MMCC Winter Recipes: A Simple Warming Chicken Curry
This is one of our most-often-made and favourite curries, published in our first book ‘Monday Morning Cooking Club – the food, the stories, the sisterhood’ (2011). Lisa made it on Instagram Live and you can watch the video here.
This tried and tested family recipe comes from Sydney home cook Hilda Elais, who wrote this in 2011:
I remember with great nostalgia my childhood in India, and the intoxicating smell of spices filling the night air. Mummy cooked the food of her country so well – curry, dahl and many other dishes. When she moved to London, she introduced these dishes to the many English Jews in her neighbourhood who, along with her own eight children, loved her food.
My mother used to say that she cooked with love, which is why I think her food tasted so good. I followed her ways, and started to cook for my four daughters with just as much love. I do try to cook as many of her dishes as possible, to help keep her memory alive. This way, she will always be with us.
Indian curry utilises many of the traditional Indian spices and, in my opinion, is the best curry in the world, but i always thought it was funny that curries are eaten so often in such a hot country! Nobody really taught me how to cook this dish; I just experimented with different spice combinations after watching my mother for many years. I made it badly at first, but I’ve had forty years to perfect it.
MMCC Winter Recipes: A Simple Warming Chicken Curry
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 3 onions chopped
- 3 cloves garlic crushed
- 1 heaped teaspoon grated fresh ginger
- 3 teaspoons curry powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 tablespoon prepared vindaloo paste
- 1 large tomato blanched (or microwaved for 11/2 minutes), peeled and chopped
- 1 cup water
- 1.5 kg chicken thigh fillets, cut into large pieces
- 3 potatoes peeled and cut into small chunks
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the onions gently on a medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until soft.
- Add the garlic and ginger and cook for 2 minutes, stirring, then add the curry powder, cumin, coriander and vindaloo paste. Cook through for several minutes.
- Add the tomato and potato and half the water and cook for a few minutes, stirring.
- Add the chicken and cook for a further 5 minutes and then add the remaining water.
- Partially cover the pan and continue to simmer until cooked, about 30 minutes.
- Serve with steamed rice and greens.
If you’re looking for more delicious warming recipes for winter, have you tried our pasta e patate soup?
And if you love curries, check out this list from Delicious for more curry inspo.
For something sweet to follow your curry, have a look at this do-ahead dried fruit Kompot.
awesome post!!!