Chicken in red curry sauce with naan

This is my first post after turning forty. And not just my own fortieth. How time flies: I hadn’t even realised how little I’d done with recipes on Prymitywna Kuchnia this year. Perhaps it was a lack of time, all the odd things I get involved in or have been involved in, or perhaps just laziness. You know, what happens when you ought to do something but really can’t be bothered. Sometimes I’m starting to feel less inclined rather than more, and as I’ve always been very keen, I reckon it must be my age catching up with me. But who knows.

Anyway, there have been a few more fortieth birthdays this year, and I must admit that while having someone organise yours for you is wonderful, being on the other side and organising one for somebody else, preferably someone close, is just as much of a joy. And this time it was Wielki Głód — the Big Hunger himself 🙂 Jacek’s birthday is in August, so this post is inspired by that very occasion.

The chicken curry below didn’t even make an appearance at Jacek’s birthday. I’m sharing the recipe as a sort of extra, because I love it and had meant to write it up ages ago, but somehow never managed to. So thank Jacek for turning forty, because otherwise the curry would have had to wait even longer.

But what was all this about Jacek’s birthday? I can’t really claim it was an especially original idea, because Głód himself decreed that perhaps I could cook him something for his birthday. The idea grew into what we’ll call a Prymitywna Kuchnia tasting menu for Jacek’s fortieth. Perhaps not quite the right name, because… the portions were geared more towards the birthday boy’s appetite than towards tasting, and as there were 8 courses, by the end we were all watching the Monty Python sketch with the bucket together (if you don’t know it, head over to YouTube — best watched after eating, or perhaps with a good long gap between meals :).

Luckily we didn’t need the bucket, but we more or less rolled home. So, to avoid going on too much longer, I’ll just say this (having noticed that my writing has slipped a little over the summer and needs some catching up):

1. being a professional cook is very hard. I started at 13 and cooked non-stop until 22. That is, I prepped everything from 13 until 18.30, then cooked it fresh just before serving. Without a bottle of wine to keep me company while cooking, I probably wouldn’t have done as well as I seem to have done.
2. cooking in somebody else’s kitchen is hard, especially when you’re at the helm there for only the second time in your life, and facing your biggest culinary challenge ever for the first time. It’s simply hard to find your bearings and locate everything you have within arm’s reach at home. That’s just how it is.
3. if you ask someone to do the shopping and write that you need potatoes, for example, say what size 🙂 For what you’ll see below, I needed big potatoes, but Jacek’s Eliza bought ones about 1.5 centimetres across. So shopping lists need to be very precise.

But it worked out, and this is what we ended up with:

That little glass at the top is for the fortieth, obviously 🙂 The drinks had been planned too, more or less. Vodka with the steak tartare, and wines of various colours with the rest. And for anyone who can’t see it, the menu consisted almost entirely of dishes you can already find on Prymitywna Kuchnia: beef fillet tartare with anchovies, cod fish balls — there you go, cream of garlic soup (this time with cream, truffle oil and crushed puffed crisps), duck in citrus sauce with gnocchi and sweet carrots, my favourite porcini risotto (I think everyone except the birthday boy had a taste), and Pavlova (a classic).

The only dish you won’t yet find among the recipes on Prymitywna Kuchnia is “Memories of an Italian Holiday” (but I promise to mend my ways and write more often; besides, I need to add the naan recipe shortly, because they’re essential for the red chicken curry below). It’s quite funny, because it was meant to be a joke that didn’t really land. So I hope that once I’ve explained it here, the people who were there will catch on and at least send me a “hahaha”.

Those memories of an Italian holiday were a Roman-style pizza (with a thicker base, baked in a tin), topped with young beetroot leaves and stems, beetroot and spinach prepared beforehand, and baked with mozzarella and gorgonzola on a base with tomato sauce and sultanas. This “dessert” came about for several reasons. First, birthday boy Jacek had just returned from an Italian holiday during which you could have baked a pizza behind the window of a car left in the sun (over 52 degrees on the thermometer). Besides, Jacek loves eating — he is the Big Hunger, after all — and pizza too. And it was supposed to be a tasting menu, so you know how it goes: disappointing party, not enough food, then a pizza arrives at the end and everyone’s delighted to get something to fill up on. Except that didn’t happen. I overestimated the guests’ capacity, and the pizza won nobody over. Nobody wanted to eat it, but not because it was bad. It was brilliant (yes, I’m saying so myself, and you know I’m usually modest :). Everyone had simply had enough of those tasting portions.

There was another reason for the pizza too. One evening, sitting at my parents’ place and writing something on the computer, I put a food channel on the television. Food Network, I think — perhaps there is such a thing. There was a programme in which three Italian bakery owners compete to have the channel renovate their premises. It’s hosted by Gabriele Bonci, supposedly Italy’s best pizza maker and the owner of Rome’s legendary Pizzarium. OMG, that bloke is twice, if not three times, my size 🙂 He shows the local bakers an approach to pizza that’s a bit different from the traditional one. And he really inspired my choice of ingredients. It turned out well, so I’ll try to write it up for you one day. Simple, but a great source of joy.

So this was meant to be short, and turned out as usual. Cooking like that was quite an experience: making everything to order, like in a restaurant, with no reheating, just prepped ingredients. I think I’ll do it again. Though perhaps I’ll find a kitchen helper to do the washing-up beforehand 😉 For today, I recommend everything on that birthday menu, of course, but also this wonderful chicken curry. It didn’t reach the table at the party because it’s a completely different sort of flavour, and curry is quite rich. But it’s definitely a very, very worthy dish too. So get cooking — I recommend it 🙂

Kisses to everyone, and keep your fingers crossed that I write more (I’m definitely behind with news of my food business, so I’ll certainly be back with that in September). And Jacek, happy birthday once again.

At a glance:

Preparation time: 1 hour and 30 minutes (plus time to marinate the meat)

Serves: easily 4 – 5 people

Calories: know what masala is? This has a masala-load of calories 😉

Ingredients for delicious Indian chicken curry:

• 600 grams chicken breast fillets
• 1 packet curry powder (ordinary powdered spice mix, not a paste or a ready-made sauce)
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• half a block of butter (that’s 100 grams)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cm piece of fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 red onion
• 1 white onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 large tub Greek-style yoghurt
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon hot paprika (leave it out if you don’t like heat)
• 1 small jar tomato purée (the standard size, about 200 grams, I think)
• 1 bunch fresh parsley
• salt to taste

Chicken curry recipe (red curry):

This curry recipe isn’t particularly complicated, although there are more ingredients than usual for Prymitywna Kuchnia. But I promise that this combination gives you a really distinctive, wonderfully tasty result. Despite appearances, you don’t need great skills, just a little time. The most important thing, really, is the time spent preparing the marinade.

I started the day before. Into a large bowl went the washed and dried chicken breast, cut into 3 – 4 cm pieces. I added salt and pepper to taste and all the remaining spices (cumin, nutmeg, sweet and hot paprika, and above all the entire packet of curry powder — in the amounts listed in the ingredients, although you can of course judge it by eye, as long as you use the whole packet of curry powder :). Then I finely chopped the white and red onions and added them to the meat, along with finely chopped fresh ginger and garlic. I added half a tablespoon of olive oil and the whole large tub of Greek-style yoghurt. In went a teaspoon of sugar, and I mixed everything very thoroughly. I covered it all with aluminium foil and put it in the fridge for a dozen hours or so.

The next day, I heated half a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter in a frying pan. Once the pan was warm, I tipped in the entire contents of the bowl of marinated meat. Every last bit. And gave it a stir. I cooked it over a medium heat for about 10 – 20 minutes, stirring every few minutes, then added the jar of tomato purée and half a block of butter. I stirred thoroughly and cooked it for another 20 – 30 minutes or so, stirring regularly. Finally I added the fresh parsley, fairly finely chopped, and cooked it for another 5 – 10 minutes after adding it to the pan. Basically, you need to taste it to see whether the sauce is right and the meat tender enough (though that last part is the least of your worries).

I served this red chicken curry with delicious naan, the recipe for which you’ll soon find on Prymitywna Kuchnia. And of course, enjoy — this dish really is a knockout 🙂