FunnyLove

curry

Easy Chicken Curry with Spinach and Tomatoes

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I’m SUPER into curry.

When I was in high school in Tokyo there was a chain of Indian restaurants called Samrat. They had a lunch special that high schoolers could afford, and it was SUCH a treat to be able to go there and try some curries with rice and naan. It was the first time I had much experience with curry outside of curry chicken salad or similar southern foods, and one of my favorite memories of high school – of all things to fixate on in Japan.

Now, one million years later, I spend some weekends making curries with tons of spices, simmered for hours that stink up the house in the best possible way. Or I make this: a chicken curry with just seven ingredients that comes together in under an hour – way less if you happen to have leftover shredded chicken on hand.

Curry in under an hour is mainly my jam with two kids and a bunch of jobs and dogs that eat through walls. Slow-simmering things aren’t as common in my kitchen as I’d like them to be, unfortunately.

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Bruleed and Curried Carrots

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Continuing our Thanksgiving prep! Enter…a newish way to eat veggies with lots of butter in them. I like carrots in almost all forms, but they can definitely feel like an afterthought or boring vegetable. We roast them at home a ton with olive oil, salt, and dried dill – that’s probably my favorite way to eat them. 

My family never did carrots at holidays, but I think the boiled-in-sugar version is common, or at least was in the 80’s, in many families. I think carrots (I always picture them at cafeterias like this) boiled in butter and sugar are delicious, and that was kind of the impetus for this recipe. We boil the carrots in stock, butter, and spices, then broil them with some coarse sugar for a fake brulee effect. The end result is tender, flavorful, and so warming from the spices. 

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Easy Shrimp in Curry Cream Sauce

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This is me attempting to make a New Year’s Resolution and stick to it. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. 

Ok so. Around the holidays I was talking to my sister, who is in marketing and graphic design, about this site and what I wanted to happen with it (nothing? everything?), and we talked about how funny it is that some of the most popular posts are these ancient non-recipes with horrible pictures. We talked about re-doing some for the sake of new pictures and updated measurements, and this is the first one! 

Shrimp with Curry Cream Sauce, originally photographed in my parent’s kitchen in 2012 under fluorescent lights. Ouch. Let the record state that my parents have a lovely kitchen. 

The pictures are bad and the writing is awful (not much has changed there), but shrimp curry remains one of my absolute favorite things in the world. It’s no secret that we are highly obsessed with all kinds of curry, and a yellow curry with coconut milk appears a few times per month on our dinner rotation. The original recipe had a bunch of chopping with garlic, ginger, jalapeno, and green onion. I LOVE starting curries with that flavor combination, but wanted to do a quick version using dried and jarred flavors to save time and effort. 

The result is a 15-20 minute curry that tastes like tons of effort without any actual effort. Shrimp cooks in 3 minutes or less and there is a teeny bit of cream at the end in honor of the original recipe. 

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Ruby’s Potato and Beef Curry

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I’m like a damn broken record with the “it’s finally cold, need cozy food” repetition, but heartier foods all of a sudden taste so much more satisfying, comforting, necessary. Speaking of comforting, this dish finds a way to cram potatoes, naan, and rice into a single meal without it feeling terribly indulgent (Jay is like, yes it does please stop), and I’m not mad about it one little bit. 

This curry is a total knockoff of my brother in law Joe’s mother Ruby’s standard, this-is-what-we-always-eat curry. Jay’s sister Elizabeth and Joe have been together since long before I was around and got married just a few months before we did, so I’ve been lucky enough to eat Ruby’s curry on several occasions. I’m not going to talk about what type of curry this is, because Ruby is Indian (but I don’t know where in India she is from and there are a gazillion regions of cuisine to factor in here) AND has lived many places in her life, so I’m calling this a fusion curry. For the purpose of using actual words to describe food, it is a Madras curry, very mild but very flavorful, stewed for several hours with tomato paste until beef chunks fall apart like any good stewed beef does. 

So, you’ll imagine my disappointment when I made the plan to cook this and discovered that I had used all of my Madras curry powder but also the time to cook was NOW because of nap time and daylight. So I improvised, making this an even more fusiony curry than the usual fusion Ruby rocks. The spice blend that I used is an equal combination of garam masala and yellow curry powder, and I alllllmost couldn’t tell a difference besides obviously that I’m not an Indian mom and my curry will never be as good as one. 

But, I’ve learned a few tips and tricks from my sister in law and Joe, who blessedly texted me through this whole process, and the approximation we’re left with here is still damn good. So let’s curry!

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Red Lentil Dhal

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BECAUSE FALL SO ORANGE EVERYTHING. 

Finally it is less than 90 degrees here, which means I’ve been freezing for most of the day, no joke. It was in the mid 80’s all weekend, hit 90 more than once last week, and tonight is going to drop down to 47F, riddle me that. The temperature drop has made me wrestle internally with Beck’s sleeping situation; she’s old enough for blankets but I have irrational fears of EVERYTHING killing her, so is a sleep sack and our favorite jammies enough? The answer is of course yes because she 1. doesn’t sleep outside and 2. sleeps perfectly soundly all night long, but that doesn’t stop me from ruminating on the subject for no reason at all. 

So we need some lentils to warm us up and to help us sleep better? Nice transition there. 

These lentils are so legit, though. Indian food is one of our absolute favorites in almost any form; we eat something with Indian flavors (which is a huge range, luckily for me) at least once a week, and one of our favorite things to do on super busy nights is to order Indian takeout knowing that we’ll have a delicious dinner asap and leftovers for a day or two. Curry reheats well, is my point. 

These lentils are similarly comforting, but don’t include any meat or animal products. I use chicken stock to make mine, but you can make this dish entirely vegan if you use vegetable stock instead. The spices in the lentils make the entire dish taste so warm, and the lentils I have cooked in 15 minutes or so, so the end result of the dish felt very slow-cooked and cozy while just taking a few minutes. I love these alone with cilantro and a lime wedge, but with rice, naan, or as part of a larger Indian meal would be really perfect as well. 

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