RCP: Slow Cooker Chicken Curry for Greg

I haven't made this, but use this method with my standard vindaloo in my Crockpot.

Chicken Curry
from "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook"

2 to 3 pounds mixed boneless chicken breasts and thighs, breast halves each cut into 2 pieces
3 tbsp sesame or olive oil
3 medium-sized onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 jalapenos, seeded and chopped
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp fresh ginger, chopped
2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp brown mustard seeds
One 28 ounce can of tomatoes, crushed
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 head cauliflower, broken into small florets, stems discarded
1 cup frozen peas or 3 cups fresh baby spinach
salt to taste

1. Cut chicken thighs into pieces, removing the skin (leave the skin on the breasts). Coat the slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and brown the chicken on all sides; transfer to a plate. Add the onions to the pan and cook, stirring a few times , until softened. Add the garlic and chiles, coriander, turmeric, cumin, ginger, paprika, red pepper flakes, and mustard seeds and cook gently for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the tomatoes and lemon juice and mix well. Puree half of the tomato-onion mixture in a blender or food processor.

2. In layers, add to the cooker one third each of the chicken (dark meat on the bottom) and one quarter of the sauce, sprinkle with one third the cauliflower. repeat the layers two more times and finish with the remainder of the sauce. Cover and cook on High for 1 hour.

3. Turn the cooker to Low and cook for 4 to 4 1/2 hours.

4. During the last 30 minutes, toss in the peas or the fresh baby spinach, season with the salt, cover, and cook until tender. To cook a bit faster switch to High heat at this point.

Cynthia, thanks so much. It was kind of you to take the time to type the whole thing out for me. I bought the ingredients and will make it tomorrow.

Is your vindaloo recipe in a convenient form to post?

G

I haven't made this, but use this method with my standard vindaloo in my Crockpot.

Chicken Curry
from "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook"

Cyn, I shortened your post to conserve bandwidth, hope you don't mind.

While reading and (copying your recipe to file) I wondered about the book it comes from. Does this book give any idea about nutritional values. I am trying to drop some pounds and that info would be of use. I bought a new slow cooker about a year ago but we don't use it a lot. I find that dishes in cooked in them often seem to have too much liquid which seems to dilute flavors. I suppose if one kicked the temperature up to high for the last 1/2 to 3/4 hour that would take care of it's self.

I find that dishes in cooked in them often seem to have too much liquid which seems to dilute flavors. I suppose if one kicked the temperature up to high for the last 1/2 to 3/4 hour that would take care of it's self.

Bob, just strain the contents into a saucepan, put the solids back in the cooker, and reduce the liquid or add thickener to it. Cornstarch or Arrowroot do the job quickly.

Looks like a good recipe. The generic Indian procedure calls for cooking the garlic and onions over high heat until they start to caramelize, then stirring the spices in the hot ghee or oil until they become aromatic, then grinding the onions, spices, and tomatoes, plus any fresh spices/herbs (such as ginger) into a smooth paste (the masala). The chicken is skinned and then slow-cooked in the masala for up to an hour, with the veggies being added at an appropriate time so that they cook but don't go all mushy or disintegrate.

The only unconventional elements here are browning the chicken and leaving the skin on some of the pieces. Nothing wrong with that--the traditional way isn't necessarily the best way.

-Paul W.

I made this recipe and have a couple of observations.

First of all, everything went smoothly and was easy to follow. The cooker did it's thing well, the only disappointment was that you can program it to cook on low or high for X hours and then it switches to warm, but it doesn't allow you to program X hours on high, X hours on low and then to warm. I was home for this first use, so I did the initial high setting and then reprogrammed it to low after the appropriate amount of time.

However, Bob's concerns were justified. At the end, the dish just didn't have enough spice flavor for my taste. As Carl pointed out, you could remove the liquid and reduce, but in my mind that defeats the purpose for which I plan to use the cooker, that is, to be able to eat a nice meal at the end of a work day without additional cooking. Another option would be to increase the amounts of each of the spices at the beginning.

Also, the vegetables came out fine, but the chicken was not ideal. The dark meat, layered at the bottom as suggested, had become too soft and fell completely apart, past tender stage. The breast meat in the higher layer was tough and dry.

Any additional thoughts on improving this would be most welcome.