My Shrimp Curry Experiment

Well, ever since Blake, our middle son, has returned from his 2-year stint in Japan, he has yearned for curry. He had a favorite curry shop that he frequented in Masuda, and he still brags about the owner's "curry expertise"!

Now, I'm a West Virginia/Oklahoma girl; I'd never made curry before! The closest I'd ever come to curry, was smelling the spicy dish that foreign exchange students cooked in Morgantown, both in my now-husband's Med Center Apartment, and on Gem Street, where I had an apartment. In fact, on warm, sunny days, I would walk down Gem Street to get to classes, and an Indian couple would often be cooking it on some type of outside hibachi-like stove on their deck. One evening, when I was feeling especially adventurous, I ordered it at a restaurant, but I didn't personally posses any curry powder in my spice cabinet.

I decided to give curry a test run in my kitchen. So I bought a container of curry power and started sorting through my infamous "clippings drawer" for a curry recipe. This is the newspaper offering that I found. The recipe was submitted by Lila Cathey of McAdoo, Texas. The only alteration that I made was adding shrimp to the curry sauce at the end, instead of fixing the chicken component of the recipe.

When we did our usual "thumbs-up/thumbs-down" vote after we'd all tried the new dish, everyone at the table gave it a thumbs-up vote. Blake, however, thought it needed more curry powder than the recipe called for. I thought that it was great. I served it, over rice, along with garlic-crusted French bread and a salad. I am now the proud owner of my very own jar of curry powder; I've gone international!

Chicken Curry
Lila Cathey, McAdoo, Texas

1/2 C oil (I used canola)
2 C chopped onion
1/2 C green pepper (I used red pepper because that's what I had)
2 cloves of garlic
6 pieces of chicken (1 bag of medium-sized cooked shrimp)
2 TBSP flour
1/2 tsp curry powder (more if you really like curry)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 C water
1/4 C lemon juice
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
Black pepper to taste
8 ounces whole mushrooms (optional)

*Heat the oil in a heavy pot or Dutch oven. Add onions and peppers and saute a minute before adding the garlic. Continue until all are softened but not quite brown.
*Move the vegetables aside or remove, then sear the chicken on all sides.
*Add remaining ingredients, except for the flour. Cover and cook over low heat until chicken is cooked through, about 2 hours.
*If using mushrooms, add them after an hour.
*About 15 minutes before finishing, mix the flour with a little warm water to make a slurry. Increase the heat to medium to attain a low boil. Add slurry to the pot (this is also when I add the thawed, cooked shrimp) and simmer the last 15-30 minutes, uncovered.

I will be joining these great swaps today:

WeareThatfamily
DiningwithDebbie