Rick Stein's chicken chettinad

sources
chicken chettinad - Rick Stein, Rick Stein's India, p216

Delia Smith's lime chicken curry

sources
lime chicken curry - Delia, How to Cook Book Two, p107

Rick Stein's chicken chettinad

sources
chicken chettinad - Rick Stein, Rick Stein's India, p216

Delia Smith's lime chicken curry

sources
lime chicken curry - Delia, How to Cook Book Two, p107

rick stein's chicken chettinad

Having dragged my arse around Victoria in the lunchtime rain to get the necessary spices, we’re having curry tonight, even if it’s late and I have to make a subsequent dash to our new, world-beating corner shop for all our premium wine and beer needs.

Seriously though, it has the most amazing selection of wine and beer I’ve ever seen, and beats pretty much all local supermarkets/off licences into a cocked hat, so not only do we get brilliant booze (obviously all booze is brilliant), we also get the heart-warming satisfaction of supporting our local businesses. And booze, of course.

Anyway I feel we need to have another crack at the mighty chicken chettinand to expunge the curry of shame I drunkenly created last time, before storming off to bed in a huff claiming our marriage was at an end.

Clearly the only way to do this is to cook it again in an atmosphere of reconciliation and enjoyment of each others company. Strangely enough, this turns out to be a roaring success although looking at the amount of empty bottles in the recycling bin I could probably hazard a guess what aided this…

sources
chicken chettinad - Rick Stein, Rick Stein's India, p216

hugh fearnley-whittingstall's vedgeree

It turns out we’re still married after all. And what better way to consign last night’s chicken chettinad of hate to the bin (damn you Rick Stein!) than with a sunny walk along the river, via the pub, followed by a vegetable biryani of love, care of the floppy-haired lord of love, St Hugh?

Originally we were scheduled to have another installment of Jamie’s venison stroganoff tonight as Milo has been asking for it all week, but given the veg in the crisper I was intending to use up later in the week for this was looking a mite peaky, we switched things around. As it turned out though, Milo’s disgruntlement was a small price to pay for an happier fridge and even better, a really delicious curry.

Okay, so it’s not as good as the Anjum green biryani, or Rick’s one, but it’s still full of delicate flavours and with the added benefits of using up as much random veg as you’ve got (in this case carrots, parsnips, celery, courgette and a random bit of squash) and having enough left over for lunch tomorrow. Not that we’ll be having lunch on fasting day of course.

Having waxed lyrical, I reckon there’s still scope for improvement. You could probably add some chutney to it I think, just to add a little more depth to the flavours.

sources
vedgeree - hugh fearnley-whittingstall, River Cottage Veg Everyday!, p276 

rick stein's chicken chettinad

What do you get if you mix too much too much alcohol, rugby, over-tiredness, background stress, low-level guilt about not doing any school marking, high-horsing about having to man-manage your (shared) son all day, and the fact your neighbours didn’t have any food in so your aforementioned son didn’t eat until 21.00-ish?

The obvious and correct answer is the mother or all arguments – although this manifested itself in muttered imprecations and oaths against each other, and me going to bed early. Which was probably for the best as we’d split up twice by that point.

It also resulted in chicken chettinad of HATRED: It looks the same, it smells the same, but it turns to ashes in your mouth and leaves you feeling slightly ashamed and guilty afterwards. I suspect we won’t be having it again for a while. Looks good though:

sources
chicken chettinad - Rick Stein, Rick Stein's India, p216

rick stein's sour berry chicken pulao

Yet another absolute corker from Rick Stein. In fact it's so delicious, I forgot to take a picture so you'll have to make do with one of my breakfast instead: left-over haggis and poached egg:

sources
sour berry chicken pulao - Rick Stein, Rick Stein's India, p202

rick stein's lamb rogan josh

sources
lamb rogan josh - rick stein, Rick Stein's India, p258

rick stein's chicken chettinad

At the end of a week which for a variety of reasons seemed to last forever, we’re into celebratory curry mode tonight, accompanied by the first alcohol of the week and a repeat of Take Me Out.

Can life get any better? Admittedly before we can unleash the unholy, soul-soothing trinity of chicken chettinad, wine and/or beer first there’s the small matter of two job applications to get through, and the shopping to arrive from Mr Ocado between 20.30 and 21.30.

Or 21.45 as it turns out, which means whilst having more time to successfully make my CV seem in anyway convincing, it does mean dinner is not served until eleven-ish, and we’re a little drunk and starving. Actually, is that not the perfect state to be in for curry?

sources
chicken chettinad - Rick Stein's India, p216

bill granger's dhal with tamarind and lime

sources
dhal with tamarind and lime - bill granger, Delicious 2008, p67

rick stein's coconut prawn curry

With an unseasonal inset day looming, we take (further) advantage of the McCarthy clan and drop Milo off in a rain lashed car park in Portsmouth for a last minute weekend on the diamond isle, leaving us free to, well, do what we want.

This variously takes in singing loudly to Kate Bush on the A3, lesson planning, blowing the cobwebs out with a wet and woolly run around Richmond Park, minor alcohol shopping, watching telly undisturbed, actually being able to read the paper and a trip to the Tapestry for a couple of pints and a stint of life-planning.

Booze’s other magical power kicks in on the way home and, rather than constructing a healthy prawn and avocado concoction whilst watching the new series of The Bridge, we both immediately crave something curried whilst watching Take Me Out. Maybe something prawny…

Luckily enough my Christmas copy of Rick Stein’s India swings to the rescue with not only a really quick debut prawn curry, but – and I find this hard to believe – but Rick’s favourite curry:

To be fair it is pretty tasty with a lip-smacking combination of heat from the chilli, garlic and massive spoonful of ginger, balanced with sour tamarind and creamy coconut. But favourite curry ever? I’m not sure about that. As Ana pointed out, if anything it was a bit korma-esque, and I don’t think it’s too dissimilar to Nigella’s admittedly excellent Keralan fish curry, which whilst being a bit of a standard chez Barnes, wouldn’t necessarily get into the top ten.

sources
coconut prawn curry - Rick Stein's India, p126

delia's lime chicken curry

sources
lime chicken curry - Delia, How to Cook Book Two, p107

nigella's keralan fish curry

sources
keralan fish curry - nigella lawson, Delicious, February 2009, p83

delia's lime chicken curry

sources
lime chicken curry - Delia, How to Cook Book Two, p107

amma's pork curry with green chillis and tamarind care of rick stein

sources
amma's pork curry with green chillies and tamarind - Rick Stein's India, p274

simon hopkinson's tomato curry

Despite the success of last week’s forage-tastic chestnut and sage soup (and that’s in spite of the fact we effectively stole the chestnuts from Richmond Park, *and* the consequent shagging up of the quicks of my nails peeling the bastards), Ana seems mightily unimpressed with the idea of an experimental chestnut, mushroom and kale pie tonight.

This is a shame as I’ve got 400g of kale in the fridge, and I’ve circumvented a repeat of man-crying-with-shards-of -shell-embedded beneath-his-nails, but buying a box of prepared chestnuts. Incredibly this still doesn’t sway the crowd, and we settle for comforting bowls of Simon Hopkinson’s tomato curry.

 Well, comforting in the sense it revives Ana after a day’s worth of marking, but seems to have the opposite effect on Milo, who has spent most of the afternoon collapsing in tears at the slightest thing.

sources
tomato curry - Simon Hopkinson, Delicious, November 2007, p86

rick stein's chicken chettinad

I lied.

sources
chicken chettinad - Rick Stein's India, in Delicious August 2013, p47

some sort of curried cauliflower

I have no idea where I got this recipe, but I do remember it involved boiling half a head of cauliflower in turmeric. It's not helpful I know.

rick stein's chicken chettinad

It’s a Saturday night so obviously once again we’re on Rick Stein’s Chicken Chettinad. However for the first time I think chettinad ennui is beginning to kick in.

Partly this is because we’ve had it four (or five) weeks on the bounce now, and whilst I love cooking it – particularly now I’ve finally got my hands on some beautiful curry leaves – I think I’m running the risk of getting bored with it.

The other more pertinent reason could be because I (Ana claims not to be) am full of teeny tiny ham and cheese sandwiches, mini cocktail sausages, ghost-shaped crisps and jazzie biscuits from Milo’s Hallowe’en-themed party. And premium strength Belgium beer from Mr Manwaring’s birthday boxes, but mainly party food. It’s amazing how filling small plates of small food can be even, if they’re disappointingly not made up of a variety of delicious tapas, but white bread, hula hoops and baby bels – party pintxos if you will.

Anyway,  a couple of hours of tidying later and I’ve created a small space for the chettinad, which despite my carping is still lovely, with a lovely pungent warmth from the ginger and black pepper spice rub, and underlying oiliness from the aforementioned curry leaves:

Do try it, although I promise to cook something different next week though, so we won’t be seeing this for a while.

sources
chicken chettinad - Rick Stein's India, in Delicious August 2013, p47