This recipe is is adapted from one Rick Stein used when he visited the famous Karachi Restaurant in Bradford, one of Bradford’s oldest curry houses.
They don’t do the plethora of silly named curries (pathia, dopiaza…) but just plain ‘chicken curry’, ‘chicken and potatoes’, ‘lamb and spinach’ and so on…
Feel free to adapt it to your taste. Have a few goes at making it until you find it to your taste.
Chop 3 large onions roughly and fry in ghee or oil.
When onions are softened and just turning golden, whizz in the pan with 6 cloves of garlic and 2 tsp chopped ginger, a tin of tomatoes and 3/4 tin of water. When this is well and truly whizzed, add your choice of meat – lamb on the bone using small lamb chops is excellent – the insides of 6 cardamon pods and salt and cook for 30 mins or so. You could also add potatoes at this point too. If you are using chicken breast, add it after this 30 minutes cooking time.
When the half hour is up, add the dry spices – 2tsp each of cumin and coriander, 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp turmeric, 2tsp chilli powder and a couple of roughly chopped tomatoes (quite big pieces)
After another 10 mins or so of cooking, or when the oil starts to show on top of the gravy (yes – that’s the correct name, not sauce) add a huge handful of fresh spinach or a few ‘pellets’ of frozen chopped spinach and some roughly chopped coriander. When this is wilted and the frozen lumps defrosted and heated through, add 1tsp garam masala. To lift the flavour even more, add some Mr Naga chilli pickle. Mr Naga is hot – there’s no escaping this, but the flavour and aroma even half a teaspoon adds is amazing.
