Saturday Night Dinner

It has been quite a long time since I last hosted a dinner at home. This last weekend I invited some friends over for a simple get together. Catching up especially with one of my friends who have just came back from his Chinese New Year holiday in Malaysia.

One of the dishes that I have always been serving is curry and since the last dinner we had has also included a curry dish, I decided to try something else this time. I settled for a chicken kurma. it would be fun since the last time I cooked kurma was maybe a few years back at home in Kuala Lumpur. And to try it hear, getting all the ingredients would be a challenge I was more than interested to face. I was thinking, if I could pull this out nicely, it will be included in my (so far still in my dream) restaurant.

I will share the recipe for the chicken kurma at the end of this blog.

For a start, we had some cold cuts and cheese slices served with pears. And to balance it out, I braved myself and served my home made vegetarian spring rolls! Unfortunately for this blog, pictures of the spring rolls is not available. I somehow managed to forget taking pictures of them but one day when I make them again, I will blog about it (or brag about it!)

Another dish I was putting on the table was kangkung friend with belacan, one of my all time favourites! Kangkung, as per wikipedia is also known as Water Spinach or scientifically called Ipomoea aquatica, if you fancy!

This is actually a very simple dish to prepare. Let me show you the way how I did mine.

You will need:

2 bunches of fresh kangkung (get this at the Central Market on Gouger Street). cut the stems, as you do long beans.

3 shallots

2 cloves garlics

2 - 3 red chillies

1 tbsp shrimp paste

Method:

Using mortar and pestle, pound all the ingredients (except kangkung), with the shrimp paste added last into the roughly pounded first three ingredients.

In a wok, heat about 3 tablespoons vegetable oil. Saute the pounded ingredients till fragrant. Add kangkung and a little bit of water, about half a cup. Stir to mix. You can add a dash of pepper to taste but I'd recommend not to add salt because the shrimp paste is salty enough. And too much salt is not good at all anyway!

Kangkung should not be fried too long, so when it is well mixed, ladle out onto a plate and serve hot.

And now for the main dish, the chicken kurma. Here goes ...

This dish is my interpretation of a recipe I found in a cooking book and from browsing for ideas in the internet.

Ingredients:

5 skinless chicken thighs - cut into 3 pieces

5 tbsp cooking oil

+ dry spices

• 5 cm cinnamon stick
• 4 - 5 cloves
• 5 cardamom (I love the smell of cardamom!)
• 3 star anise

* blended ingredient (to paste)

• 7 shallots
• 4 cloves garlic
• 4 cm fresh ginger
• 1 large onion

5 tbsp kurma powder (i used Baba's, available in the Asian supermarket in Central Market) - mixed with water to make a paste

5 candlenuts (finely pounded)

1 l coconut milk

2 slices dried assam

4 medium potatoes (peeled and halved)

3 tomatoes (quartered)

3 large onions (quartered)

2 each green and red chillies (halved lengthwise, do not split)

Method

1. Heat oil and saute the dry spices for 1 minute.
2. Add in the blended paste. Stir till light brown.
3. Add kurma paste and pounded candlenuts. Mix till the oil floats.
4. Put in the chicken pieces and mix well. Gradually pour in the coconut milk.
5. Stir occasionally until the gravy boils. Add the assam slice, potatoes and salt to taste.
6. When the potatoes are almost tender, put in the tomatoes, onions, green and red chillies.
7. Cook until the oil rises to the top. Dish up onto a serving platter and serves.

My note:

You can halve the amount of coconut milk used in this recipe and add a can of 375 ml evaporated milk. Another item that can be added is yogurt.

To make the gravy thicker and the dish a bit more yummy, add kerisik :-)