your chicken breast with a fork or skewer, hang it high in the air, then get to work with your scissors/garden shears. Snip off bitesize chunks, starting from the bottom, and imagine you're trying someone for treason as ya do it.
I know, I know, "why can't he just cook ANYTHING without medieval references", but fuck you, get your own food blog if ya don't like it.
Anyhow, once all four breasts lie dissected in your bowl, light up your frying pan from before, splash in some more oil, and tip in your chicken. You don't want to completely cook it through in the pan, just enough to whiten the outside layer. This takes... maybe 5 minutes at most. Keep turning the chunks with a spatula until every surface of your meat is white. It won't be cooked through, not yet, so add your chicken chunks into your sauce pot.
I say this like fifty fucking times with every post, but... ONCE ALL OF THAT is mixed together nicely, cover your pot and leave to simmer for a while. While the chicken cooks through in the sauce, take a lemon, and a ZESTER (Such a fun word. Zester. Say it aloud. Shout it even. Repeatedly. Endless entertainment.), and scrape off the entire surface of the lemon.
Set your ZESTER aside, and turn your attention to the fresh coriander.
Rinse it off, cut off the root/stalk, and begin to dice the leaves into the tiniest sections that you possibly can. Split this into 2 portions, one half will be added to your sauce in the pot, the other is for garnishing your rice. Add your pot half... well, to the fucking pot, obviously.
Take a mug, and measure one cup basmati rice to two cups water, and add these to another pot. Light a high heat under this, cover, and bring to the boil. Both of your pots, should be covered, and left to simmer, with occaisional stirring, for around 10-15 minutes at this point.
With only around 5 minutes left before the sauce, chicken and rice are ready, heat your oven to around gas mark 4, and pop in your naan bread. I would have made a naan from scratch, but frankly I couldn't be fucking bothered.
In the final minutes, taste your sauce, and add in any additional spices, salt, lint, hair, whatever the fuck you want. Also, add in your lemon zest and remaining coriander to your pot of rice, and stir thoroughly.
Once your naans are browned, your rice has absorbed all the water, and your chicken is cooked through, serve it all up to your family, who will then complain that it's too spicey. Fucking wimps.
And to make the title self-fulfilling, here's something else with warm tones, and a kick to it. Vintage, fuzzed-out COC. Dig in.
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