Post 221: Bhindi Saag Ghost/Chicken Curry with Spinach and Okra

Forgive me for it has been three weeks since I have bloggered. This is very poor form and can only be excused by my having been away. Yay, happy hollibobs me. It's bloody cold to be back now though.

Anyways, back to it. Here's my Bhindi Saag Ghost or Chicken Curry with spinach and Okra. I made this recipe up, although unusally for me, I had given it some thought before I started cooking. My local curry shop does a fine dish they call Sri Lankan - which is hot (the hottest on their menu), sweet and sour with coconut. Broadly this was the effect I was after.

This was a dish cooked in two parts, which again is pretty unusual for me; normally I manage to cook most things in a single pan. This one took three!

Ingredients:

• 1 big onion
• 4 hot, hot, hot chillies and 4 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 a lemon
• 1 tin chopped tomaotes
• 1 tin coconut milk
• 300gs Chicken Breast
• 1 small-ish bag of Spinach
• 1 pack of Okra, 125gs
• Spices: Curry powder, tumeric, paprika, cumin powder, garam masala

Method:

• Chop the onion fine and fry slowly, once these have soften add in the garlic andthe okra (chopped into ~1" lengths)
• While the onions etc are frying get a seperate pan and bring the coconut milk to a slow simmer, and then add the chicken. Simmering for about 20 minutes. The point of this, was to try to ensure that the chicken stayed soft and tender.
• Add the chillies and the spices stirring so's there's no lumps and then add in the tinned tomatoes and simmer to reduce a little, at this stage it should be quite a fiery tomato-ey curry
• Add the chicken and coconut into a single pan, along with the lemon cut into quarters. This should then add the sweet and sour elements to the curry.  When the rice is about 5 minutes off done add in the spinach - stirring to ensure it all gets coated and cooked. And serve, (but not the lemons).

Here's how it turned out:

I don't think this is at all authentic, but I liked it plenty anyways! I'll probably do this again at some stage. The only thing I'd do different is to use baby spinach instead of the slightly tough full-grown spinach that came in the Veg Box (this stuff needed to be cooked much, much longer) .