Christian’s Special Chicken Tikka Curry

Ingredients:

• 2 Chicken breasts
• 1 medium to large onion (or two small onions)
• 2 large cloves garlic
• Thumb size fresh ginger root, peeled
• 1 chilli (add more for heat)
• 1 small red capsicum (or half of a large one)
• 1 small green capsicum (or half of a large one)
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• ½ tin of coconut cream (add more for mildness)
• ½ packet of fresh coriander
• 4 teaspoons of Patak’s Tikka Masarla paste or Tikka powder
• Juice of half a lemon
• Optional handful of button mushrooms

Tools:

• Large non-stick high-sided pan with lid
• 1 large bowl for marinating chicken
• 1 medium bowl for veg
• 3 small bowls for spices etc
• Fine grater
• 1 knife for chopping – non serrated
• Medium pan for boiling rice

Preparation:

1. Cut chicken into bite size chunks and place in large bowl with 1-2 teaspoons of Patak’s paste, with ½ the lemon juice. Marinade for 1 hour or more (under glad-wrap in fridge)
2. Remove seeds from capsicum and chop into 20c size pieces and put into a large bowl
3. Peel onion and cut into quarters. Pull apart one quarter of onion, cutting larger pieces into 20c size, place in bowl with capsicum.
4. Chop mushrooms into quarters or half
5. Slice one clove of garlic, place in a small bowl/saucer
6. Slice tip half of chilli in to rings, place with garlic
7. Dice rest of chilli and garlic, place separately in another bowl
8. Rinse coriander and pat dry with kitchen towel
9. Separate coriander leaves from stalks. Chop stalks finely and place with chopped chilli and garlic
10. Grate the peeled ginger into bowl with garlic/chilli/coriander stalks, discarding stringy residue
11. Roughly chop coriander leaves and place with remaining lemon juice
12. Dice remaining ¾ of onion, place aside

Cooking:

        Bring large pot to a high heat with 1-2 teaspoons oil. Drop in capsicum, onion chunks and mushrooms, tossing and frying in the hot oil. Add 2 teaspoons Patak’s paste or other tikka seasoning, and cover pan. Allow to soften for 3-5 minutes, stirring if necessary. Drop in sliced chilli and garlic, stir gently for 2-3 minutes. Remove from pan and place in bowl with glad-wrap covering.

        Without cleaning pan or adding any more oil, drop in a few chunks of chicken, so that each chunk is not touching another. Leave without stirring until chicken starts to turn white along the sides, then turn over each chunk – the cooked side should have browned or even have patches of black. Once a batch of chicken is browned (it does not matter if it is not cooked), remove from heat and put in a bowl. Do not add any oil to pan, and add another batch of chicken, again without each chunk touching another, again without stirring until each chunk goes brown. If you overload the pan with too much chicken, it will never brown.

        Once all chicken is browned and put aside, put 6-8 teaspoons of oil in the same pan (without cleaning), and bring to a high heat. Put in diced onion, and fry in oil with 1-3 teaspoons of tikka paste seasoning until onions start to go translucent.

        Stir in garlic and ginger and chilli and coriander stalk mixture. This must be added after onion is cooked, otherwise the spices will burn and loose all flavours. Cook for 30 seconds.

        Add one tin of chopped tomatoes, and half a can of coconut cream, bring to a boil. If desired, blend with hand blender to make smooth sauce.

        Drop in pre-cooked capsicum, onions, mushrooms, garlic and chilli, then stir in cooked chicken chunks. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes to 3 hours, depending on what else you are doing.

        Boil basmati rice with used lemon rind shell, optionally adding 1 teaspoon tumeric to make yellow, and 3-5 slightly crushed cardamon pods to make aromatic.

        Chicken/beef is cooked when oil appears on surface of curry.

        Add chopped coriander leaves and lemon juice to curry 1 minute before serving, stirring through.

        Once rice is cooked, remove lemon half, drain and add a knob of butter and stir through the rice in the pan, cover and leave aside to steam for 1 minute.

Garnish with chopped fresh coriander.

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