Ok, today’s recipe is a little off, I think. I got it from a co-worker, and while I’m sure she can make it really well, I’m not sure that I did it exactly right. You’ll need:

1 boneless skinless chicken breast
3 cloves garlic
about 1/2 onion
2-3 tablespoons curry powder (a lot of this is to taste– if you’re not a curry fan, you could lower it, and if you love curry, you could probably pile it on)
1 can nonsweetened coconut milk (this is what she told me, I didn’t find any nonsweetened, just regular– not sure if it’s sweetened or not)
juice of 1/2 lime (again, more or less to taste)
about 2 cups cooked rice (I used rice noodles, same difference)
sauteeing oil of choice (olive, vegetable, whatever)

First off, as always, sautee the onion and garlic in with the oil in a medium sized skillet. She originally told me to grill the chicken before I added it in later, but I just put it in at this point and just cooked it all together. Not sure if that would affect the taste at the end or not. I did it just to keep things easy and use as few pans as possible.

Start cooking/steaming the noodles/rice at this point, too, so that they finish together.

Ok, so the onion, garlic, and chicken cooks through– throw some curry in there to spice the whole thing up. In fact, she says, throw a lot of curry in there. You want to basically coat the whole thing with curry, get it really flavorful– 2 or 3 tablespoons should do it. Then, add the coconut milk, and stir and simmer until it thickens into a pale brown sauce type of thing. I had plenty of curry in there, but I had to turn the heat way up to get that milk to simmer. It reminded me of the condensed milk I used a few weeks ago– much more solid than regular milk. Also, although I probably should have noted this on the ingredients list– I had a heck of time finding coconut milk at my local Jewel. It ended up in the Spanish food aisle with the Goya. This lady who helped me was so happy that she’d found it for me after searching for like 15 minutes. Kept laughing that “It was in the Spanish food aisle all along.” I’m glad she enjoyed it.

Where was I? Oh, right, so you’ve got the sauce going, and the rice/noodles cooking. My co-worker says to pour the sauce over the rice, but I decided to just mix the whole dealy together, so I did. Let that sit for a few minutes to solidify a little more, and then add the lime juice.

Lime juice is in, stir everything up (and you’ll probably have to let it sit for a little more just to get it to coagulate or whatever it does), and you should be set.

I think, anyway. It’s definitely a “to taste” dish, because when I was all done, I thought it tasted a little bland. I added some more curry and lime juice, but then I think I added too much, because it didn’t mix too well, and it became a little bitter. My guess is that I should have added more curry in the beginning. Your best bet is probably think like Jonathan Lynn, the director of “Clue”: you can never have too much Curry!

HA! You know? Like the movie? And Tim Curry? Right?

I Require Sustenance runs every Wednesday on mikeschramm.com. At least it probably will for a little while longer. Well… next week might be it. Come back and find out!