Curry Chicken and Yellow Rice
Jaclyn M. Crespo
Ingredients for curry chicken:
- 2 lbs. of whole chicken pieces (legs and thighs)
- 1 tsp. garlic
- 1 tsp. tyme
- 4 tlbs. curry powder (
- olive oil—enough to cover skillet
- chicken broth—enough to cover chicken
- 1 potato
- 1 green pepper
- 1 red pepper
- 1 tsp. black pepper
- salt—to taste
Directions on how to make curry ch=
icken:
- cut up chicken into chunks or simply separate thighs and legs
- marinate chicken in seasoning (garlic, tyme, curry powder)
- let chicken sit over night
- place olive oil in skillet, enough to cover bottom of skillet
- add chicken w/ seasoning and 1 potato (cut in chunks)
- pour chicken broth over chicken and let cook on low flame
on stove for about a=
n hour
- mix/stir
- add salt to taste
- add chopped peppers for decoration
Ingredients for yellow rice:
- 4 cups of whit rice (Canilla brand)
- 4 cups of water
- ½ cup oil
- ½ cup salt
- 2 packets of Sazon (with cilantro and achiote)
Directions on how to make yellow r=
ice:
- using a cooking rice pot, pour 4 cups rice into pot
- drain rice approx. 2 times with water, so as to
remove some of=
the
starch
- after rice is totally drained, add 4 cups of water
- then, add oil, salt, and sazon
- mix/stir
- place in rice cooker and cook
When I was in high school, I=
had
many friends whose parents cooked meals containing the ingredient,
curry…curry goat, curry desserts, curry stew, curry chicken. One of my friends would invite me =
to her
home and, almost every time I was there, I could bet on curry being part of=
the
meal that would be served for the night.&n=
bsp;
Though I am Hispanic, I decided to make curry chicken for this proje=
ct
due to the simple fact that I always wanted to know what it was exactly, but
had never asked…was it a sauce, a powder, or just spices mixed togeth=
er?
Where did it originate from? I
wanted to find this out for myself.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my culture’s food, but I want=
ed
to do something different, learn about another culture other than my own.
The word cu=
rry,
comes from the English word “kari”, which means sauce. Even so, being that it is an ingre=
dient
mainly used in India, it does not come as a powder (which is provided to us=
in
American supermarkets, what I used for my recipe), but rather is achieved by
combining a variety of spices, for example, cardamom, poppy seed, nutmeg,
coriander, and ginger. By mix=
ing
these spices, along with approximately 20 others, a “masalas” or
combination is made, which varies from one area of
Aside from curry=
, the
rice which accompanies the curry chicken in my recipe, also has great histo=
rical/cultural/economical
value. The first development =
of
rice is still not accurately known, but this grain has fed so many people on
our planet over a longer period of time than has any other crop. The earliest archaeological eviden=
ce for
domestication of rice was discovered by Wilhelm G. Solheim II in 1966, in <=
st1:place
w:st=3D"on">Southeast Asia.&nb=
sp;
It was in
Olive oil, that is used=
to
fry this curry dish, has great value in our society as well. Derived from the oil obtained from=
fruit
of the olive tree, it originally was discovered all around the Mediterranean
basin. At first, Phoenicians =
grew
olive trees in
Aside from the ingredients presented in curry chicken, it is important to focus on the preparation and domestication of Indian dishes and how they affect women in Indian society…how its pertains to a feminist form of resistance. At present, Indian women are slowly reaching an equal status to men, but for years, they were treated as dramatically inferior to men. To this day, most Indian women spend hours preparing food to better serve their husbands and sons in their family. The best foods are reserved for the males of the household and the w= omen often eat last, after their families are satisfies with their cooking. In the past, these women were even expected to, after waiting for their husbands to finish eating, eat off of their beloved’s dirty plate. <= /span>This is indicative of the role food plays in society and its affects on women, h= ow they nurture their families, and how little they themselves are nurtured in return.
Curry chicken, w= ith all of its ingredients, holds great value in terms of the politics of food. With its global/histori= cal exchange of its ingredients and its reception/preparation of the meal as a whole (and of Indian dishes in general), one can see how this recipe can be interconnected with the act of feminist resistance, or lack thereof. Food in our society is greatly tie= d in with social justice, cultural heritages all around the world, and the roles women and men take on when the preparation of food is concerned. So, what is curry? It is more than an ingredient and = more than a masalas representative of Indian culture…it is evidently a par= t of the root of feminism.
Works Cited
“A= Brief History of Rice.” International Rice Research Institute, 1990. Pages 1-5.
http://www.riceweb.org/History.= htm
“An Indian Women’s
Perspectives on Women Issues in
Sept. 2003. Page= s 1-4. http:= //www.und.edy/dept/womenctr/newsletters/Sept2003.pdf
“C= urry offers savory blends, medical benefits.” The Daily Titan Interacti= ve,
January 20= 04. Pages 1-3. &n= bsp;
http://dailytitan.fullerton.edu/issues/Spring_01/04_13/news/curr= yoffers.html
“O= rigin and History of Olive Oil.” INFO COMM.
ht= tp://r0.unctad.org/infocomm/anglais/olive/characterisitcs.htm
“The Joy of Indian and Nepali
Cooking.” Jagriti Newsletter, January 2004. Pages 1-4.
http://www.jagritifoundation.org/newsletters/200401/Indian_Nepa= li_cooking.asp