National Curry Week - Xacutti

It's National Curry week which is a good enough reason to have a curry. But at our house every Friday is curry night. My husband and I take it in turns to whip up a spicy feast and it always says 'hurrah the weekend has started!'

I wasn't really a fan of Indian food until I spent quite a bit of time there. I haven't by any means seen all of India but have been to Delhi, Mumbai, Agra, Shimla, Amritsar, Goa and Dharamshala amongst others, so I have tried different styles of food. I also spent 5 weeks teaching English in a slum school in Jaipur, staying in a £10 a night hotel with an amazing vegetarian  restaurant.

Making a curry every week means we spend a lot of time looking for different recipes and this is one of our favourites. Xacutti is a curry from Goa and makes the most of toasted spices and the tang of tamarind.

Last week I spent the weekend in Portugal with girlfriends and, tiring of endless menus of steak and fish, we went for an excellent Indian (check out Masala if you're ever in Cascais).

I was surprised to see Xacutti on the menu, as it's not a dish that you'd usually find on a menu in the UK, but it makes sense as Goa was formerly a Portuguese colony. The dish incorporates coconut flesh, as so many Goan dishes do, and toasting the spices before grinding gives it a really deep earthy flavour.

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Ingredients:

Marinade
Squeeze of garlic purée
Squeeze of ginger purée
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tbsp tamarind paste
1/2 tsp ground tumeric
1/2 tsp chilli powder
450g diced chicken breast

Masala mix
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1/2 tbsp poppy seeds
1/4 tsp chilli flakes
1tsp cloves
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
2 tbsp grated coconut
1tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp peanuts

Sauce
1 onion very finely chopped
1 tbsp grated coconut
400g tin chopped tomato
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Method:

1. Mix all the marinade ingredients together and smother the diced chicken thoroughly with the mixture. Leave while you prepare the masala.

2. Heat a frying pan (no oil) and add all the masala ingredients. If you don't want it so warm, leave out the chilli flakes. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and swirl the spices around in the hot pan until they are toasted and fragrant. Make sure they don't burn, especially the smaller sesame and poppy seeds.

3. Remove the spices and wipe the pan clean with kitchen towel.

4. Grind the spices using either a coffee grinder or a pestle and mortar. If you're doing it manually, make sure you spend enough time so that the spices are all finely ground - biting into a whole clove or peppercorn will be a nasty surprise later.

5. Fry the onion in a tbsp of oil until it softens, then add the ground spice mix and fry for a few minutes.

6. Add the tomato a little at a time to stop the temperature dropping and then add the cinnamon.

7. Add the marinated chicken and the extra coconut.

8. Cook for 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked. If it starts to dry out too much, add splashes of warm water.

9. Check the seasoning and add some salt to bring out the flavours if needed.

9. Served sprinkled with some extra peanuts and some rice or chappatti.