Chicken! Inspired by curry

Ok, so this week's Serious Eats Weekend-Cook-and-Tell was based on curries. 

I was super excited, and by Friday I had my game plan. I consulted with a friend, Shruti (@inothernews), who, being Indian, I consider to be an expert of the curry realm. She gave me 2 awesome looking recipes for shrimp curry. I did a Google search, and found an Indian market a few blocks from my house.

It all went downhill when I headed out to the Indian market and found this: 

Where my market should have been: a Seven Eleven, a Greyhound bus station, and a Chinese restaurant. #Googlefail

I'd like to say that my friendly neighborhood Giant Foods came to the rescue, but let's not kid ourselves. I was able to pick up some mustard powder, but none of the other ingredients Shruti had directed me toward. 

So, back to the chicken. I had these chicken drumsticks I picked up last week at HMart. $7.50 for 18 drumsticks. Yes. I threw 8 of them into the crock pot with some stock and a hodge podge of spices: 8 cloves of garlic, ginger, a ton of kosher salt, white pepper, a sprinkling of garam marsala, some yellow curry powder I picked up from an Ethiopian place, and some chili powder. I let them go until the chicken was nearly falling off the bones. 

The chicken went into the oven at 325 to crisp up the skin, and in a sauce pan, I mixed 2 cups of the crock broth, about 1 1/2 c Greek yogurt and about 1 TBS cornstarch until a creamy, dark yellow sauce formed. 

I also made some rice - sushi rice was all I had in the house (and Giant wanted ridiculous amounts of money for a small sack of basmati), so I made rice with some more of the seasoned broth. 

You've already seen the results. It was delicious! But, sadly, I feel it's ingenuine to my friend - who tried to help my cause - and basically an insult to an entire culture to call my dish "curry." So - chicken and rice, inspired by curry. 

But, for next time, here's the recipe:

Shruti's shrimp curry

2 pounds shrimp, peeled deveined
2tbsp coriander powder
1 tsp pepper, crushed
10 karhi (curry) leaves (if you can get them)
1 tbsp lemon juice
vegetable oil
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, in slivers
1 tsp fresh grated ginger
2 tbsp paprika
3/4 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp turmeric (I saw fresh turmeric at my whole foods today!!)
3 hot chilis (less if spice averse)
14 oz of coconut milk.

1. heat few tbsp of oil, when hot, add the mustard seeds , when they are popping, add the curry leaves, if using. then add the onion and garlic, stir fry until lightly browned then add the ginger.
2. add 1 cup of water, turmeric, salt, chilis, coriander and pepper and paprika and cayenne and lemon juice and bring to a boil. simmer for 5 minutes.
3. add the shrimp stir around until they are opaque, stir in coconut milk. heat it through and serve!

dreaming? of *real* Indian food. I think I have a Groupon for an Indian place nearby!