My sweet cousin Leigh is always bringing me nifty kitchen things she finds at estate sales. She’s brought me vintage shrimp cocktail glasses, beautiful oyster plates, sterling silver shrimp forks, and a set of Lilly Pulitzer cocktail picks. She also brings cookbooks. Recently she showed up with a pile of local ones. One of them was put together by the Mothers Club of Bayside Academy, where she and her brother Clifton went to school.
I love local cookbooks. It’s fun to flip through them and see who contributed recipes. As I looked through the Bayside cookbook, I ran across a recipe for Curried Chicken. Lo and behold, it was contributed by Leigh’s mom, Mary Ann! Leigh insisted that Curried Chicken was her very favorite dinner, so I made enough for both of us.
A few recipe notes:
I’m sharing the recipe exactly as it appears in the Bayside’s Best cookbook. The only thing I did differently when I cooked this batch of Curried Chicken was to use up some chicken tenderloins and some boxed chicken stock rather than starting with a whole chicken.
The recipe calls for Madras curry powder. That’s not what I had in my spice cabinet, so I bought some. If you can’t find it locally, you can order it from Amazon. The difference between Madras curry powder and the curry powder most of us here in the southern U.S. have on hand is the heat level. If you’re using standard curry powder, you can add a pinch of cayenne to it.
Leigh couldn’t remember what condiments her mom served with curried chicken. I improvised. I added toasted coconut, lime wedges, and chopped peanuts. Next time I’ll serve curried Chicken with some Major Grey’s chutney, too.
And finally, I piled the curry up next to some coconut rice.
Yum!
Curried Chicken
Ingredients
- ⅔ stick butter
- 4 T. scallions, sliced
- 1¼ cup chopped celery
- ⅓ cup flour
- 1½ t. salt
- 2 T. Madras curry powder
- ¼ t. white pepper
- ¼ t. nutmeg
- ½ t. powdered ginger
- 1 lemon, zest and juice
- 3 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup half and half
- ½ cup white wine
- 3½ cups chopped cooked chicken
- ⅔ cup white raisins
- white rice for serving
- traditional condiments for serving: Major Grey's chutney, roasted peanuts or cashews, shredded coconut, crumbled bacon, sliced scallions, sliced bananas, etc.
Instructions
- Sauté celery and scallions in butter until slightly tender.
- Combine flour, salt, curry powder, pepper, nutmeg, and ginger. Add to the vegetables and stir well for a couple of minutes. Add the chicken stock, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Cook, stirring occasionally until the mixture thickens.
- When the mixture has thickened add the half and half, wine, chicken, and raisins. Serve over white rice with your preferred condiments.
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