Day Three Hundred and Fifty Four - Chicken Vindaloo

Dear all,

Darren has been extremely supportive over the last few days as I have had immigration paperwork flying all over the place so I decided I wanted to make something special for him: Home Made Chicken Vindaloo!

I found a very broad range of recipes online which all seemed to use completely different ingredients and method but I eventually decided on this one, from Epicurious.com just because it used tomato paste ( I had some spare on my shelves). Vindaloo does however call for quite a substantial and specific list of herbs and spices that

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chicken-Vindaloo-107088

3 cups chopped onions

1 1/2 cups chopped seeded tomatoes (about 4 medium)

2 1/2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar

1 large garlic clove, chopped

1 teaspoon minced peeled fresh ginger

1 teaspoon tomato paste

1 teaspoon garam masala*

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon (or more) cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

6 skinless boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1- to 1 1/2-inch pieces

1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 1/2 cups low-salt chicken broth or water

This particular method called for the first '11' ingredients to be blended together to form a paste which would then be cooked in oil. This was certainly an unusual form of cooking for me and I was intrigued as to how it would work out.

Darren was watching on in the background and ready to step in at a moments notice. My first incident occurred on moving to the stove whereby as soon as I poured in the paste to the oil, it started splattering all over the place and Darren quickly intervened explaining that [1] The oil should have been super-hot when I introduced the paste and [2] I needed to stir continually to stop burning, bubbling, spitting and general kitchen devastation.

The paste bubbled away until it turned a golden brown which was the pint at which we added the pureed Scotch bonnet peppers ( a small addition to the band of spices), the potatoes and the chicken. We let it saute for 5 minutes and then added the chicken broth.

And then all we had to do was wait ( and stir occasionally) and soon enough, we had a large pot of steaming curried goodness waiting for us.

And here is the finished result! It tasted pretty good and the only slight mishap was that I overcooked the Naan.. not where I thought I would go wrong considering the difficulty level of the dish. So now I am inspired to churn out more and more curries!