BVC Eats: Curried chicken and carrots

This recipe is infinitely adaptable. My version leans toward hearty, sweet, and mild. In India the name for piloncillos is jaggery, but they’re the same thing – cone-shaped lumps of brown sugar about two inches high. You can get them at your local supermercado or in the Indian section of your grocery.

I use yellow curry because I’m a coward. All you butch pepper eaters can go hotter if you like.

1 cup meat or vegetable stock
6 12-inch carrots, cleaned and sliced bite-size
1 lb whole boneless, skinless chicken thighs
Optional: ¼ cup diced or sliced hard Italian salami
1 can pink, red, or pinto beans, drained and rinsed
2 small piloncillos (jaggery) or ¼ cup brown sugar
2 T yellow (mild) curry powder
2 cloves garlic, peeled, sliced, and smashed

Layer all that into a small slow cooker in this order, bottom to top, and cover:

Carrots
Stock
Chicken (layered with salami bits if using)
Beans
Piloncillos, jaggery, or brown sugar
Curry powder
Garlic

Cook covered on high for two hours or until boiling. Turn off the slow cooker at this point and allow it all to simmer down.

For extra richness, add a can of coconut cream in the last 5 minutes before you turn off the slow cooker. Pick a brand that doesn’t have a lot of adulterants like guar gum or preservatives.

Serve as is or over rice. With rice, you get more protein, because then it has two of the three mothers (beans, rice, corn).

This might be good with orange or purple sweet potato, yam, or yama, sliced in large, thick coins, or maybe chopped fresh tomatoes with their skins.