Burnt Green Chicken Curry (Murgh Hariyali)
INGREDIENTS
Burnt Green Curry
* 5 cloves of garlic, 2 tsp grated ginger, 3 green chillies, 1 small potato, 1 small bunch spinach, 1 bunch coriander, 1 small onion, 1 tsp kasuri methi or ground fenugreek, ½ tsp cumin seeds, ½ tsp ground cumin, ghee, 2 tsp dhani-jeera powder, ½ tsp turmeric, salt, Canola.
* 500g free-range chicken fillet, 200ml coconut milk, 150ml chicken stock, 4 red chillies, sugar, salt, 1 lime, 12 cherry tomatoes.
First, you have to make the green curry paste. Peel the garlic and ginger, crush the garlic and grate the ginger. Trim the chillies, scrape out the seeds, and roughly chop them. Put all three together in a small bowl. Peel the potato, cut it into little cubes, and put it aside in a small bowl. Wash the spinach, chop it roughly, and put it aside in its own bowl. Pick the leaves off the coriander, discard the stalks, and put the leaves aside in a small bowl.
Fry the kasuri methi or fenugreek, the cumin seeds, and the cumin with a good lump of ghee. Add the ginger-garlic mixture and the green chillies and fry them all together, very gently for fifteen minutes or so. Add the potato and the spinach and gently sauté the mixture until all the liquid is evaporated. By this time, the potatoes should be cooked. If the potatoes are not completely cooked, add a little water and fry the mixture some more until the sauce is dry and the potato pieces are cooked through. Sprinkle the jeera-dhani powder and a little turmeric over the sauce. Add some salt, taste it and add more salt, if it needs it. In a separate pan, heat a little oil and fry the onion in it until the onion is deep gold, with a few brown flecks. Add the onion to the spinach mixture, and fry it for a few more minutes, mixing it well, as it fries. Let the mixture cool and blend or pound the mixture until it is smooth.
Next, you can make the curry. Cut the chicken into curry-sized pieces. Warm half of the coconut milk until it is not-quite boiling. Add the curry paste to the pan and stir it around until the coconut milk is well mixed with the paste. Put the chicken into the liquid, stir it for a couple of minutes and turn the heat down to medium.
Mix the remaining coconut milk with the stock, and add it to the pan a bit at a time, stirring the sauce as you add it. Leave the sauce on a low simmer for twenty minutes. Then add some salt, sugar, and the red chilli. Taste the sauce, adjust the seasonings, and cook the curry for a further few minutes, then switch off the heat.
Grate the zest off the lime and juice it. Cut the cherry tomatoes in quarters and cut out the cores. Add the lime zest and juice, and the cherry tomatoes to the curry. Turn the heat back on and cook the curry for another thirty minutes or so, until the cherry tomatoes soften and melt into the curry.
Serves four.
