COOKING WITH JAZ: chicken curry

Monday, 22 December 2014

CHICKEN COCONUT CURRY

Hey guys!

Its 3 days to Christmas. Hope you all have your trees and decor up! I certainly do. I love how glorious Christmas is. I love celebrating Christ daily and a holiday to do just that is truly a plus. I'm super excited to spend my first Christmas married to the hubz. I'm thankful to God for life, salvation and for each and every one of my loved ones. I'm also extremely thankful for the growth of this blog and for open doors and all the closed ones that God has guarded us from.

So yes on to food things! I have been meaning to make a meal using coconut milk. I love how diverse of an ingredient it is, used in indian food, swahili dishes, and even thai cusine! I had some chicken thighs and a can of coconut milk so I decided to make a spicy meal yesterday together with some rice and steamed veggies. I also asked the hubz to buy some nans from one of our favorite Indian restaurants that complimented this meal perfectly.

Ingredients [serves 4]

Chicken [6 thighs/ 4 breasts cut in big chunks]

2/3 can coconut milk

140 gr tomato paste [two packets tomato paste]

1 onion

4 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon chopped ginger

Dhania

1 tablespoon royco

Olive oil

Salt

Black pepper

2 tablespoons chicken masala

2 tablespoons curry powder

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 yellow/red hoho/ capsicum

1 courgette

1 1/2 cup rice

1 packet mixed veggies [sliced carrots, french peas, brocoli]

Start of by cooking your rice. [Remember its double the cups of water per cup rice so in this case 3 cups of water for 1 1/2 cups rice] I used a rice cooker with a steamer so I used the lower part to cook the rice and the to part to steam my veggies. Season veggies with olive oil, black pepper and salt and leave to cook with rice.

For the chicken, peel and chop onions, garlic and ginger and cook them with olive oil in a sufuria.

Add the chicken masala and curry powder and allow to cook. <Use a few tablespoons water just incase the spices start to stick to the bottom of the sufuria.> Add the tomato paste and also allow to cook with the spices. Wash and chop the yellow pepper and courgette and add to the sufuria.

Shortly after, add the coconut milk, a hint of salt and allow to cook with the spices and veggies.

After a few minutes, add chicken and leave to cook.

Mix 1 tablespoon royco, cayenne pepper, black pepper in a 1/4 cup water and add to the sufuria. Finish of with adding the dhania/coriander and seal with lid. <By adding it in the end it gives the curry a boost of flavor>

Allow to cook for another 15 minutes. Note that white meat tends to cook very fast. Make sure that the sauce is thick and light brown color.

Remove from heat and serve with rice, nan and steamed veggies.

Enjoy.

As always, I'll have you know:-

-I'm up to 15000+ pageviews-thank you Jesus! and thank you all for following and trying out my recipes.

-I'm now on Youtube, you can subscribe and check out the video here: CookingwithJaz

-I am officially on twitter on this account (@cookingwithjaz)

-I am also on facebook on this page "cooking with jaz"
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-If you want to be featured on the "GUEST AND RECIPE OF THE WEEK" email me on "cookingwithjaz@yahoo.com"

-If you have tried any of my recipes, do tag me or send me the pics on any one of my social media pages

Have a lovely week :)

Sincerely,

Jaz.

Wednesday, 30 April 2014

A COLORFUL NIGHT: RED CURRY WITH YELLOW RICE & A GREEK SALAD

Happy Tuesday-ing like a friend of mine would say. * Shout out to you Angie :-) *

How about a little spice to start off your week.

I've always been a fan of the red-chicken tikka that is usually charcoal grilled, but last night I was in the mood for a stew yet I wanted that sharp red color too. So I figured I'd make my own spicy meal and created a red curry. Bought some very strong curry powder, a whole lot of veggies and some chicken thighs and made what you see below.

Never been a fan of yellow rice yet I needed a vibrant plate and the yellow and red clashed so perfectly :-)

The meal was even more spicier than I expected, I guess I owe that to the extremely spicy curry powder I got and to think I got the mild-medium one..tsk tsk....so I figured a nice Greek salad would sooth things down since it was basically a grated cucumber and some yoghurt.

Ingredients:- serves 4

1 1/2 cup Jasmine rice

2 tablespoons turmeric spice

5-6 chicken thighs

3 tablespoons curry powder

Black pepper

1 packet tomato paste

3-4 tomatoes

1 cucumber

1 courgette

1 egg plant

1/2 cup Peas

1 green pepper/ capsicum/ hoho

1 tablespoon royco

1 tablespoon tomato red food color

3/4 cup maziwa mala/ buttermilk/ sour cream

2 onions

4 cloves garlic

Ginger

Vegetable/olive oil

Salt to taste

Start off by washing the rice. Chop 1 onion. Heat vegetable oil in a sufuria and add chopped onions to cook. Add the 2 tablespoons turmeric powder and cook for a few seconds before adding the rice and water.

Follow by adding the rice, a bit of salt and 3 cups water and leave to cook for about 10 minutes. Once it is done, cover and put aside.

Wash the cucumber and grate into bowl. Press out all the water with your hands since the cucumbers carry a lot of water and we wouldn't want the salad to be watery.

Add natural yogurt, a bit of black pepper, a hint of lemon and some salt. This salad is very simple and slightly sour. The original recipe calls for Greek yoghurt which is a bit hard to find here in the Kenyan market. I used natural yogurt which works as well but I'm still on the hunt for a thicker yoghurt. Put aside.

Start of by washing and chopping all the veggies except the tomatoes. Grate the tomatoes and put aside. In a sufuria heat oil with chopped onions, garlic and ginger. Follow by adding grated tomatoes and then tomato paste and curry powder.

Leave to cook while stirring continuously. After that add the chicken and cook for 5 minutes. Once the 5 minutes are up, add the chopped courgette, egg plant, peas and chopped green pepper.

Mix 1 tablespoon royco in a 1 1/2 cup water and add to the sufuria. Cover and allow to cook for 10-12 minutes.

After that mix 1 tablespoon red color and maziwa mala and mix into the stew. Add a bit of black pepper and salt to taste.

Cover and cook for another 10 minutes for sauce to thicken. The beauty of chicken is that it cooks very fast so no need to overcook. The aim is to for all the ingredients to blend beautifully together and to release all their flavors.

Once it is ready, serve with yellow rice and the Greek salad in a small bowl separately.

ENJOY

And for those who were curious about my short two week hiatus, this is why, my bestie recently got married and I must say God is amazing!!! Here's a snippet of how it all went last Saturday.

Just look how stunning she was :)

Her and her love <3

Two of the bridesmaids :)

Me and my love with the bride and groom <3

Also I'll have you know:-

-I'm up to 7000+ pageviews-thankyou Jesus! and thankyou all for following and trying out my recipes.