Curry Chicken

This week, I had the rare opportunity of making two chicken curry recipes--one, by Tyler Florence (my foodie boyfriend) over at Foodnetwork that involves a ton of ingredients, a long cooking process, and a natural yogurt based sauce; you can find the recipe here.  The second one was by Elise Bauer over at Simply Recipes and can be found here.  What makes the latter recipe completely different than the former is that it calls for a sour cream sauce instead of a yogurt one, and 1/10 of the ingredient's Tyler Florence's recipe calls for.  The catch? In my experience, it's better!

For my birthday dinner this past weekend, I had the very good intentions of blogging about everything I prepared.  However, I, like most people, am one of  my own worst critics and REFUSED to post anything that wasn't top notch.  Now, I'm not saying that the meal we made Sunday wasn't damn good (I'd like to think it was pretty tasty), but it just didn't scratch my itch for Indian food when it was prepared.  Partially, I blame myself for not babying the recipe before serving it--you know, the constant adjusting of ingredients and flavors until the combination is "just right" and makes you go, "mmm...."--but I also think that maybe the essentials to a good curry chicken/veggie/anything recipe really doesn't need to be that complicated.  Honestly, if you want to do Tyler's recipe, that's great--it's incredibly aromatic with its combination of everything from turmeric, to curry, to fennel seeds, to coriander, to you name it in the Indian spice cabinet.

But, I worry that the overall combination of these ingredients has just too much going on.  With the recipe below from Elise Bauer, the ingredients are simple, the process is simple (and fast! It is aptly titled "Chicken Curry in a Hurry"), but mostly, with a decent combination of salt, pepper, and parsley in the end, it is enormously flavorful, makes you go, "mmm..." and is clearly delicious.  Just ask Ms. Lydia Dorsey!

Chicken Curry
For this recipe, I chose to prepare chicken, but you really can add whatever you'd like here.  For instance, stir fried vegetables and tofu would make a natural and flavorful adjustment.  However, if you are doing chicken, I suggest 3 large, or 4 small-to-medium-sized chicken breasts. 

* 3 large, or medium-to-large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
* 1 onion, chopped
* 1 1/2 teaspoons yellow curry powder, separated in half
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 1 cup sour cream
* 1/3 cup golden raisins, optional
* Freshly minced parsley

1.) In a medium saucepan, add oil and warm.  Add chopped onion and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the onions are translucent.  Add optional raisins.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste and add half of the curry powder.  Mix to fully integrate and cook for another minute.
2.) Wash and prepare the chicken.  First, salt and pepper both sides of the chicken to taste and even prepare the breasts as strips for a more even cooking process.  Sprinkle/rub in the remaining curry powder.
3.) Push cooked onions to the side of the pan, and add chicken.  Cook chicken for 3-5 minutes on each side or until done.  Transfer to plate.  Now would be a good time to cube the chicken before returning to pan.
4.) Add 1 cup sour cream and stir to integrate.  Continue stirring and heating over medium-high heat until the sauce has thickened.  Once thick, return chicken to pan and mix to integrate.
5.) Serve over rice, and enjoy!

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