New #2: Cook chicken curry

Well, I'm into my second week of new adventures, (which, by the way, will fall between every Friday and Thursday). This time I decided to entice my multicultural side and cook some chicken curry. While this may not be much a feat for some, those who know me can probably understand how exciting it really was. I don't cook. And I don't really eat much Indian food, either. So it was kind of like a double whammy of new.

I don't know where the idea came from except that it's something I would never, ever cook unless I dared myself to. And I'm glad I did. It even tasted OK.

With my cooking skills tapping out right around pouring pasta into boiling water, I decided to go online to find advice on my curry creation. After a long Google search (and realizing how much one can make with curry), I found Simple Recipes' "Chicken Curry in a Hurry," which was, actually, very simple. A few onions here, two chicken breasts there, sour cream (who knew?), a dash of curry - and voila! An authentic Indian dish.

I was off to a slow start. Even measuring the oil took some time.

The actual cooking part went pretty well, too. As anything with curry often does, this dish was ... aromatic. By the end, my whole apartment began to smell. But the food itself paid off. The chicken needed a bit more salt by biting time, although that was enough to make it just right. Even Ben, who said he "hates" curry, ate the whole thing.

The finished dish.

I don't know if I'll cook it again (mainly because the smell is so pungent), but it was a good learning experience.

I had two other firsts this week, too, although they weren't quite as exciting as my curry adventure. They were: Seeing my first 3-D movie (Avatar), and avoiding my first pandemic (by getting a swine flu shot).

We'll see where next week takes me!