Easy Chicken Curry

Curry is actually an English word which believed to get its origin from the Tamil word "Kari" which means sauce with its components --veggies and /or meat cooked in spices.

 It is interesting to note that as early as mid 17th century, merchants had been selling this mixture of spices to the members of the British East India Company although it is also said that the word "curry" had been used already in 1390 even before India has contacts with Britain. (source:wikipedia). 

If your are familiar with India history, you would know that India was occupied and ruled by the British government for a long time until Mahatma Gandhi started his peaceful revolution and India got its independence.  India was divided into two after it won its freedom - Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan which up to now has not resolved the problem between them. 

Well anyway, back to curry, the spices which are found in a curry mix would be fennel, mustard, cumin and tamarind pods. This mixture had been popular even before the birth of Christ.  Later on, hot chilli peppers were added to it.  It later became popular all throughout Asia.

I had my first taste of curry when we went to Green Leaf Resto in SM city North EDSA.  It was not as strongly hot as I was expecting.  I actually enjoyed eating it even if I didn't really like the aroma of the dish.  When I came to Australia, my husband bought tins of curry mixes (green and red ones).  That's when I found out that he's a curry lover. 

Here is the recipe that I have made up myself.

Ingredients
1/2 k chicken breast, cut into pieces (depends on how big or small you want them)
1 tin Thai Green Curry soup base
1 medium onions, diced
1 tbsp garlic, minced
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 capcicum, sliced diagonally
1 medium carrot, diced
1 potato, diced
1 small tin green peas (optional)
1 tin coconut cream (or fresh ones from the coconut first squeezed juice)
fish sauce to taste

Procedure
Pour fish sauce onto the chicken and marinate for 15 minutes.
Sear the chicken.  Remove from fire. 
Sear the potatoes and carrots.  Remove from fire.
Sautee onions, garlic,tomatoes and capcicum in a wok.  Put in the chicken, carrots and potatoes.  Stir.
Pour in a cup of water.  Let it boil.
Pour in the curry sauce.  Let it boil. Stir.
Lower the fire.
Pour in the coconut cream. 
You can add more water or cream if the curry is quite strong to your liking.

Note:  If you want to use the curry powder instead of the ready mix soup base in tin, just add 2 tsp of the powder, small piece of ginger (ground), and small piece of turmeric (yellow orange ginger).  You can also add other veggies if you like.