Tomato Curry Chicken

I've been wanting to learn how to make more Indian dishes, but the difficulty with a lot of Indian food is that it contains significant amounts of either cream or yogurt, which doesn't work so well for us. In my search for dairy-free Indian food I stumbled across the following recipe for Indian Tomato Chicken. It got great reviews and didn't look too difficult to make, so I thought I would give it a try. Let me tell you, this recipe is really easy and it tastes great! The hardest thing about the recipe is making sure that you have all of the spices. I modified the spices a little bit in my version to suit our taste, and I added some peas for color. I'm so excited that now I'm going to try to find some more Indian recipes that are dairy-free.

Tomato Curry Chicken
serves 3 adults, maybe 4?

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp. canola oil
• 1 large yellow onion
• 1 tsp. minced garlic
• 2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
• 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts that are organic or kosher
• 14 oz. crushed or pureed tomatoes. Try to use tomatoes without citric acid, such as Pomi strained tomatoes.
• 2 bay leaves
  
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1 cup uncooked basmati rice (or use more rice if you prefer)
  

Instructions:

Place a medium-size pot over medium heat and add the canola oil. Finely chop the onion and add it to the pot. Saute the onion until tender. While the onion is sauteing, measure the cumin, ginger, turmeric, black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and salt into a small bowl. Thoroughly rinse the chicken and cut each chicken breast into about 8 cubes.

When the onion is soft, add the minced garlic and spices to the pot and stir for about 1 minute. Transfer the chicken to the pot and stir so that the onion mixture coats the chicken. Saute the chicken for about 3 to 4 minutes, until the outside of the chicken has cooked. Then pour the tomatoes and bay leaves into the pot, stir, and cover with a lid. Reduce the heat to low so that, once the tomatoes heat up, the liquid will be barely simmering. Cook for 1 to 2 hours, until the chicken is done and the flavors have melded. A couple of minutes before serving, remove the bay leaves and stir in the frozen peas.

To make the rice, bring 5 cups of water to boil in a medium pot. Thoroughly rinse the uncooked rice using a sieve or strainer. Add the rice to the pot and stir briefly. When the water returns to a boil, turn the heat down to medium so that the water simmers vigorously. Partially cover the pot with a lid and cook the rice for 10 minutes. Drain the water from the rice and then return the rice to the pot. Let the rice sit in the covered pot until ready to serve.