Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Curry Chicken


This is one of the stable dinners in our house!  Pictured is 1/2 a chicken breast on top of the dish, I now typically serve the breast to the side.  Al found this recipe for "Country Captains Chicken" which we just call Curry Chicken from the website at the University of SC's culinary school restaurant, The McCutchen house.  Use the following link for the recipe from the McCutchen house, which is formatted nicely to print out and put in your recipe binder.  But I've also pasted it below so that I could add my comments of the changes we've made to the recipe and tips I have, those are in brackets and in italics along side the recipe.  Some changes are made to better the recipe, some due to my husbands allergies and some because of our preferences.
http://www.hrsm.sc.edu/McCutchen-house/Recipes/countrycaptainschicken.pdf


2 each onions, chopped [We love onions, I use 2 vidalia onions which are probably bigger and therefore more than the recipe calls for, but we're okay with that]
2 Tbs. butter [I use olive oil]
2 each green bell peppers, chopped
1 Tbs. curry powder [I used 2 TB--1 is just not flavorful enough; also beware that house brand curry at the grocery store is extremely bland, we bought some Indian curry from Amazon, but if you don't want 64oz of curry on hand--don't worry we got it for a deal--I'd look for some real curry at a local Indian grocery store or at least buy a name brand spice like McCormicks]
1 can (16 oz) whole tomatoes, roughly chopped [I just used a 14.5oz can of chopped tomatoes and if I have any fresh around I add a little more]
½ cup chicken broth [I grew up with bouillon cubes, but canned, boxed or homemade broth is WAY better--if you do use bouillon cubes I would double the number of cubes you use]
1 Tbs. parsley, chopped [I just used dried parsley-1 teaspoon]
½ tspn. salt
¼ tspn. black pepper
¼ tspn. ground mace [I never put this in]
1 clove garlic, minced
6 each boneless, skinless chicken breasts [I usually just put 3 breasts in but don't half anything else]
2 Tbs. flour [I use cornstarch instead, I'm pretty sure I use more than 2 TB, I just cover a small plate with cornstarch and lay the breast on top and coat both sides in cornstarch]
2 Tbs. vegetable oil [Again I replace this with olive oil]
(Serves 6 guests) [Using only 3 breasts it give us more veggies per serving and makes enough for dinner for 2 plus 2 lunches for my husband]
DIRECTIONS
In a large saucepan, sauté the onion in the butter until lightly browned, add the bell pepper and continue to cook an additional five minutes.
Stir in the curry and cook for a minute, add the entire contents of the tomatoes, chicken broth, parsley, salt, pepper, mace, and garlic. Bring the sauce to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook, covered, for five more minutes.
Flour the chicken breast and shake off any excess. Heat the vegetable oil in a large pan and brown the chicken on both sides. Add the chicken to the tomato mixture and continue to cook, covered, for another thirty minutes, stirring occasionally. If the sauce becomes too thick, water may be added.
Serve immediately over rice. [I use brown rice]

Hope y'all enjoy it as much as we do!

No comments: