15 June - chicken and spinach curry

The salad the other day doesn't seem to have made much of a dent in the spinach on the terrace, so this evening, I went for a chicken and spinach curry recipe from Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible to use up more spinach and the chicken breast in the fridge. Tris is out for the evening, so the below is curry-for-one.

• Cook a big handful of spinach in a pan with a couple of tablespoons of water until wilted, then chop.
• Blend together a small chopped onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, about the same quantity of fresh ginger and a couple of tbsps of water to make a paste.
• Heat some oil in a frying pan, add a small cinnamon stick and a couple of cardamom pods, then add the onion mixture and stir and fry for a few minutes.
• Stir in 3/4 tsp ground coriander, 1/2 tsp ground cumin and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
• Add the chicken, cut into cubes and stir for a minute or two.
• Gradually add 2 tbsp natural yoghurt, a chopped tomato and the spinach.
• Add 75ml water and some salt. Cover, turn low and simmer for about 20 mins.

The result was really tasty and with no one else eating, I was able to play around a bit more than usual taking photos, playing with some lighting ideas from one of the tutors on my photography trip, Lone, who happens to be a professional food photographer. I've brought down my daylight lamp, that usually sits on my desk through the winter, to create a slightly more natural light in the evening rather than resorting to a flash. It's quite difficult to make a sludgy green curry look attractive, but I quite like the black background.