Apricot Curry Chicken and Rice

Those that know me know that curry is not my favorite thing in the world… in fact, it’s right up there with my least favorite things. However, I feel like sometimes I have very little variation in the foods on the blog. It’s a lot of Italian food… a lot of creamy, rich foods…and anything you can put bacon into. So.. I ran into this recipe online: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Apricot-Chicken-Curry/Detail.aspx  and I figured I’d give it a shot. However, the procedure seemed too complex.. and I thought I could do it better… so… stay tuned for changes I made…

So, I figured that instead of just topping the chicken with the sauce and tossing it into the oven for 10 minutes… If I cooked the chicken in the sauce using the crockpot, the apricot flavor would be worked all the way into the chicken.. from skin to bone.

So, into the crockpot went six leg and thigh pieces, a black/red pepper mix, 1 TSP of red curry paste, and 2 cups of apricot nectar.

The lid went onto the crockpot…. about 7 hours too late… I didn’t have this idea until mid-morning, so by the time I went to the store.. and got back home.. put things away… and got to cooking.. it was about 4:00 … so.. I put the crockpot on high, thinking it’d give me a good start… then after a few hours, I could turn it to low.. finish it off, and we’d be having dinner by 7… well.. at 6:15. the chicken looked basically the same as it did going into the crockpot…. but.. more on that later.

Next up, I decided I‘d still make the sauce in a separate container… so, into a pot on the stove went:

A cup of chopped dried apricots….

3 TSP of red curry paste…

About 3-5 cloves of garlic minced up nicely….

Half of a sweet Vidalia onion….

A chopped poblano pepper..

About 3/4 cup of chopped carrots…

Some salt, black pepper, and crushed red pepper….

Then 3 cups more of Apricot Nectar, and it goes on the stove on simmer….

After about 20 minutes, I tossed in 1 TSP of Corn Starch to thicken the sauce up… and let it simmer down some more… for… probably 2-1/2 hours….

So, the chicken wasn’t really getting done in the crockpot… there just wasn’t enough time… I’d have had to let it go until 9:30-10PM for it to be “Right”…. So, I pulled it from the crockpot… added some paprika, and tossed it in the oven for about 20 minutes at 350…

I plated the chicken with some rice and the vegetable mix…

and while it may not be much to look at, it was rather tasty….

We mated this meal with a crisp chardonnay… I’m a bigger fan of red wines.. but a spicy red wine would have been washed out by this meal…

Let me say… I messed this one up. I should have planned something else for dinner tonight so I could have done this properly tomorrow for dinner.. By properly… I mean… in the crockpot… Everything else was good.. the rice is always good thanks to the rice cooker… the veggies and sauce made on the stove were awesome…. in fact the sauce, veggies, and rice were the highlights of the meal…

I think the chicken would have ben better if it could have gone for longer at low heat in the crockpot… or just done entirely in the oven… but. I’ll know for next time..