Apricot Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk Rice

Posted 2016-06-03 by finy ⇒ follow

Curries often have sweet ingredients in them, and I wanted to use some left over dried apricots, so I substituted other sweet ingredients with the apricots!.

Mine were chopped, however whole dried apricots would also work.

The coconut rice also went very well with this curry and I let the juices of the curry soak into the coconut rice giving it a rich, tangy taste!

Preparation Time: 45 minutes plus 1 hour soaking
Cooking Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Makes: 4 servings

Ingredients
For the curry
About 10 dried apricots -soaked in hot water for 1 hour
¾ tbsp oil
1 kg chicken thighs
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1 tsp ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 large fresh green chilies, seeded and finely chopped
1 tsp cumin
½ tsp turmeric
¾ tsp chili powder (or to taste)
½ tsp cardamom
2 large tomatoes, cut into pieces

For the coconut rice
200 g rice, washed and soaked in water for 30 minutes.
20 g oil
60 g onions, sliced
5 black peppercorns
5 curry leaves
Cardamom
3 cloves
400 ml coconut milk

Method
For the rice

Heat the oil in a pan and add the onions, peppercorns, curry leaves, cardamom, and cloves.

Cook these until the onions start to go golden.

Add the washed rice and stir to coat it.

Add the coconut milk and some salt.

Cook till the rice is tender, taking care not to let it stick to the pan.

Put some rice on to the side of the plate when chicken is also ready to serve.

For the chicken curry

Heat oil in a wok or similar, and add the chicken in batches to brown it over a high heat. This will take about 7 minutes each batch depending on the size of the chicken pieces.

Remove from the pan.

Add the shallots and cook for about 10 minutes or until the shallots are soft and starting to turn golden.

Add the ginger, garlic, and green chili and cook for another 3 minutes.

Stir in the cumin, chili powder and turmeric, and cook for another minute.

Return the chicken to this pan, add the cardamom, tomato pieces and apricots including any remaining liquid, and mix well.

Simmer, covered for about 35 minutes or until the chicken is tender, and half way through remove the skin from the tomatoes as it falls off when tomato is cooked.