CSA Slow Cooker Curry

A strange thing happened when I moved to New York: I stopped cooking (Indian) curry. Then, after a few visits to some of the city's less-than-terrific Indian restaurants I stopped eating it altogether. For a Brit, this is almost a form of treason. It's a bit like giving up tea, or beer, or deciding not to complain about the weather any more. On my return visits to London I would sometimes order a delivery from my favourite local Indian restaurant but then even that pretty much stopped. Somehow I'd just lost the habit, and considering that habit used to be of the two-or-three-times-a-week variety the loss was, as I say, strange.

Well, a few weeks ago I decided enough was enough. No more excuses about not being able to find the right ingredients, no more banging on about how I missed the fabulous Indian markets in my London neighbourhood; I needed a curry, dammit! So I set about assembling a reasonable approximation of my old garam masala recipe, searched my increasingly unreliable memory for recollections of how I used to make a basic curry (I haven't followed a written recipe for years), and got down to it. After a couple of passable near-misses I finally nailed it again.

This particular curry was a sort-of chicken madras, I suppose, but I loaded it up with a wild variety of goodies from our weekly CSA run. Normally I'd only include onion, green pepper, fresh chilli and tomatoes along with the meat but given the varied veggie stockpile in our fridge Ann and I have a pact to use them whenever and wherever we can. I was a little concerned that it might end up being a confusion of tastes and textures but happily, it worked. The point is you don't need to include all the vegetables listed below - you can take the simple base ingredients mentioned above and add whatever you fancy. Or not. That's the great thing about curries - you can be very experimental with them and have fun varying the ingredients to suit whatever's available in your kitchen and fridge.

Because of the recent sweltering weather I used a slow cooker but you can do it all in a large pan or skillet too. I served the curry with spicy basmati rice and Ann's excellent raita (mainly consisting of yogurt and chopped cucumber) which helps cool the fire!

photo by Holger Casselmann

Garam Masala

This will make quite a lot. You only use about a teaspoonful in the curry so you may want to scale down the proportions, but if you plan on getting into the curry habit it's worth making a reasonable quantity so you don't have to do it every time. If you have trouble finding the black cardamoms you can just leave them out and add a bit more of the regular ones. Like curry itself, garam masala is a very flexible thing and there's no hard and fast recipe. You should compare this suggestion with other Googlings and experiment until you find a blend that works best for you.

4 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp black peppercorns
1.5  tsp dry ginger
1 tsp cardamom seeds
2 black cardamom pods (should yield about 3/4 tsp when ground)
3/4 tsp cloves
3/4 tsp cinnamon (about a 2" piece of bark)
3/4 tsp crushed bay leaves

Gently roast all ingredients except the ginger in a heavy skillet  until they darken slightly. Stir/shake occasionally. Take it slow and be sure not to burn anything. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Once cooled, remove the cardamom seeds from their pods (a fingernail is usually handy enough to split them open) and return them to the other ingredients.

Grind everything to a fine powder. The easy way is to press an old coffee grinder into service solely for the purpose of grinding spices. The old-fashioned but tougher way is to use a pestle and mortar.

Store in an airtight container in a cool, dark place.

Chicken and Vegetable Curry
Serves 2

Note that the spice quantities suggested here will make a medium hot curry. Increasing or decreasing the amount of chilli powder or fresh chilli will make the most difference to the heat so you should adjust to your own tolerance. You might leave the fresh chilli out altogether, for example. Similarly, the quantities of cumin, turmeric and coriander are only a rough guide. Part of the fun of making curry is customising your spice levels!

The basic ingredients (ie all you really need)

1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 fresh chilli pepper, chopped. (I favour hot reds or serranos but you can use whatever type you fancy)
1 green bell pepper, sliced (optional)
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp cumin
3/4 tsp turmeric
3/4 tsp dry coriander
1/2 tsp hot paprika (optional)
12 oz chicken breast, chopped into 1.5 inch cubes
15 oz can peeled tomatoes
1 tsp garam masala (see above)

The optional extras (ie the random CSA stuff!)

2 small potatoes, cut into 1/4" slices
1 zucchini or summer squash, cut into 1/4" slices
a small handful of sliced mushrooms
a small handful of green beans, cut into 1.5 inch pieces
a large handful of arugula

(Don't you just love the precision, here?)

Put little olive oil in a skillet and fry the onions, fresh chilli and bell pepper over medium heat until the onion is translucent and the pepper slightly softened. Add the garlic and powdered spices and fry for a further minute, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Get everything nicely coated. Add the chicken and stir for another minute or so, until the surface is just starting to cook. Transfer everything to the slow cooker and add the tomatoes and a little salt. Stir and set on high. As soon as it starts to simmer, turn the cooker to low.

You should leave it for at least three hours so you need to judge when you want to add any other vegetables depending on what they are and how long they need to cook. Using the examples here I added the various extras at approximately the following times before serving

Potatoes - 2 hours
Squash - 1.5 hours
Mushrooms - 1 hour
Green beans - 1 hour
Arugula - 15 minutes

Again, this is approximate and will depend on how firm you want the vegetables to be. The times given above strike a nice balance between too soft and too firm, I think, and they're sufficient to allow the flavour of the curry to permeate a little without entirely swamping the natural taste of the ingredients. And you don't really want crisp green beans in a curry. Or at least, I don't. But please yourselves!

The final touch is to add the garam masala, which you should stir in and mix well about an hour before you're ready to eat. Your kitchen will now start to smell seriously wonderful and you will have a hard time waiting that final hour to get stuck in to the spicy, aromatic goodness.

Curry really can benefit more than many dishes from a trial-and-error approach because everyone seems to like it slightly differently and part of the fun is in figuring out what works best for your preferences. Be loose! Be fearless! But don't forget to start getting the rice together about twenty minutes before you're ready to eat!

Spicy Basmati Rice
Serves 2

1 medium onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 red or serrano chilli pepper, chopped (and de-seeded if you're scared of a bit of heat)
Half a cup of basmati rice
6 fl oz white wine
6 fl oz veg or chicken stock
Salt and black pepper

Heat a little olive oil in a saucepan. Add the onions, garlic and chilli. Cook for a few minutes until the onions are soft. Stir in the rice and cook for another minute. Pour in the wine and reduce the liquid by half. Add the stock and seasoning; cover saucepan and cook until rice has absorbed the liquid. About 8-10 minutes.

Comments

[Oakley Rhodes]

Wow, this looks great! Great job using your CSA box to it's full potential. I work for an organization in Oregon that is trying to get more people to use local, seasonal foods - especially sourcing directly through farmers markets and CSAs. Keep up the great work, and I'm linking to your blog.
-Oakley from lemonbasil.blogspot.com

[Psychgrad]

Well - I hope this marks the return to Indian cuisine for you. I'm always on the look out for Indian recipes that are moderately accessible to an amateur like me. I have some garam masala - though it might fall short of flavours when compared to a fresh blend.

[Sophie]

Wow! This looks really good... maybe you'll make some next time I come over? ;)

[michelle]

You guys can even make curry look beautiful! I'm so jealous as pictures of stuff like this never turn out for me! Smart idea to do it in slow cooker too - I never would have thought of that. I especially love the measurements of the veggies - perfect!

[Nicisme]

Darn good lookin' curry, I could scarf that down right now!

[michelle]

P.S. Ann and Jack - I've given you two an award!

[Manggy]

Excellent! You know, I've always found in interesting that the national dish of England is Chicken Tikka Masala (or do they just say that? What is it really?). The only thing I don't have is the black cardamom-- I hope I can do without. I love Indian curries! I can't believe you gone on so long without them! :)

[Lydia (The Perfect Pantry)]

Cool -- I've been looking for more slow-cooker recipes this summer (same as you, kitchen is too hot to cook), and I love any curry that I can spice up to my heart's content.

[Meeta]

True - for a Brit that is strange. But glad you have found your appetite for Indian curries again and this is certainly a great way to get anyone's mouth watering.

[Giff]

funny, same thing happened to my wife (an aussie). I think part of it is that (save for a few spots on 6th St or out in queens) New York has much weaker Indian restaurants than London or even San Francisco. She's just starting cooking curries again however, and I'm trying to get the hang of them myself, so thanks for this post.

[cookinpanda]

Mmmm garam masala. This looks delicious. I kind of waver in and out of my tendency to cook Indian food-- I wouldn't be able to go too long though because the depth of flavors really satisfy me in ways most other types of foods cannot.

[noble pig]

Wow, that spice picture really put me in the mood for an Indian fix! I loved it.

Nice blog too!

[grace]

ya know, i keep seeing garam masala as an ingredients in these fabulous recipes but i never really knew what it contained and was too lazy to look it up. thanks for clearing that up--now those recipes (including this one) are even more appealing. :)

[Susan at Sticky,Gooey,Creamy,Chewy]

What a great idea to make curry in a slow cooker! It looks absolutely delicious! I'll bet that slow simmering gives the curry a real depth of flavor.

I like a lot of vegetables in my curry. Whenever I make some, I always add a little potato, green beans and eggplant. This way, I've got a few more food grops covered in one pot!

[Ivy]

Great picture of all the spices!

[Jack]

Oakley - Thanks for the link! Yes, we're really into this CSA thing now. It's fun figuring out things to do with our weekly haul and we like the challenge provided by not really knowing what we're going to get until the day.

Psychgrad - There are some decent ready made garam masalas out there but you really get a nicer flavour and taste when you make your own. If you can get hold of the main ingredients I do recommend making a batch.

Sophie - Sure! Just remind me to leave the chicken out. :-)

michelle - The pretty pics are down to Ann, her new camera and her eye for composition which is far superior to mine. I have a tendency to not notice things in the background - stains, dirty cutlery, old pizza boxes... :-). Oh, and thanks again for the award!

Nicisme - I was pretty pleased with how well it turned out since it wasn't quite my normal recipe.

Manggy - Chicken Tikka Masala really is the most popular dish in England. I think it overtook Fish and Chips about five or six years ago. Black cardamoms aren't essential, but nice if you can get them. I got spoiled living in Tooting, London for so long because the place is heaving with Indian shops and food markets. You can get everything there - really cheap, too.

Lydia - Yes, I never used to use a slow cooker for my curries; I always made them in a pan on the stove. But this turned out really well.

Meeta - I think I sort of went into denial because I always loved Indian food so much that when I couldn't get the good stuff easily anymore I started to pine a bit. I think I just dealt with the lack by "forgetting" that I missed it.

Giff - Yes, it's odd how hard it is to find a decent Indian restaurant in NYC. The same applies to Mexican places - not too many really good ones. I don't even like many of the places on 6th st. The only one I've tried that did a fairly decent job was Banjara on 6th st. and 1st.

cookinpanda - Yes, there's something about Indian flavours that hits places no other cuisine can.

noble pig - Thanks!

grace - A good garama masala is one of the things that lifts an ordinary curry to another level.

Susan - I think curry generally benefits from being left for a while. When I used to make it in the standard way I'd always find it tasted even better if I had leftovers the next day.

Ivy - Yes, it makes me want to go and make another batch of garam masala. In fact, I need to because this curry used the last of our previous lot.

[Zenchef]

I LOVE curry so much but you just made me realize i don't eat them very often either. Where are the good curries in this town?? Oh actually there's some good Thai curries on the corner of baxter and bayard in Chinatown but for Indian curries, i don't know. Jack, your garam masala recipe sounds great. Gotta try it!

[Mallika]

You made your own garam masala? I am impressed! Curry looks lovely actually. Has it spurred you on to eat and cook it more I wonder...

[Hélène]

I can smell this wonderful curry from my home. Thanks for sharing.

[Cakelaw]

The curry looks wonderful - there's nothing like a hot curry on a cold night.