English-Style Chicken Banana Curry

 

This is a post about chicken curry. It is also a post about digital files disappearing. You see, I’ve been having intermittent issues with my iPhone over the course of a few months, where it would mangle videos and simply fail to take pictures. I mean, when I took the photo, everything looked fine, but then when I went back in the Photos folder, there was no record of it, and not even a gap in the file names to justify its disappearance. After trying to troubleshoot this with Apple support, I had to do a factory reset on the phone, and hopefully now the problem is fixed. But I lost some photos from my business, family holidays, and recipes. There’s no record of the mango chicken curry I made. But here’s a banana chicken curry to compensate. 

Even that recipe is the result of a file missing online, because I once made a copy of a similar recipe in an LCBO magazine. Unfortunately, I only made a copy of the page with the photo, ingredients, and first step, without realizing that the recipe was continued on page 76. In the years since, it has been impossible to find that recipe, be it on the LCBO’s website or elsewhere. But when I searched for similar recipes, I found this one, and the ingredients are close enough that I was confident it would satisfy my curiosity. 

OK, so, a banana curry, you say? I’m not sure if it was the British who first paired bananas with curry or whether this was done in Asia as well, but in any case, it’s actually very good! There are also apples and raisins in the dish, so it skews sweet, and I could definitely imagine this with coconut. I served it with Right Rice, and I prefer to slice the bananas fresh instead of mixing them in to be stored overnight; I wrote that below. I ended up not using the raisins because I knew my kids wouldn’t go for it; I used 2 apples and increased the amount of chicken to have leftovers. I also reordered the ingredients below to make the recipe easier to follow. 

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil, divided 

1 large onion, chopped 

2 Tbsp. mild curry powder 

1 clove garlic, minced 

1 fresh bay leaf 

2 cups chicken stock 

1 medium Granny Smith apple, diced 

¼ cup raisins (I would prefer golden raisins) 

½ tsp. salt 

1 lb. boneless chicken, cut into 1-inch pieces (I made mine smaller and had more chicken) 

1 ½ Tbsp. flour (I needed more) 

2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice 

2 ripe bananas, sliced 

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley (I think cilantro would be better) 

Sweat the onion (cook on low heat until they are translucent) in a small amount of vegetable oil. Add the curry powder and cook for 5 minutes. Then add the garlic, bay leaf and chicken stock, stirring as you go. Bring to a boil for 3 minutes. 

Add the apple, raisins, and salt and reduce the heat, simmering for a few minutes. 

While the sauce is simmering, toss the chicken pieces in the flour. 

Heat vegetable oil in a large pan. Brown the chicken and then add the sauce (I had more chicken than called for, so I cooked it in two batches). 

Simmer for 10 minutes and then add the lime juice and stir. 

To serve, top with bananas and parsley. Serve with rice.