Curry and more curry

Okay, so I thought I would share a couple curry recipes that turned out pretty well, in case anyone is interested.

My husband is Indian, and I'm white, and before we started dating I was a pretty meat and potatoes plain kind of gal. Other than the fact that I now definitely can't eat potatoes, my tastes for food has broadened immensely since we have gotten married in particular. Anyway, so I used to think that "curry" just meant curry spice, but in fact, it's not. It's sort of a general term for sort of a gravy type sauce with distinct spices that are usually used. It took me a while to get a taste for it, but now I particularly enjoy it. Interestingly, my husband's family originates from the south of India and the cuisine and curry is referred to in Wikipedia under Malayali Cuisine.

Anyway, the good news is that I'm allowed to have Coconut milk, which is used in the following recipe for Cauliflower Curry. Sometimes my mother in law makes it with potato included, but in this case I used butternut squash and it gave it a really nice sweet contrast in comparison to the spices in the curry.

Curried Cauliflower

1 head cauliflower

Half a butternut squash, cubed into bite-sized pieces

1/2 large onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

~ 2 tbsps of olive oil

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp turmeric

2 tsps ground coriander

2 tsps garam masala

1+ 1/2 cups of coconut milk (I used Maggi Coconut Milk Powder, a good tip from my mother in law)

Heat pan on medium high heat with olive oil, add onion and garlic and saute. Add the cauliflower and squash. Mix the coconut milk powder with water as directed on package. I put the spices all in the coconut milk and mixed, then poured it over the ingredients in the pan. Leave on heat with cover, mixing occasionally, until cauliflower and squash are soft to bite. Serve over rice of choice.

The second curry recipe I used over chicken, but this one calls for yogurt (as many curries do), and this is a little challenging because almost ALL yogurts on the market today are made from skim milk. Skim milk has potato source in it :( (Did I mention I miss yogurt soooooooooo much!) Anyway, my ND did let me know about one type of yogurt called Saugeen yogurt which is made from whole milk, and it's only available where I'm located at Planet Organic. They only make a plain yogurt, which is fine in this case as Indian curries call for plain yogurt. Anyway, I particularly enjoyed this recipe. Originally I was trying to make my own Tandoori Masala to make Tandoori chicken, and so I found this recipe online that was for Tandoori masala....anyway, it smelled right, but didn't taste like Tandoori. But, it turned out a lovely curry, and I enjoyed it very much so I thought I would share it with you...

Chicken Curry

1 pkg bone in chicken thighs (club package contained 9 thighs)

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1/2 medium onion, chopped

1 tbsp finely chopped ginger root (I didn't have fresh ginger on hand so I used dry ginger spice)

1+1/2 tsp tomato paste (make sure there's no salt in it)

1+1/2 tsp garam masala

1+1/2 tsp ground coriander

1+1/2 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp turmeric

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

~ 100 g plain yogurt (Saugeen brand)

Mix the tomato paste, garam masala, coriander, cumin, turmeric and cayenne in with the yogurt. De-skin the chicken thighs. Put the thighs in a bowl and marinate them in the yogurt and spices overnight if you wish, or for an afternoon was fine. When they're ready, heat a pan over medium high heat. Saute onions, ginger and garlic. Add marinated chicken and any left-over yogurt marinade. Cover and let simmer until chicken is cooked. Serve with rice of your choice. I served this one over Jasmine rice, but of course Basmati is standard. Regular brown rice would do as well.

Anyway, I quite enjoyed these, and there's no salt added to them, and they're sugar free and potato free. The nice thing about curries is that they're not really that hard to make, once you've got the ingredients. Often grocery store bought Indian pastes have a lot of salt and sugar in them. We've gotten our spices from an Indian grocery, and they are way cheaper and make many more curries than the bottles you find in the stores. That being said, I am still trying to find a good recipe for Tandoori, and I have not been able to reproduce the flavor from the packaged stuff from the Indian grocery (it's full of salt!!) If anyone knows of a good recipe for it, let me know!

Enjoy!