India the Third

For India the Third we mix things up a bit. This is a Northern India recipe that comes to me via my former boss in Virginia. She's actually from Pittsburgh, but we will still take her word on authentic Indian cuisine. :-)
We may have gotten a little excited about Christmas and I have relatively few pictures of just Joey...
Not only that, but we were in Colorado! Nothing better than trying out a new curry recipe on the in-laws, right?
Kevin prepped by sharpening some knives.
First note: make sure you actually use a Dutch oven, or something that is intended to go on the stove top, not actually in the oven. It is very important.

Anyway! Cumin seeds and cinnamon sticks? Not the way I'm used to starting a heavily-spiced dish, so let's try it! And of course onions. Always onions.


I read in one of the comments to mix the chicken and yogurt and some spices ahead of time to enhance the flavor, but I can't find it for the life of me now. That's what I did though.


The girls enjoyed a snack while mama had to make dinner instead of entertaining them. So unreasonable!

The nephew did not approve of my chopping technique.


I used a little mini food-processor/spice grinder instead of a mortar and pestle. The next few parts all went pretty fast and furious, so there aren't many pictures. I caught up again when the chicken/yogurt mixture got added to the onions, tomato paste, and spices.


Then that just cooks for a while! There's really not a ton to it, just a lot a lot a lot of chopping.


Serve over rice or naan!
This was pretty good. Definitely not what I have come to expect from a curry. More sweet than spicy. Now, I did not add the extra cayenne pepper because I was worried about the spiciness of the fresh peppers. However, those didn't end up having much of a kick, so that toned it down a lot. I think a little bit of extra spice would really up the complexity.

We're a pretty spice-happy family, so I think that is what I would change if I were to cook it again. More spice, less sweet. But it was certainly a nice change of pace and pretty yummy, especially if you don't like spicy but want to try some curry.

And then our India adventure comes to an end. It was fun, but we have to move on if we are going to actually make any progress.

Next time: Indonesia

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