Title: Burmese dry chicken curry
 Categories: None
      Yield: 1 Servings
 
      2    Onions; rough chopped
      5    Cloves garlic; rough chopped
    1/2    Inch piece fresh root
           -ginger, peeled and chopped
      2    Sticks lemon grass; roughly
           -chopped
      2    Red chillis seeded and
           -chopped (habaneros work
           -well, you'll need rather
           -more Thai chillis)
      1 tb Fish sauce (nam pla)
      1 ts Ground turmeric
      4 tb Veg oil
      3 lb Chicken (preferably free
           -range) cut into curry
           -pieces* (skin on but you
           -can remove if preferred)
           -(up to 4)
      4    Green (or two black)
           -cardamon pods
      2 tb Rough chopped
           -coriander/cilantro leaf
           Salt and fresh ground black
           -pepper
 
  (From Sophie Grigson's Meat Course, Network/BBC Books, London, 1995,
  ISBN: 0 563 37173 0, an excellent book for all sorts of meat cooking)
  
  *Curry pieces: cut off both legs and thighs together taking as much
  meat as possible from the carcass at the top of the thigh, separate
  legs and thighs. Cut down along breast as far as wing at side of
  breast bone to expose ribs, cut through ribs at top along length of
  breast bone, cut through ribs at bottom of breast as far as wing, cut
  wing at joint with body and remove breast and wing as one piece, cut
  into two approximately one third along breast from wing.
  
  Grind the first 7 ingredients (ie up to and including the turmeric)
  together into a smooth paste (food processor/pestle and mortar etc).
  Heat oil in wide frying pan or wok and add paste, stiry-fry until
  moisture has evaporated and paste has started to brown. Add chicken
  pieces and stir well, scrape bottom of pan to prevent sticking. Cover
  tightly and simmer for 35-45 minutes - there should be enough liquid
  given off from the chicken during cooking but check now and then and
  stir. If chicken does get too dry and starts sticking/burning (and
  it's never happened to me) add a tablespoon or so of water and stir
  in, scraping residue off bottom of pan.
  
  Shortly before chicken is ready slit open cardamom pods and extract
  seeds, crush seeds in pestle and mortar and add to chicken with
  coriander leaf, stir and simmer for a further minute or so, taste and
  adjust seasoning.
  
  Serve with plain rice or coconut rice. Drink beer: Singha, Bintang or
  Tiger beers are excellent, Pilsner Urquell is good too.
  
  Ken Hom has a similar recipe but he omits the Nam Pla and adds 1 tbsp
  dry sherry and two tbsp soy sauce just before the simmering which
  makes it much more like a Straits Chinese or Nonna dish.