Homemade curry

Now, as previously addressed, I love curry. Any sort of curry. I'll eat it. In fact, whenever I go back to Austin, the first restaurant I want to go to is The Clay Pit because I love Indian food. And when I found an Indian Chicken Curry recipe in my Williams-Sonoma cookbook that included grinding spices, I said SIGN ME UP.

Now, one of my coworkers from KXAN bought us a mortar and pestle for our wedding. I cannot express how excited I was to use it. However, obviously, there are few recipes that you can use this tool in. This was one. I toasted 2 tsp of coriander seeds and 2 tsp of cumin seeds. After they toasted, I got to grind them up! Once it was turned into a lovely powder, I added it to 1 tsp ground tumeric, 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, salt, pepper and 2 Tbsp of canola oil. This turned into a paste that I then marinaded the chicken blocks in for the next hour.

In the meantime, we had some chopping work to do! I met my arch-enemy in this dish (taking the seeds out of tomatoes and then chopping them), however it is always so worth the time. It tastes so much fresher for some reason. Of course, David had to take care of the onions (due to my crying issue...), and once he was at the cutting board, he took over. He chopped garlic and some jalapeño peppers. We started to sauté the veggies. As he chopped, I toasted cashews to go on top of the dish. (Note, I used: 1 large yellow onion chopped, 2 small tomatoes, 2 Tbsp of clarified butter but we used canola oil again, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 Tbsp of minced fresh ginger, 1. tsp seeded and minced green jalapenos, 2 bay leaves, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon)

Once we took the chicken out of the refrigerator after it marinaded, David asked me, "Umm, honey? Where's the curry?" I said, "We just made the curry, hun." That's right. No curry powder for us. We made our freakin' curry with the spice concoction of earlier. I could see the doubt in his eyes. I'm pretty sure he didn't believe me until we added the 1/2 cup of coconut milk. I used Lite coconut milk because I'm trying not to be the size of a house. Also, with the addition of the coconut milk, we were supposed to add lemon juice to it. I just added it to the coconut milk can. Haha.

We combined everything and it finally looked like curry, according to David. As it was simmering for 20 minutes, the smell of curry filled the kitchen. It's funny to think back to when I was a kid. My dad LOVED Indian Food. Once a year, he would force my mom and me to go with him to Taj Mahal Restaurant -- the crappiest Indian food in Dallas, I'm pretty sure. The smell of the restaurant made my mom and me made us nearly vomit. But, now that I've had actually really great Indian food, the smell of curry makes me water at the mouth.

Now, the biggest deal of all. David and I made our first, ever PERFECT batch of white rice in high altitude. That's right folks. Bow down before our boiling-water glory. What did we do you ask? 1 cup rice. 1/5 cups of water. Cook normally for about 18 minutes. Perfect. Now, if we can just figure out how to make brown rice perfectly... After putting the curry on top of the rice and sprinkling it with some fresh cilantro and the chopped cashews from earlier, it was delicious. I would give it a 4.7 out of 5. The only downside was David and I were still a little hungry afterwards. I'm not sure if it's because the meal wasn't filling enough or because we worked out butts off at the gym before eating. Another win in the Schexnayder-Shiff household with curry.