Over the past few weeks, there has been a bombardment of personal style posts, so I wanted to mix things up with a recipe.
If you ask me, I think Indian/brown food in general has an unfair reputation. Too often is it categorized as oily and fattening and shunned altogether by the calorie-conscious. Frankly speaking, based on what’s served in Indian restaurants and peoples’ dinner parties, that reputation is well deserved. For a long time, I too avoided the food of my people, until one day, I really missed the the taste of a hearty, home cooked meal. And I mean hearty, not another damn salad.
One small problem, I refused to succumb into buying white rice, canola oil, and naan (the holy trinity of brown food)… so I had to come up with an alternative. I realized that if I took the oil and rice components out of Indian food, it wouldn’t really bad for me anymore, might I be so bold to say that it could even be healthy? Since then, I’ve health-ified several of my favourite recipes by substituting Canola oil with EVOO, and rice with quinoa.
This Coconut Curry Chicken is one of my favourite recipes because it is both healthy and satisfying. Scroll down for the recipe and let me know what you think!
INGREDIENTS
400 grams chicken cut into cubes
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
2 chopped onions
2 cups coconut milk
1 1/2 tsp chilli pepper (adjust depending on how much heat you can take)
2 tbsp coriander powder
1 tsp tumeric
2 tbsp curry powder
3 cloves garlic
about an inch of ginger
3 tbsp tomato paste
Salt
DIRECTIONS
This recipe is divided into 2 stages, first you make your curry paste, and then you make the chicken.
For the curry:
Brown coconut flakes in a pan. Once browned, set aside. Next, fry 1 of your chopped onions (you only need about 1tbsp of EVOO to do this). Now add the browned coconut flakes, fried onions, chilli pepper, coriander powder, turmeric, salt, garlic, and ginger to a food processor and blend it. Add coconut milk while grinding to make it into a paste.
To make the chicken:
Heat 2tbsp EVOO in a pan and lightly fry your second onion until it is golden brown. Add your chicken and stir for a few minutes before adding the curry powder and tomato paste. Once the chicken has cooked a little, throw in the curry paste. Mix the ingredients together before adding the coconut milk and letting it simmer until the chicken is fully cooked. Adjust salt based on your needs.
Serve over a bowl of quinoa and garnish with cilantro. Enjoy!