Cooking Indian Exotic But Simple
Published by Carolin on Tagged Chicken, Dinner
When I start to think about cooking Indian, right away I can smell certain spices. I can smell cumin & coriander. I can smell onions and garlic and you know in my world onions and garlic rule. I can smell the aromatics from the basmati rice. Indian food to me is very exotic. But cooking Indian is for the most part very simple. Now I am talking about main dishes. I am not talking samosa’s. To me buying good samosa’s from a good Indian grocer is way to easy and way to inexpensive. But cooking Indian whether it is a curry, a tandoori or a dal is pretty basic and pretty easy. I am going to go back to what I always say. If you have the right ingredients and the freshest ingredients then you know that your dish is going to taste pretty darn good.
Today I am going to concentrate more on a curry dish and yes I will share an excellent recipe with you. Did you know that when you buy Indian curry spice from your local super market it is not just one spice? Indian curry is actually a mixture of spices. Most Indian families make their own unique blend of spices for curry. So what you buy at the store is a curry spice but it may not taste like the one you would have at a restaurant or an Indian family’s house. Just because they may add more of one spice and less of another. They more than likely will taste similar but not quite. Now another myth out there is that all Indian curry dishes are hot. This is not true at all. It all depends if chili’s are added to the curry blend, and how many. Now me being the person who likes hot stuff loves a hot Indian curry. Another thing about Indian curry is that most people think of Indian curries as being only yellow, again not so. I am going to prove that to you today with my recipe.
One of the great things about Indian cooking is that if you really want to be authentic, when you serve it; do not put out any cutlery to eat with. Just serve some naam bread along the side and that acts as your cutlery. Now I have not been so brave to serve it this way. Maybe I have watched my children enough to know what can happen without cutlery.
I do find that people usually associate curry with cooking Indian, this true but in days to come I will share some awesome recipes with you to show you that Indian cooking isn’t just curry. But back to curry right now. It seems a lot of people say they don’t really like an Indian curry, that the taste is just too much for them. When I hear that, to me it usually means they have had a curry with way too much curry spice blend in it. The recipe I am going to share with you today is a curry but it is a tomato base curry. So for all of you that are a bit skeptical this one is for you.
Tomato Curry Chicken
2 onions chopped
6 cloves garlic minced
½” ginger root minced
2Tbsp Oil (I know it isn’t Indian but I use olive oil)
10 skinless chicken thighs
1Tbsp cumin
1tsp turmeric
1Tbsp curry paste (I use paste, I prefer it for taste and texture)
1 28oz can of diced tomatoes drained
½ bunch cilantro
1 jalapeño pepper chopped (optional)
Heat a large skillet to medium-high heat. Add oil, sauté onions until soft. Turn heat down to medium add garlic and ginger. Sauté for a few more minutes watching that garlic doesn’t brown. Stir in chicken cover and cook over low heat for about 45 minutes. After 45 minutes add cumin, turmeric & curry. Cook for a minute or 2 so the spices heat up a bit. Then add drained tomatoes. Cover and cook another 20 minutes. Take off heat add chopped cilantro and jalapeño. Serve over basmati rice.
Enjoy
TIP OF THE DAY
Cilantro and coriander is the same thing. Well kind of. Cilantro is the leaves from the plant and coriander is the seeds.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:03 am
Hi Carolin,
Its an excellent and great article. I am not praising because I am an Indian. Your blog is looking so soothing and articles are so well-written that I’ve become fan of your blog. Carolin,you’re right that Indian curry dishes are not always hot.I am basically hailing from the eastern part of India and we use to cook different types of curries such as chicken curry,fish curry,veg curry with minimal of spices & green chilly.Bye…see you