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February 07, 2010

Chicken Curry Tagine w/coconut rice

As I think y'all already know, I love to cook. And I love to use special occasions as an excuse to play around with something new. So today's annual Super Bowl party with the same basic group of friends that get together every year was just such an occasion.

A week or two ago I was watching a cooking show on PBS called Simply Ming and he had a guest chef on who did a one pot tagine. Having been a long-time fan of curries I was struck by how similar the ingredients were, or at least how well it seemed to me that they'd work with curry.

I love all curries but I'm particularly fond of Indian curries, both north and south India. Tagine is a Moroccan dish named for the type of pot it's made in. But it's essentially a stew with not a lot of moisture left when it's done. I suppose in that respect it's very much akin to a Spanish Paella.

Anyway, I was also fascinated by how this guest chef used a rice cooker, which I happen to have and use at home. But instead of just rice and water he used coconut milk, chicken stock and some grated coconut meat in with the rice before closing the lid, pushing the button and letting it do it's thing.

So my idea was essentially: India meets Morocco in one dish. I mulled it for several days and decided that I wanted to make a go of it so I bought a bunch of ingredients and when the invite came for this Super Bowl party I put my plan into action:

(note: as is my usual, I found a recipe to use as a basic guide. In this case it was this chicken tagine recipe.)

Chicken Curry Tagine
Chicken Thighs - 6, boneless and skinned
Sweet Onion - 1,medium large, finely chopped
Shallot - 1 medium, finely chopped
Tomato, Diced - 1 (15oz) can
Garlic, Minced - 2 tsp
Carrot - 2 medium, jullienned into largish pieces
Coconut Milk - 1 cup
Yogurt - 1 cup (optional)
Coriander Powder - 3 tbsp (for body and flavor)
Madras Curry - 2 tbsp, any brand(available in Indian or Middle-eastern stores)
Powdered Cinnamon - 1/4 tsp
Bay Leaf - 1
Powdered Cloves - 1/8 tsp
Sliced Black Olives - 1 (4oz) can
Dried Mango - 1 cup, diced (dried apricots would work great too)
Green Bell Pepper - 1, seeded and coursely diced
Apple - 2, peeled, seeded and coursely diced
Cilantro - about 1 cup, finely diced.
Coconut Oil
salt & pepper to taste

Coconut Rice
Coconut Milk - 1 cup
Chicken Stock - 2 cups
Jasmine Rice - 3 cups
Grated Coconut - 1/2 cup
Salt
Slivered Almonds - 2.25oz, toasted

Preheat oven to 350.

Toast the slivered almonds in some coconut oil until nicely brown and set them aside. Diced up the dried mango and set it aside.

Chop up the onion and shallot, add the garlic and saute in some coconut oil until the onion begins to become translucent. Add the carrot, bell pepper and apple and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the diced tomato and turn heat down to low.

Meanwhile, dice up the chicken and brown it up in some coconut oil in a 6-quart oven-safe pot. When the chicken is nearly cooked add the cinammon and clove powders and continue until the chicken is cooked through. Add the coriander powder and the madras curry powder to the chicken and continue cooking until about half the liquid has been cooked off. Add the sauted ingredients, the bay leaf, the olives, the cilantro and the coconut milk to the pot and mix it all together. Place uncovered pot in oven and bake for 20 minutes. When it's done add the diced mango, the yogurt and salt & pepper to taste and you're finished.

While the tagine is in the oven, in the rice cooker add the jasmine rice, the grated coconut, the coconut milk, the chicken stock and enough salt to season the rice. Close the lid and let it do it's thing. When it's done add the toasted slivered almonds.

Serve the Curry Chicken Tagine over the Coconut Rice and enjoy!

Now, I have a good reputation as a cook amongst this group of friends. So they're generally appreciative of whatever I cook. But I must say that their response to these two dishes was very approving! Undoubted they're going to be asking for this again in the future.

I'd also made some Cucumber Raita (diced & grated cucumber in plain yogurt with some cilantro and cumin powder) because that's a traditional Indian condiment which is used to moderate or cool down the spicy heat of a dish. I don't usually use madras curry and from what I'd read I was expecting this dish to be pretty hot. But it turned out to not be nearly as hot as I'd been led to expect. As a result I think I was the only one to use any of the raita condiment. And that was largely because I love the stuff regardless of how spicy the curry is.

Posted by Kevin at February 7, 2010 08:49 PM