Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

For dinner tonight, I I turned some leftover roast chicken from last night's dinner, and some leftover pieces of roast sweet potato from Saturday's dinner, into a really good sweet potato and chicken curry. I've made leftover-chicken curry with this approximate method plenty of times, but the sweet potato was new, and definitely an improvement.

I started Duolingo German a couple of weeks ago, and one of the early example sentences is "the food is delicious" ("Das essen ist lecker"), and I was reminded of that while we were eating.

Method: Cook some rice while doing the rest of this. I set a 20-minute timer for the rice, stirred frequently, and added extra water as needed.

I measured the rice, and the chicken broth, and eyeballed everything else.

Cut up (or get someone else to cut up) an onion, a bunch of leftover chicken, and some Granny Smith apple. Mix up some spices and a large spoonful of flour: this time I used garam masala, Penzey's Singapore seasoning, powdered ginger, and a little turmeric. This gets me the flavor profile of curry, and a little heat (from ginger and black pepper) without being more capsaicin than I can handle.

Heat some oil in a pan with a cover. Saute the pieces of onion for a few minutes over a medium-low light, then add the apple. Cook that for a minute, sprinkle the spices and flour over the apple and onion, and cook a little longer.

Pour in 12 ounces of chicken broth (we use Better than Bouillion), stir, cover, and reduce the heat.

When the rice was close to being done, I added the sweet potato to the pan, stirred it into the mixture, and covered it again. I gave that a few minutes, then removed the cover from the pan, and stirred in the chicken and some lemon juice. Cooked that for a minute or two, just to warm the chicken. Then I added 4 or 5 tablespoons of canned coconut milk, stirred well, cooked another minute (the recipe I started with, ages ago, has "reheat but not to boil" at this step.

Finally, I put some rice on each plate, spooned the curry over it, and we ate it.

This worked well, and I will probably do it again, if we have leftover chicken and sweet potatoes. If I had leftover roast potatoes, I'd use more apple.

Inevitably, the canned coconut milk had separated before we opened the can, but cattitude and adrian_turtle mixed it sufficiently, and then Cattitude handed me a small bowl of coconut milk.

This is the relatively thick coconut milk sold as an ingredient for Thai cooking, not the thin coconut milk sold as a drink.

This is based loosely on the shrimp or chicken curry I used to make, except where I forgot things. With thanks to minnehaha K. for giving me the idea, by posting about an improvised curry she made with sweet potato*. This is halfway between a method and my notes for version 1.1.

Half an onion (or one small onion), diced.
About half a granny smith apple, diced
One sweet potato (not too big), sliced thin and then cut into bite-sized pieces
Frozen cauliflower, probably a bit under 1/2 cup when broken up
A cup of chicken broth, plus some hot water
Peanut oil
Three tablespoons milk

Spices: about 1.5 teaspoon of Penzey's "Singapore spice," a curry-ish thing that gets most of its spiciness from black pepper rather than any sort of red pepper (capsicum), a bit over 1/2 teaspoon ginger powder, a little nutmeg, and a tablespoon of flour to thicken/bind it.

Heat a large covered frying pan, and then put the oil in.
Saute the onion and apple for a couple of minutes, until they're a bit soft.
Sprinkle the spices on the onion-and-olive, stir in, and cook for a minute.
Add the chicken broth, stir, and add the sweet potato pieces. Spread them out in the pan, and add a bit of water to cover the sweet potatoes.
Cover and simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, then add the cauliflower, stir to cover it with the now-thickened liquid, and cover. Total cooking time about 20 minutes, though the sweet potato was probably done in 15. (I'd thought it would need the full 20.)

Next time I will probably reduce the Singapore seasoning (since I have little tolerance for hot spices these days), and maybe increase the nutmeg, and put in some turmeric and cumin (there's some in the Singapore mix). cattitude, who likes things quite a bit spicier than I do these days, added some Sriracha brand hot sauce (which has a drawing of a rooster on the bottle). I should definitely use a bay leaf (I forgot this time), and possibly a couple of cardamom pods. Maybe olive oil instead of peanut.

Something in the umami direction would be good. Maybe just a spoonful of marmite, or get some frozen edamame (or I could start learning to cook with tofu, not just eat it in Chinese restaurants). Or mushrooms, if I'm not cooking for cattitude that night.

If I want to go back toward the recipe this is derived from, I might throw in a handful of raisins or dried cranberries next time—but sweet potatoes already make a sweeter curry than chicken or shrimp did. Also, a tablespoon or so of lemon juice, especially if I reduce the Singapore spice (which is somewhat lemony).

I added the cauliflower mostly for a bit of contrast with the sweet potato; other vegetables might do as well, depending what's handy, or this might work with just sweet potato. I had originally been thinking of a sweet potato and chicken curry, but the chicken didn't keep, and I think the dish was better without it.

Served over long-grained white rice. (If you usually serve curries over some other kind of rice, or some other grain entirely, that should work.)

*Minnehaha reminds me that she used several vegetables in her meal, including radish, but not sweet potato.

(Cross-posting to the LJ community off_recipe)

Since I can't eat hot peppers (of the capsaicin sort) anymore, and like curry, I decided a while ago to see how close I could get without that specific spice. I started with a package of Penzey's Balti seasoning mix, not because it's the perfect curry blend, but because it's a curry blend I used, and had in the house, that had a list of ingredients. I went to Aphrodisia early in the spring and got some of everything on that list that wasn't a capsaicin, and I didn't already have.

Then I mixed them up, guessing at quantities, and unfortunately not noting how much I'd used, and proceeded to leave it untouched for a while. Tonight, I made us a shrimp sort-of-curry.

cattitude and I agreed that it wasn't hot enough; in groping for vocabulary, he said it needed more "sharp" flavors, and after a while it transpired that fresh garlic, uncooked, has some of that, but cooked garlic doesn't. Mustard is also in there.

The notes from tonight are:

• needs more sharp


• mustard (there's a little in there now)


• horseradish?


• maybe add fresh garlic a minute or so before the lemon juice


• more clove?


• replace our ginger powder


• Szechuan peppercorns?

Cattitude also notes that he wants to do other things with the ajuwan (which I bought for the first time to use in this), possibly trying using it instead of sage in a chicken stuffing.

The notes from when I mixed this up say that it contains coriander, dried garlic, ginger, cumin, cinnamon (true cinnamon, not cassia), mustard (but it's old), clove, fenugreek, anise, ajowan, cilantro, black pepper, and turmeric. There should be coriander, but I forgot to buy any.

Therefore: I should get powdered ginger, powdered mustard, and powdered coriander before doing this again.

Edited based on comments:

I put two cardamom pods in as well. I'm not going to start hand-grinding spices with a mortar and pestle. Even an electric spice grinder seems less likely on a weeknight; yes, it gets good results, but realistically, time and energy are limitations. Fresh ginger, or the ginger paste I have in the fridge, seems plausible. (Ginger root may keep "forever" in some people's refrigerators, but in mine, after a few weeks it is dried out or starts to develop mold.)

As I've mentioned, I can't handle capsicum (hot pepper) type spiciness anymore. But I miss curry. I decided a while ago that I want to try mixing my own, with all sorts of spices except for hot pepper.

I have taken the first step, which was to go to Aphrodisia with a shopping list copied off the side of a package of the Penzey's "Balti seasoning," modified to remove things I either can't eat or already have plenty of. I bought—and will probably use most of—clove, cardamom, garlic, ajuwan, anise, coriander, cilantro, fennel, and fenugreek. I already have cinnamon, ginger, cumin, and turmeric. I'm considering brown mustard seed, which I would need to crush. adrian_turtle is in favor of that, and notes that what I've described sounds quite sweet, especially given my tendency to use large amounts of ginger. It's not so much that I need a lot of sweet spice—a little fenugreek will do, I think—as that I want a balance of flavors. There will need to be some experimentation, I expect.

I had fun at the spice shop, and one of the "do not pet" cats came over and rubbed against my leg, and was happy to be stroked a bit. When I went to pay, the woman who was chatting with the store owner commented to her on my beautiful smile. I explained what I was doing, and she agreed that curry doesn't have to be hot.