About two and a half years ago D and I were fortunate to get to go to a wedding in India. The wedding itself was in Chennai, which is in the far south of the country, but we figured that since we had flown halfway around the world we should probably take advantage of the situation and travel around the rest of the country a bit, so we spent a week up north. We did the "typical" tourist trek around the Golden Triangle of Delhi, Agra (home of the Taj Mahal) and Jaipur. To say that the trip was simply amazing is a major understatement, but in the interest of time I will have to leave it at that.
Needless to say, while the scenery and history were breathtaking, day after day, the food was consistently one of the highlights of the trip. Because we traveled to so many different areas we were fortunate to have the opportunity to taste a bunch of different sub-cuisines of Indian food. It was all very different and every single meal was phenomenally good. We ate in restaurants, in hotels, from street vendors, in private homes and at wedding banquets, and in all of those meals I can really say that I only had one meal that was slightly less than stellar. And it still wasn't half bad. Most of the time we just found ourselves blown away by the richly flavored sauces, the spicy chai teas and the fresh, doughy breads.
We are very lucky to have some wonderful friends who live nearby who happen to be natives of Northern India, and my friend N has promised to teach me how to cook a proper Indian meal. Sadly, I have yet to take her up on the offer, but in the meantime I am trying to stretch my repertoire a little on my own. Tonight I took on a North Indian spinach and chicken dish. This is certainly an americanized, dumbed down version of Indian cuisine, but it does feature the proper spices. And it was DELICIOUS...popular with everyone in our family! As an extra bonus, it was about as easy to make as can be. The only challenge was finding the fenugreek seeds called for in the recipe, but here in Northern California you can't go 5 miles without running into and Indian food store so I was able to procure them with little work.
The recipe actually comes from Sunset, which I know is a total cop out as a source for Indian food, but I care much more about the end result than the source, so I didn't care! I did increase the amounts on almost all of the vegetables to fill out the meal a little bit and we felt like the amounts we used (listed below) were just right.
North Indian Spinach Chicken
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 large onion, chopped
1 and 1/2 pounds mushrooms (I used button and cremini), quartered or halved
2 inch piece of fresh garlic, peeled and minced
4 cloved garlic, minced (I used the jarred stuff, of course)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
2 teaspoons coriander
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons salt
1 and 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 14 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 pound baby spinach, washed
1 cup chopped cilantro leaves and stems
-Heat the oil in a large pot over medium high heat
-Add the fenugreek seeds and let them sizzle in the oil for about 10 seconds
-Add the onion and mushrooms and saute for 5 to 7 minutes
-Add the ginger, garlic, turmeric, cayenne, coriander, cumin and salt; saute for about 30 seconds
-Add the chicken and cook, stirring often, for about 3 minutes or until no longer pink on the outside
-Add the tomatoes and simmer, covered, for 8 minutes
-Stir in the spinach and simmer for about 3 minutes or until the spinach is wilted
-Finally add the cilantro and lemon juice, stir to combine
We served this with brown rice, plain organic greek yogurt and some Trader Joe's Yellow Curry Sauce for a little extra zing.
Hope you enjoyed the walk down memory lane as well as tonight's recipe!
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