In: Butter Chicken Curry with Rice and Spinach

The boyfriend and I made this low-FODMAP butter chicken curry recipe, and it was quite good. We made a couple of modifications by just tasting and adding things, but the recipe was a good base. A few notes:

(1) We didn't have cardamom pods, so we substituted the 1tsp of cardamom with 1/2tsp of cinnamon and 1/2tsp of nutmeg.

(2) Our dish turned out looking redder than in the linked recipe, so you may want to play around with the amount of tomato you put in

(3) The linked recipe suggests marinating the chicken overnight--we weren't patient enough so we just let it marinate for 20 minutes.

Check out the original recipe here.

Step 1: Gather your ingredients

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts (or 4 tenders)

5 roma tomatoes (or 500g of any other tomato, fresh or canned)

5cm ginger

1 jalapeño

160ml coconut milk (we used the whole can instead)

1/2tsp nutmeg

3Tbsp lemon juice

1tsp cinnamon (1/2tsp for the marinade, 1/2tsp for the curry)

1/2tsp cumin

1tsp chili powder

3tsp coriander

3Tbsp olive oil (1Tbsp for the marinade, 2Tbsp for the curry)

1tsp black pepper

2tsp salt (we used 2tsp but thought it tasted too salty--I suggest putting in less and maybe adding more later)

Step 2: Prepare the chicken

Combine the the marinade spices (lemon juice, 1/2tsp cinnamon, cumin, chili powder, coriander, 1Tbsp olive oil, black pepper, salt) in a medium-sized bowl.

Then, cut up the chicken into bite-size pieces and add to the marinade.

Marinate for as long as you can/want, but either way, make sure to cover and put in the fridge.

Step 3: Begin preparing the curry sauce

Note: The instructions in the linked recipe were a little unclear about the order of these steps. I've laid it out a bit more clearly.

Before you start preparing the curry sauce, set the oven to 200degrees. You'll be using it soon.

So first things first, chop up the tomatoes, jalapeño, and ginger (Note: you may want to remove the seeds from the jalapeño before chopping it up, but if you like it super spicy, you may dare to leave them in!) The vegetables don't need to be chopped finely--the blender will do that for you later.

Cook the vegetables down in a large saucepan using the remaining 2Tbsp olive oil. Here I fudged the recipe a bit--I accidentally added the coconut milk before blending the cooked vegetables. Either way, you basically need to cook down the vegetables (in olive oil only or in the coconut milk) until they are pulpy. 

Step 4: Bake the chicken

While the vegetables are cooking on the stove, you should put your chicken in the oven. It only needs to cook for about 12-15 minutes.

Step 5: Finish cooking the curry sauce

Once the vegetables are cooked down, let it cool down a little and then throw them in the blender until there are few to no chunky pieces. Return the blended vegetable mixture to the saucepan.

At this point, if you haven't added the coconut milk, please do so. Also add the remaining 1/2tsp nutmeg and 1/2tsp cinnamon to the saucepan.

If you've timed it right, the chicken will have cooked for about 12-15 minutes at this point, so you can add that to the sauce now as well.

Let everything simmer for 5-10 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through.

Step 6: Enjoy!

Serve with some rice or other sides. We quickly made some spinach with almonds and dried cranberries.

This is a quick and easy side: just wilt a bunch of spinach in some olive oil, and add chopped almonds and some dried cranberries (or raisins). That's all there is to it.

Bon appétit!

*J*