Ingredients:
* 1 whole small onion, chopped
* 1 whole Naga Jolokia
* 1 Red Habanero, chopped (westlandpeppers.com)
* 1 boneless & skinless chicken breast, cubed
* 1/2 bottle of Patak's Vindaloo Sauce
* 1 1/2 cups of Basmati rice (I usually use Jasmine rice, but I'm fresh out - sadly)
* Few dashes of Seasoning Salt and Garlic Powder
.. I'm finding more and more that I prefer to use chicken when making my curries, rather than beef, pork, lamb, etc. I tried using fish (I believe it was haddock or trout) one time - big mistake.. it turned to total mush and the flavor of the fish completely conflicted with the curry. lol
The Curry
- Started out with cooking the onions & peppers in olive oil. I got distracted by junk on the computer and the onions and Ghost pepper burned a bit on one side and ended up causing a bit of coughing around the house by family and cats. lol
- Tossed in the chicken and added some more olive oil to give the meat a chance to brown without burning to the pan (the pan is non-stick, but after a few years the "non-stick" is disappearing).
- Poured in the curry sauce and added a half-cup of water to stretch out the sauce and give it room to cook without evaporating too far and burning to the bottom.
- Cooked for 20 minutes (even though the bottle calls for 15 minutes)
The Rice
- Added the rice, a teaspoon or two of olive oil, a dash of salt and 3 1/2 cups of water to a small pot
- Once the chicken was browned, turned the burner for the rice on high until it reached boiling
- Reduced heat to just below half-way on the knob
- Added 1/2 cup of water midway through (noticed it was fresh out and not quite cooked)
- Finished just around the same time as the curry.
.. Any other time I might have found this to be one of the hottest curries I've made to date, but I've been cooking more regularly with the Naga Jolokia's and Sudden Death sauce lately and definitely finding I'm building up a stronger tolerance to the heat. That aside - it tasted great, and the Hab was a nice addition (I usually don't care for them, but this worked so I think I shall continue on with them).
Oh, and this past weekend I took my girlfriend out on an actual date (for the first time since we met over a year ago.. sad - I know lol) to our local Jungle Jim's Restaurant. Naturally, I had an ulterior motive (which I was upfront about with her) - to see how hot I would find their "Insanity" sauce now that I've had experience with eating Ghost Peppers.
Jungle Jim's boasts their "Insanity" sauce as "So hot that you have to sign a waiver".. And they actually -do- have a waiver to sign, but I've never been asked to sign it (though people I know have).. According to information in a quick online search, it is actually "Dave's Gourmet Insanity Hot Sauce".
I ordered up their Beef Fajita meal and with my first I only put on a little bit.. Yeah, I didn't even -notice- it was there. With the second one I poured on half the little saucer (they give you about half a cup) and even then it just felt like very mild hot sauce (though, it did give a nice addition to the flavor). And naturally, with my last one (sadly, they only give you enough for 3 fajitas. *sigh*), I dumped on the rest. *nod*
Well.. I -did- decide, just before we left the house, to add an additional ulterior motive to the date - I brought along a Naga Jolokia. lol
Somehow my girlfriend caught on that I had it before I even took it out of my pocket (she's a cunning one lol), so I ended up just putting it in the middle of our table. By the point I did this we had already placed our order and when the waitress brought our drinks I decided to show it off a little (hey, word-of-mouth is great marketing after all!).
A little while later, as I was attempting to get up the courage to bite into the little bugger and see how much of a scene I'd end up making in the restaurant, my girlfriend somehow got the impression that I was challenging her. In the past, at home, I -have- challenged her and the most she took was a little bit about the size of a -seed-. I guess being out in public made her more brazen because instead of just picking it up and chickening out as she usually does, she picked it up and bite off half of it!
Very impressively, after about 5 minutes she had barely broken a sweat - and it took that long to get the attention of the waitress & get her a glass of milk. She did down a saucer of sour cream (good thing she likes that stuff - I don't) to help, and I had to stop her from trying to use my Pepsi. lol .. She even downed her glass of orange juice before getting the milk. She did -amazing-. I was proud of her and she was damn proud of herself.
.. Of course, after that I -had- to finish it off. And she had a great time egging me on and making fun of me for working up a sweat. But hey, as I learned quickly after my 1st Naga Jolokia - the first one is the easiest because you just don't know what to expect so you're not libel to get worked up. *firm nod*
