Nick's Chicken & Spinach Curry

I've never been very comfortable with "creating" curry recipes. The sometimes complex interactions between spices, combined with my desire to tweak and refine, often leave me either adding too much of an ingredient that I like in an effort to "improve" a recipe (and completely pushing it off balance), or leaving out something that I don't like in isolation, only to find that it leaves the dish tasting flat. So when I thought about what I wanted to publish here as "my curry recipe", there were several factors to consider. I wanted something that could be hot or not (i.e. something that would still taste great even if you decided to dial down the heat), I wanted it to be indulgent and creamy to appeal to the widest audience (but not be bland), but most importantly I wanted to keep the flavours both basic and predictable, but also incorporate a lot of my favourite tastes. I also, of course, wanted to keep it as low calorie as possible.

What I came up with was this chicken and spinach curry. It has a great balance between rich tomato and creamy creme fraiche, complemented by the spinach and a base of turmeric and mustard seeds that really comes through and pulls everything together. The notes below the recipe give some tips on how to adjust to your individual taste.

Headline Statistics

• Serves 6-8 depending on portion size
• Each serving is 330 calories (six servings) or 250 calories (eight servings)
• If made without Creme Fraiche, each serving is 240 calories (six servings) or 180 calories (eight servings)
• Calorie counts don't include rice
• 10 mins prep. time, 60 mins cooking time (45 of which mostly unattended)

Ingredients

• 2 heaped teaspoons Turmeric
• 3 heaped teaspoons Garam Masala
• 2 heaped teaspoons Ground Cumin
• 3 teaspoons Mustard Seeds
• 2 Cloves Garlic, crushed
• 2-3 red chillies, chopped with seeds (about 30g)
• 250g Closed Cup Chestnut Mushrooms, chopped (or your favourite mushrooms)
• 400g Baby/Young Leaf Spinach, whole leaves (yes, that's a lot of spinach)
• 2 Medium Onions, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons Olive Oil
• 2 x 440g cans of chopped tomato
• 30g Double Concentrate Tomato Puree
• 300ml Half Fat Creme Fraiche
• 500g Chicken Thigh Fillets, chopped
• 1/4 pint Cold Water

Method

• Heat the mustard seeds in the olive oil for a minute or so (I keep going until they start to pop - lets out some great flavour, but requires a lid for your pan)
• Add the garam masala, turmeric, cumin, garlic, and chillies and stir together into what should be a very thick paste (if you're not on a diet you can add more oil at this point to make a smoother paste)
• Add the chopped onion and soften the onion for a couple of minutes (if you didn't use much oil and it is very dry, stir continuously).
• Add both cans of chopped tomato the tomato puree and the quarter pint of water, and stir in.
• Add the chopped chicken thighs and stir in.
• Now add the chopped mushrooms and spinach, and carefully mix together. This is much easier in a large pan. The spinach leaves will be huge at this point, but over a couple of minutes they will wilt into the sauce and you'll have your pan back. If you only have a small pan to make the curry in, you could wilt the spinach before you add it.
• Season with a couple of teaspoons of salt and one of ground black pepper, stir and leave to simmer on a low heat for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes or so.
• Finally, stir in the creme fraiche and season further to taste (you'll probably want a little more salt).
• Serve with rice.

Notes

• This makes a fairly mild curry once all the creme fraiche is added. You could happily double the chillies and get something with more kick, or just as easily halve it - the chillies are intentionally not a "structural" part of the curry.
• If you like the recipe and try it again, consider either adding half of the creme fraiche or none at all. These make some very different tasting but equally good curries (and if you don't do the creme fraiche, the calorie count gets *very* low).
• I've intentionally kept the spices quite simple and you should be able to taste them quite distinctly in the finished dish, so feel free to experiment with adding more of any flavour that you like.