Chicken Curry with Gentle Spices

Chicken Curry with Gentle Spices
From The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories, and Opinions from Public Radio's Award-Winning Food Show by Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift (Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2008). Copyright 2008 by American Public Media.

Serves 4 to 6
15 minutes prep time; 25 minutes stove time
The curry keeps for 4 days in the refrigerator and reheats well

The term "curry" conjures images of sturdy sauces dense with spice, and some are just that. But they can also be light, fresh, and surprisingly gentle in their spicing.

For us of the Western world, yogurt plays a new role in this recipe. We don't think of simmering down yogurt into a sauté the way we'd reduce wine or stock, but it's an old technique in India. Yogurt calms and softens the nip of chile, black pepper, and spice.

Make the fresh curry paste in the food processor. There is no need to pre-brown the chicken. Serve it with Dumbed-Down Rice.

Cook to Cook: Whole-milk yogurt is essential here. There are three dependable organic brands I look for: Brown Cow, Seven Stars, and Stonyfield Farm.

Also essential to the curry are Steps 2 and 3 in the recipe: sautéing the curry paste until the sauce "breaks" (the oil separates out from the rest of the sauce) and reducing the first addition of yogurt. Please follow the instructions to the letter; in these two steps lies the success of the curry.

Curry Paste:

• 1 large onion, cut in half
• 6 large garlic cloves
• One 3-inch piece fresh peeled ginger
• Generous 1/2 tablespoon Crossover Spice Blend (recipe follows), or a blend of ground coriander, ground cumin, and fresh-ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 medium-sized ripe tomatoes; or 3 or 4 canned tomatoes
• 1 or 2 jalapeños, stemmed and seeded (or not, if you like it hot)
• 1/2 cup water

Chicken:

• Cold-pressed vegetable oil
• 2 cups organic plain whole-milk yogurt
• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1/3 cup water
• Salt and fresh-ground black pepper
• 2 tight-packed tablespoons fresh coriander leaves, chopped

1. In a food processor, combine one of the onion halves with the garlic, ginger, spice blend, salt, cinnamon, tomatoes, jalapeno, and the 1/2 cup water. Puree and set aside.

2. Thin-slice the remaining onion half. Film the bottom of a straight-sided 12-inch saute pan with the oil, and heat it over medium-high heat. Add the sliced onion and saute until it begins to color. Add the curry paste; reduce the heat to medium, and sauté for 10 minutes, stirring often with a wooden spatula, until the oil separates from the curry. Don't rush this step. Thoroughly sauteing the curry paste sets up the foundation of the dish.

3. Blend 2/3 cup of the yogurt into the curry sauce and simmer, stirring and scraping up the curry paste from the bottom of the pan, until the yogurt thickens and then nearly cooks away, 8 to 10 minutes.

4. Stir in the chicken, and add the remaining yogurt and the 1/3 cup water. Bring the mixture to a slow simmer. Cook, uncovered, for 8 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through and tender.

5. Lift the chicken out of the pan with a slotted spoon, and place it in a serving bowl. Raise the heat until the sauce is boiling. Boil it down until once again it is so thick that the oil separates from the curry paste. Taste the sauce for seasoning, and pour it over the chicken. Sprinkle the curry with the fresh coriander.

Crossover Spice Blend

Cook to Cook: You can tease even more flavor from Crossover Spice Blend by fresh-grinding whole cumin and coriander seeds.

Makes about 3/4 cup
Keeps for 3 to 4 months in a dark, cool cupboard

• 1/4 cup ground cumin
• 1/2 cup ground coriander
• 1/8 cup (2 tablespoons) fresh-ground black pepper

Blend the spices together in a jar and seal. Store away from heat and light.

Dumbed-Down Rice

Serves 3 to 4
15 to 20 minutes stove time

Cook to Cook: All rices work here; only the cooking times vary from one rice to another. You could skip the 10 minutes rest for the rice by cooking it to tender in the boiling water, draining, and serving.

Fragrant rices like basmati and jasmine should be rinsed several times before cooking to remove the extra starch and ensure that the grains cook up separate and fluffy.

If you can boil water, you can make great rice. Treat it like pasta - boil it in lots of water, drain it just before it's done, and let it stand, covered, for a few minutes. Perfect fluff.

• 3 quarts salted water in a 5- to 6-quart pot
• 1 cup long-grain white rice

1. Bring the salted water to a boil.

2. Drop the rice into the water and boil for 8 to 10 minutes, or until it is slightly undercooked. Drain it in a sieve, return it to the pot, and let it rest, covered, for 5 to 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve.