Chicken curry on spinach and coriander rice

Chicken curry, on a bed of spinach and rice

Chicken curry on spinach and coriander rice

Get your taste buds 'blown away' by this power-flavoured spicy chicken curry, on a 'bed' of coriander rice and spinach. Absolutely delicious and packed with so much flavour and healthy spices.

Course Dinner, Lunch, Main Course, Main Dish

Cuisine Asian, Sri Lankan

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 30

Total Time 40

Servings servings

Calories 503kcal

Author Ramona Sebastian

Equipment

chopping board
knife
pot
grater

Ingredients

For the curry:

650 g chicken meat (organic) mixed parts with bone
1-2 tablespoon curry powder
1 medium onion (organic)
1-2 green chili
1 teaspoon ginger (organic) freshly grated
3 cloves garlic (organic) crushed and chopped
¾ teaspoon mixed seeds ***
⅓ teaspoon turmeric powder
5-6 curry leaves (fresh or dry)
1 can chopped tomatoes (organic)
½ tablespoon tomato paste
¼ tablespoon cumin powder
1 pod cardamon (crushed)
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon oil (optional) or coconut oil, or ghee
½ lemon juice

For the rice:

350 g basmati rice
100 g spinach (organic) fresh or frozen
20 g coriander (organic) fresh

Metric - US Imperial

Instructions

Cook the rice according to pack instructions and 2 minutes before being ready add the chopped fresh spinach or chopped cooked frozen one along with the coriander. I normally cook those together separately with a little ghee or coconut oil for a couple of minutes in a different pan and add to the rice and mix at the end.
Meanwhile, in a pot, placed on a low fire, add the chopped onion, a little oil if you wish, if not a 50 ml water, the mixed seeds, a little salt, half of the garlic, curry leaves, some crushed black pepper, the green chilli cut into halves and the turmeric powder. * Coming back to oil, I never add any oil to any meat curries as I do not think it is necessary since all meats have their own fat which is sufficient for taste. But you feel free to go the traditional way of doing that initial fried onion style by adding as much oil/ghee/coconut oil as you wish and fry the onion for a good few minutes until brown or almost caramelized. It is entirely up to you.
Add the meat and stir for a little while, then add the chopped tomatoes, the tomato paste, the remainder of the salt a small amount of water although the meat might still have some water from washing it and that may be sufficient so the curry will become too watery. Cook covered for 10 min and then uncovered for another 10 min.
Towards the end, add the ginger and the remainder of the garlic along with the cumin powder and cook for a further 7-10 min uncovered. At this point you can judge if you want any little water added to it but I gather there is no need.
When finished cooking, serve while hot on the rice which has been cooked and mixed with the coriander and the spinach. If you have any left over curry, do not worry but rather be happy as the next day it tasted even better!!
Bonne appetite!

Notes

*** I use a seed mix of cumin, fennel, mustard, fenugreek, black sesame and about 10% caraway seeds. You can buy those separately in any Asian or even supermarket or a good wholefood online or specialized spices store. Buy and mix in pretty much equal quantities apart from caraway ones. Of course, you can mix and match them as you wish and if there is any flavour that you don’t like, just leave it out and this is the beauty of this as you create your own best-liked mix.

Mix them all and place in a jar. This seed combo goes very well with any meat or vegetable curry. It does it for me and I have had no complaints but on the contrary.

The curry powder that I usually use is a mixture of ground red chilli, turmeric, fennel, fenugreek, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, clove, curry leaves, ginger and black pepper. It generally comes and can be bought in different strengths but the Sri-Lankan one is generally hot and very flavoursome as they do a really good and balanced mix. It is just perfect for my taste.

Nutrition