Sometimes, our curries are complicated concoctions involving a wide range of spices and condiments, blended together in carefully measured quantities.
Other times, they’re all-in-one stews that are quick to prepare with minimal washing up at the end of the meal. This is the one I make during holidays, when I’m feeling particularly lazy.
It begins with a good Malaysian curry powder – I use either Lingam’s or the classic Ayam Brand curry powder that my mother always kept in her pantry…
- 1-2 large onion, peeled and quartered
- 4 cloves garlic, peeled
- 3 – 4 rounded dessertspoons of curry powder
- 1 teaspoon of sweet soy
- juice of half a lemon
- salt to taste
- curry leaves (optional)
- 1.5kg chicken pieces (I used drumsticks)
- potatoes, peeled if necessary and cut into chunks
- 1 tin coconut cream
- water
- oil for frying
1. Preheat the oven to 175C (350F) with fan. In a small food processor, blitz the onion, garlic, curry powder, soy sauce, salt and lemon juice to form a thick paste.
2. Heat a little oil in a large pot (I used my Emile Henry Risotto Pot) and fry off the paste for a minute or so until pungent. Add the curry leaves and coconut cream and stir to combine. Then add the chicken pieces and turn them in the sauce to coat. Add a little more water if required to ensure that the chicken pieces are mostly submerged.
3. Put the lid on the pot and bake in the oven for an hour. After that time, remove the pot from the oven and add the potatoes, gently working them into the sauce. Replace the lid and return to the oven for 45 minutes, then remove the lid and bake uncovered for a further 15 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened. Serve with steamed or boiled rice.
I’ve also made this curry in our Römertopf Baker, and the method is even easier.
Rub the onion/garlic/curry powder mixture over the chicken pieces, and then lay them out, with all the residual paste, in the presoaked Römertopf. Pour over the coconut milk and a little water, stir gently to mix the sauce up a bit, then cover the pot and place it in a cold oven. Turn the temperature up to 200C with fan and bake for two hours, adding the chopped potatoes halfway through the cooking time. Remove the lid near the end if necessary to thicken up the sauce. Enjoy!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Yes please :)
I would LOVE to share a curry with you, Cindy! :)
The mark of a good cook is someone who prepares food with love and attention whatever the ingredients and who just keeps going feeding her family and friends and their friends with an open heart and a great sense of fun. That’s you xxx
Thank you darling, what a lovely comment! And there I was posting about my lazy curry.. :) The boys did eat every single drumstick at dinner – there were just a few potatoes left at the end of the meal! xxx
Celia, I love the fact you also gave instructions for the clay pot, I don t use it as often as I could, and this curry seems perfect for it
can hardly wait to cook again once we get home, only 8 more hours to go…..
Sally, since discovering the Emile Henry, I haven’t used my Romertopf as often as I used to. I have pulled it out a couple of times over the holidays though – it really makes the simplest dinners – lots of cold ingredients in the pot, and then we just leave it in the oven and ignore it for a couple of hours. Our pot is glazed on the inside, I don’t know if that makes a difference to how things cook in it. Big Boy and I thought the curry in the Rom was better than the one in the EH, but Small Man and Pete disagreed! :)
Wow that curry make me drool. It looks super tender and flavourful. Your pot looks so beautiful :)
Thanks Tes! The chicken was really tender, it was falling off the bone as we were dishing it out! The EH pot is a treasure, who would have guessed that the French could come up with a pot designed for risotto that was so completely perfect for an Asian curry? :)
Best of all, both the EH and the Romertopf went straight into the dishwasher at the end of each meal, and came our nearly completely clean!
That looks incredibly delicious. I’ve not done a proper baked curry for so long. I’m always reminded of things I’ve meant to blog for ages, but there are too many. I suppose that bodes well for continuation!
Happy New Year, FF! Your blog is always full of fabulous ideas, I don’t know how you keep finding them! :)
Oh boy that looks tender. Great dish.
Thanks Greg! It was an easy meal and tasty too – kept the wolves fed! :)
This is delicious! Thank you so much for continuing to share your wonderful creations. You cook with so much love, Celia.
Thanks Lizzy, that’s very kind of you to say that! x
I actually gave away (yes,gave away) my clay pot because it was so under-used.. now I regret it. However, if I could buy a little red pot like yours I wouldn’t be quite so sad about it! I love curry.. this one is a lovely and your technique is unusual (blitzing the onions, etc.) I’d love to try this one when I get back home..
Smidge, I first heard about the technique on a River Cottage programme, and it seemed like a clever way to make a curry in the Romertopf. I’ve adapted it since then, and it saves so much time on all the onion chopping that we normally do for a curry.
THis curry looks delicious. I too love the Ayam brand if I do this kind of curry. My God, you must have as much cooking equipment as I do!!!
Tania, sigh, I have a kitchen full! But I look at it this way – my gorgeous magnificent red Emile Henry pot cost me $80. I can’t buy dinner for four at a cheap restaurant for that price, but I’ve already used the pot at least a dozen times since I bought it!
(Petey, if you’re reading this, that’s my argument and I’m sticking to it.. ;-))
Adding more curry powder to my shopping list as we speak. Youngest child has just realised he really does like spicy food after all ( he’s 5 ) so a curry like this one is right on the money.
Thanks as always celia for your inspiration and I can see at least one each of those pots in my future!
Sue, I’m a bad influence, please let me apologise in advance. :)
How fab that your five year old already likes spicy food! The Ayam curry powder isn’t too spicy, so it’s a good one for him. I once bought a “mild” Indian Jaffna style curry powder and added one spoonful to a whole pot, and no-one could eat it!
I can live with your bad influence if you can :-)
I have always been of the mind that the more you expose children to all manner of tastes the better they are at developing their own palates – and it certainly seems to have worked with my older children who will generally embrace new foods willingly – at least once ;-)!
I’m a big fan of throw-it-all-in recipes and this one looks fabulous. I haven’t tried that curry powder before but I’ll have to keep my eye out for it.
Claire, I’m going to try this method out with the curry powder you brought me from Fiji! I’ll let you know how it goes! (Thanks again for thinking of me!) :)
::Squeal of excitement:: A friend gave me one of those clay dishes, I shall try it out.
Celia I use chicken”lovely legs” from my butcher when a recipe calls for drumsticks. Have you tried them? The skin and most of the fat are removed but they still cook well.
Oooh Rose, which one, the Romertopf or the Emile Henry? They’re both wonderful! I have used lovely legs before, but I actually don’t mind the chicken skin. They should work fine in a curry though – and my Pete would be very happy if we used them, he’s always taking the skin off his pieces before he eats them!
If you’ve been given one of the Rommies, don’t forget to soak it before each use. And our easiest dinner is to combine a cup of risoni or other rice shaped pasta, vegetables, chopped chorizo sausages and stock in the pot and put the whole thing into a cold oven and cook it at 200C with fan for about an hour and a half. We use 2 cups of liquid to the 1 cup of pasta. Have fun!
Thanks for that easy peasy recipe Celia, that’s do-able on work days if I plan ahead.
The earthenware pot is a Schlemmer Topf from West Germany circa 1980.
Rose, it sounds wonderful! I love the terracotta pots!
Thanks for sharing your recipe, Celia. I enjoy a few of the Ayam products – their flavours are very good. I’m also pleased to hear of another way to use my Romertopf. It was given to me years ago and has languished in the pantry for too long.
Amanda, if you see the Lingam’s brand, you might want to give that a go too – I’ve been very happy with their meat curry powder. Did you see on my IMK post that I listed the address of the SA butcher where you can buy the black and rosemary salts?
What a terrific meal for when you’ve had a busy day, or know your going to have a busy day. I guess you could make this a day ahead, could you Celia?
Ayam products are yummy, and have more authentic flavours to them than a lot of other pre made items. I’m not surprised the boys gobbled it all up!
Becca, I think the flavours would improve with a day’s rest! I have to many curry powders to experiment with, but the Ayam one is always a reliable standby!
Although I am a new Book Blogger I also follow several Food Blogs for their beautiful combination of text and image. I just wanted to thank you for your stylish blog and wish you and your family well for 2012.
Norman, that’s kind of you, thank you! All the best with your new blog!
with all the cold weather you had, curries must have been a necessity! Have a great day :)
Tandy, today got over 30C in Sydney! :) But I do love curries in hot weather…
Temptress!
Ha! Stop flirting with me, Cosmo.. ;-)
Yummy, Celia. I make something quite similar that keeps well in a low oven. Peder’s train is often delayed on the way home, so this dish is a perfect match for Network Rail’s inability to maintain a time schedule. :D
Misk, it’s amazing in this day and age that trains still can’t run on time! :)
This looks brilliant Celia. We have just bought half a pig and I am thinking I may try something like this with a few of the cuts I am not sure what else to do with.
:-) Mandy
Ooh, Mandy, that will be fun! I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
Celia thank you for sharing the recipe, I made it last night – it was delicious and so easy
Priscilla, thank you SO much for letting me know, I love getting comments like this! :)
My kids would love this recipe Celia, did you take the skin off the chicken legs?
Carlen, I didn’t, but there’s no reason you couldn’t! Hope your kids enjoy it as much as mine did! :)
Yum! I love the look of the sauce, it looks so deliciously rich! And ouch re the knife in the sink. That sounds painful you poor thing! :(
I love curries, both for their rich and subtle and spicy versatility and for the ease with which a dish can be ‘upgraded’ with the addition of a good masala. This looks like it fits into both of those categories perfectly.
Thanks Kathryn! They can be so easy, can’t they? I often wonder why I don’t cook them even more often than I already do! :)