Sri Lankan Chicken Curry

As you may have guessed I am having a bit of an Asian month!

This Sri Lankan Chicken Curry is again from Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey. The main flavours found in Sri Lankan food are coconut, curry leaves, pandan leaves and cinnamon (the whole bark broken into pieces). The first step in making this curry is to make the curry powder. You will find Sri Lankan cuisine more often uses powders rather than pastes. This curry uses the roasted powder which is made by dry roasting basmati rice, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, cinnamon sticks, fenugreek seeds, cloves, cardamom seeds (from green pods), black mustard seeds, peppercorns and dried red kashmiri chillies. Once these have cooled a little you grind them to a fine powder.
This recipe uses a whole chicken cut into 8 pieces however I think it would be just as nice, if not nicer, if you used cubed chicken thighs.

The chicken pieces are fried in vegetable oil until golden then removed from the pan. You then fry some cinnamon, green cardamom pods and cloves before adding onions or shallots, then garlic and ginger, followed by the curry powder, turmeric and chilli powder. Finally you return the chicken to the pan with a lemongrass stalk, split green cayenne chillies, pandan and curry leaves and salt.

Pandan leaves are long green leaves from the Pandan plant which grows in parts of tropical Asia. The leaf is used to add a unique flavour to sweet and savoury dishes and you can usually find it frozen in Asian supermarkets. I was unable to get fresh curry leaves so had to make do with dried ones which I really don't think give the same flavour.

The curry is left to cook for 30 minutes or until the chicken is tender. You then add in some coconut milk and finally a little lime juice.

This curry was surprisingly mild but did have some nice flavours.

I think the biggest tip I can give with Asian cooking is to have all your ingredients chopped and measured before you start. Although the dishes are not hard to make the preparation is time consuming and it is a much more pleasant exerience if everything is ready to go.

Rating 7 out of 10.