Post 180: Really Simple Chicken, potato, cauliflower and lentil curry

Since I was given Camilla Panjabi's curry book, I've had a couple of attempts at cooking authentic curries and they've turned out with varying degrees of success. Some ok,  some very good and worth the effort.

However Mrs VegBox requested one of my old style chuck it all in make it up as I go versions. So, without reference to a recipe book or bothering with any measuring I knocked this up in under an hour:

I'm not sure the photo does it justice; it was quite a pasty looking number - but tasty though.

• Three onions chopped and slow fried
• To which I added 6 fresh chillies and 5 dried ones (these dried are hotter than the fresh and I wanted a bit of life in it) and then 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 kilo of chopped chicken breast, fried until sealed, but not browned to keep it nice and soft
• I then added spices: a big shake of curry powder, 1 pinch of curry leaves, smaller shakes each of paprika, tumeric, cumin and coriander
• I wanted to add some tomato puree for extra colour, but the cupboard was bare; hence the dish's pastyness
• 6 medium potatoes cut into 1" cubes
• 1 small cauliflower
• Cover with (boiling) chicken stock and simmer
• Seperately, cook a pan of Lentils
• Once the potatoes and cauli have softened, combine with the Lentils
• Simmer a bit more until the lentils have combined in with the sauce

All done in a not very stressful hour. Not authentic, but tasty and lively and even better, there's enough left for tonight too.