This is the last of the party food I'm going to post about. There was a tart, but I wasn't in love with it and I didn't actually use share ingredients for it. This one is tenuous as best (tomatoes and hot peppers), but it was soooo good I just have to share.
Do I have a recipe? No. Should you still try and make it, of course!
Originally the plan was to fire up the grill on the roof and make burgers or something. The grill grate was disgusting, and I was too lazy to clean, so I decided to make Indian.
Actually no. The second string idea was to make some kind of pulled pork/chicken in my crock pot, that could hang out on warm for whenever people were hungry. But BBQ-flavoring required a ton of extra ingredients, so I said eff that and just did Indian. The best choice over all.
I followed my standard Baignan Bharta seasoning profile, though I added some actual curry powder to make my life a little easier. The powder is apparently Jamaican style curry, so this may be more of a roti filling than straight up Indian, but it's delicious nonetheless.
I started this off with the chicken in my dutch oven. Eight thighs total, done in two batches to get a good sear and render off some fat. I didn't brown them a ton, but I did get a lot of grease out of them. Removed the chicken, placed in a bowl to cool for a bit and removed the skins before adding them to my crock pot.
Back to the dutch oven! Added a decent amount of hing to the rendered fat, then my spices (curry powder, turmeric, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, a little smoked paprika). Let those fry up then added my onions and some of the hot peppers. Once the onions got soft, added garlic and ginger, then the tomatoes. Added some lime. Adjusted the spices some more, then added everything to the crock pot.
I was worried the chicken would dry out/not be completely covered, so I added some turkey stock. It wasn't exactly necessary, not sure I'd do it again if/when I make this again.
Set the crock pot to low, went on a bike ride and did some shopping.
After a few hours came back, removed the chicken (which was falling off the bone, yay!), removed those bones, and put the (very thin) sauce back into my super wide dutch oven. Set it to a simmer and continued my party prep while it reduced to a significant degree. Added a little additional diced hot pepper, as the heat had mellowed considerably. Shredded my chicken, put that and the sauce back in the crock pot.
It was so good. Letting everything cook for a while liquified the tomatoes and onions. It was like pulled pork. Part of me was hoping the flavors would be a little brighter- next time I could probably add the ginger and lime to the pan during that final reduction, but it's not entirely necessary. I did what I could with the sandwich toppings: some tomato and cilantro.
I ate like three of these during the party, the perfect sloppy drunk food. And then this morning I did the best thing ever, cooked two eggs over easy and made myself an epic birthday breakfast sandwich. I would like all my meals to be this, please :).
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