The "Nelson" Curry

Its been a couple of weeks I would rather forget and I really won't go into it in too much detail, so I (for the moment) will post my curry recipe that everyone keeps asking me for, its not that hard to make an it tastes out of this world.

First a little background on how it came about.

Anyone who knows me knows that I like to eat and i like to cook, I find it very relaxing and there is nothing better than eating something that you really like and have made yourself and this is on my top ten list at the moment.

It came about when we could nolonger get hold of the curry paste that i used to make my usual curry, so I had to make up my own recipe, and I must say it tastes nothing like the one i use to make, its SOOOOO Much better!!!!! and like all the best recipies its easy and takes less than an hour to cook.

so here we go, first all the things you will need and how much of them.

1 large onion finely chopped
2 chicken breasts chopped into 1/2inch cubes (no idea on the weight, bit its one per person)
1 clove of garlic finley chopped ( i cheat and use the pre-chopped lazy garlic in jars)
1 tsp of root ginger ( again I cheat and use the pre-chopped stuff in jars)
2 tbsp of light soy sauce
1/8 tsp of ground cumin
pinch of Turmeric
1/4 tsp cayenne Pepper
1/2 tsp mild curry poweder (depends how hot you like your curry, this is not hot but just right for us!)
1 can coconut milk ( we use low fat, but there was no difference in taste with the normal stuff)
some butter to cook the onions in and a splash of oil to brown the chicken

so now to the cooking, i cook all this in two pans, well one Wok and a saucepan, so that it seves on the washing up, but you can use any combination, I don't really care as long as the results are how you like it!

• In a sauce pan add the butter and melt it, once it is hot enough add the onions and cook them till they go soft and start to change color from white to yellowish.
• Add the ginger and the garlic -cook them for a couple of minutes, you will notice that they start to smell superb, if the garlic starts to "pop" the heat is too high.
• In to the pan add the Cumin, Turmeric, Cayenne Pepper and the Curry powder and stur them until they coat the onions and your kitchen starts to Smell of all the spices, this takes a couple of minutes.
• Add the soy sauce into the pan and stur till its all mixed in, about another minute or so.
• Add the can of coconut milk into the pan, stur it all in and then leave it to simmer
• Put enough oil into your wok or frying pan to cover the bottom, we dont want it swimming in oil
• Heat the oil until it is just starting to smoke a little, add the chicken and stur it around so that it is sealed on all sides and just starting to go golden on the edges, we want it to be white not brown or golden and if its black, well you got it wrong and shouldn't have been on the phone, if the smoke alarm is going then give up and in a pizza!
• Once the chicken is just right you add the chicken to the onions and cocanut milk mix or if you are using a wok add the onions to the chicken, it really makes little difference!
• Stur well, bring the heat up and simmer till thickens to your prefered consistancy, I like it thick so that it binds the rice when its on your plate, but some people like a runnier sauce, its up to you.

And thats it, serve with rice and nan bread. I am sure that you will be adding it to your regular rotation in no time.

Other stuff

In other stuff my Uncle John ran in the Chicago Marathon, I watched the reuslts on the internet as he passed different checkpoints, all i can say is that in those conditions I would have been hard pushed to watch it outside let alone run it! Congradulations from all over this side of the pond.

I was going to post a little piece about my Grandma how passed away, but at the moment I am finding it hard to put down what I actually feel, maybe in a couple of weeks i will be able to put something down that makes some sense, maybe not.

Anyway i will be posting some more pictures as soon as i drop my film into the chemist for developing (DIGITAL PHA!!! LONG LIVE FILM!!!) so watch this space...............

Birthdays and Cake

Saturday was my nephew Elliot's birthday and he was 6, so on sunday as is the custom my mother had a birthday party and as Elliot was the Birthday Boy he got to choose whatever he wanted to eat, he first chose "Fish'n'Chips" but as the chip shop is not open on a sunday choice number 2 was pizza.

He is at that age all small boys go through of being into dinosaurs so there were monsters on the cake as well as candles.

we all sang happy birthday and then the long saga of blowing out the candles began, because as usual a few of them were the joke kind that you cant blow out!
so after a while they were dumped in the sink and the cake eating began.

Now i like cake, i mean i really like cake, but i now know that there is a new cake eating champion in the making and he is after the cake eating crown, thats my other nephew Harvey, he has the makings of a champion, determination, concentration and a focus to get the job done no matter what you look like in the end!!

At this point I would like to consider something and really I am asking, when i was a child, i don't remember SUGAR having such a mood changing effect!!

Are they adding new stuff into sugar to turn kids into hyper active terrors? has there been some change in the human geneome that has made the under 10's particularly receptive to sugar or has this alway been the case and nobody noticed because everyone was wired on soda!!!!!!

Think I must have become imune to the effects because after a large meal I just want to sit and digest, but the kids wanted to run, shout and bounce about!!!

Anyway , thats all for now, keep watching

Andy