Curry and Rice is something I grew up with; we used to have these big Sunday afternoon lunches where everyone would gather at my mom’s house for a feast and Curry and Rice was one of the rotating staples of these get together’s. This is emotional comfort food at it’s best for me. But also? Healthy! Easy! And you can throw it in the crock pot ahead of time.

The idea behind this dish is that you make a curry and chicken (or no chicken if you wish, or even beef, steak, shrimp – whatever) sauce then serve it on rice and any number of toppings. It’s a buffet of sorts. And as you’ll see pretty soon, it gets interesting. Just trust it.

You’ll need:

# Chicken (may omit) (or other meat) cubed. About 2 cups.
# Chicken Stock
# Milk
# Butter
# Onion
# Fresh lemon or lime juice
# Curry powder
# Ginger
# Salt and pepper
# Flour

Start by cooking the chicken. I used 3 breasts in a 9X13 baking dish and cooked according to package details in the oven until done. Let cool, set aside for later.

Over medium high heat on the stove, measure 6 TBS butter and melt.

Chop half a large onion.

Add it to the melted butter and stir to combine, let the onions get a translucent yellow color.

Add 1 TBS curry powder.

And a 1/4 tsp Ginger.

Stir, combine.

Add 6 TBS flour.

2 Cups chicken stock. (Water is a substitute if you don’t have any on hand.)

2 Cups Milk.

Cut your lime or lemon in half and squeeze the juice into the pan.

Stir, combine. Whisk. Stir some more. Combine. Stir.

(You can be doing all of this in a crock pot as well if you’d like and set it to LOW for the day for an easy dinner later.)

While it’s thickening up and you’re stirring on and off – start your rice.

Measure 2 cups rice into a pan, add double the amount of water (rice is a 1:2 ratio for cooking) so add 4 cups water over medium heat, covered. Just let it sit until the water is absorded by the rice. It will boil – at that point you can reduce heat or turn heat off entirely and let it sit for another 15 minutes or so. Remove the lid of the pan and you lose the steam that works so hard at puffing your rice. So … unit it boils: hands off. If it’s out of control boiling – lift or tilt the lid just a bit to let steam escape but don’t remove the lid entirely until ready to serve.

This is how my rice always turns out:

Fluffy, slightly sticky. Delicious!

Cube your chicken and add it to the curry sauce.

You’re done! Kind of. Here’s where it might get interesting: Toppings.

Suggested toppings are as follows:

Peanuts
Hard boiled eggs
Celery
Raisins
Banana’s
Red peppers
Mango
Avacado
Cheese
Mushrooms

And on and on. The sky is the limit here. The most surprising one that taste the best (in my opinion?) Banana’s. No really.

Everyone’s plate will look different – our daughter LOVES sprouts so we add those for her. I like it all … this was my dinner:

Enjoy!

Recipe

From my mom’s kitchen.

Chicken Curry

6 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup minced onion
1 Tbsp curry powder
6 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon ginger
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups milk
3 cups cooked cubed chicken
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Melt butter. Saute onion and curry powder. Blend in flour and seasonings. Cook over low heat until smooth and bubbly; remove from heat. Stir in broth and milk. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil 1 minute. Add meat and lemon juice. Heat.

Download a printable copy of the recipe.