curry night

There's something about Fridays that make me want to eat curry (and drink something large and alcoholic), so I decided to make one of our favourites and also try out a new dish. And have something large and alcoholic. Mojitos, if you're wondering.

I was watching "Saturday Kitchen" a while ago, and the Hairy Bikers were guests. They'd just finished filming a series in India and demonstrated how to make a South Indian prawn curry. It looked easy and tasty, and I gave it a go - it's since become one of our favourites. I normally make it with prawns but sometimes I add other fish (scallops, monkfish, salmon, etc - anything firm). I also make it with chicken thigh filets, which is what I did this time. You could use chicken breasts if you're not keen on thighs, but brown meat has infinitely more flavour and stays much more moist, and the caloric difference isn't very substantial. Here's the recipe as I made it last night:

Chicken Curry

• 1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 green chilli, trimmed, seeds removed
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 4cm/1½in piece fresh ginger, peeled
• 1 tbsp sunflower oil
• 12 fresh curry leaves (I use freeze dried)
• 1 tsp black mustard seeds
• ½ tsp ground fenugreek
• pinch asafoetida
• ½ tsp ground turmeric
• 500g/1lb skinless, boneless chicken thighs, chopped into bitesize pieces
• 200ml/7fl oz coconut milk (I used one tin of Blue Dragon's "mini" coconut milk)
• 1 lime, juice only

To serve:

• 4 tbsp chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves
• 1 lime, cut into wedges

 Method:

1. Blend the onion, chilli, garlic and ginger to a paste in a food processor.
   
2. Heat the sunflower oil in a frying pan over a medium heat, add the curry leaves, mustard seeds and methi powder and fry for 20-30 seconds, or until fragrant.
   
3. Add the onion, chilli and garlic paste and fry over medium heat until it turns brown (keep an eye on this so it doesn't burn!)
   
4. Add the turmeric and coconut milk, and season. Cover and bring the mixture to a simmer for 10 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked. Remove from the heat and squeeze over the lime juice. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary, and add a little hot chilli powder or diced fresh chillis if you'd like a little more heat.
   
5. Garnish with the chopped coriander and lime wedges.
   

The mushroom dish was based on this curry recipe from the fantastic Mamta's Kitchen site (my "go to" site for anything Indian.) We're off the peas at the moment (too carby), so I substituted spinach which worked really well. Otherwise, I mostly followed the recipe as written (I used only 1tbsp of oil.)

The whole meal was under 400 calories, 5g net carbs. Oh and one mojito (sweetened with Stevia) is 60 calories and 0g of carbs. Just so's you know.