Spicy Chicken and Potato Curry

These days, I find myself checking out the Whole Foods website for the weekly sales about a half hour before I leave work then plotting my evening meal.  A few weeks ago, I was extremely successful with my version of this recipe.  Instead of beef, I used boneless chicken thighs.  The recipe on the website is essentially perfect – I just had to substitute one ingredient.

Ingredients

½ onion, chopped

2 serrano chiles (remove seeds for a milder curry)

3 cloves garlic

1 tbs peanut or expeller-pressed canola oil

1 pound boneless chicken thighs, cut into 3/4-inch cubes

1 tsp fine sea salt, plus more to taste

1 cinnamon stick

1 ¼ tsps coriander seeds

1 ¼ tsps ground cumin

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 (13.5-ounce) can light coconut milk

1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained

½ tsp sugar

1 pound red potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces

1/3 cup packed cilantro leaves

In a blender, combine onion, chiles, garlic and ½ cup water and blend until smooth. Set aside.

In a large skillet with a tightly fitting lid, heat oil over high heat. Sprinkle chicken with salt. Add the chicken pieces to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. Transfer to a bowl with a slotted spoon. Set aside.  Return the skillet to medium-high heat and add cinnamon, coriander, cumin and turmeric; stir for 10 seconds and then add the onion and chile mixture. 

Simmer for 1 minute and then stir in coconut milk, tomatoes and sugar. (The tomatoes added a texture that I didn’t love, so I’ll probably leave them out next time.) Add the chicken back in, cover the skillet, and simmer 40 minutes.  Stir in potatoes and continue to simmer until chicken and potatoes are very tender, about 20 minutes more; remove the lid during last 10 minutes of simmering if you would like a thicker sauce. Remove cinnamon stick. When you taste the curry, you’ll definitely want to add more salt.

After adding enough salt, I decided to taste it, but ended up eating it as though it were soup.  I then had another bowl with rice.  This curry was amaaaazing! Thank you Whole Foods!

Hungry yet?