Chicken Curry Rice Bowls

Since I love to cook, my family often gives me special requests for meals they would like me to prepare. My husband asked me to come up with a recipe for Chicken Curry Rice Bowls, similar to ones served in a local Asian restaurant. Below is the recipe I concocted as a result of that request. At the end of this article, I present my family's reaction to this, compared to a bottled curry sauce we also tried.

Chicken Curry Rice Bowls

2 chicken breasts, grilled or broiled

2 cups of rice, cooked

1 onion, diced

1" piece of ginger, peeled and minced

3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

1 15 oz can coconut milk

2 tbsp. curry powder

1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

2 tbsp. oil

Cilantro for garnish

Slice the cooked chicken breasts and set aside.

Over medium heat, saute the onion and ginger in oil until the onion is softened, but not brown.

Stir in the minced garlic, and cook and stir for about 30 seconds, taking care not to brown the garlic.

Add the curry powder and cayenne pepper to the onions, ginger and garlic and cook and stir for about a minute.

Blend in the coconut milk and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the flavors are well blended.

Divide the rice evenly into four bowls. Top with the sliced chicken, and spoon equal amounts of the curry sauce over the chicken and rice. Garnish with cilantro.

My family all agreed that though not exact, this was a very close clone of the restaurant dish we all enjoy.

Note: when I headed to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for this recipe, I stopped by the Asian section of the supermarket to pick up coconut milk. While there, I checked out the other options such as bottled curry sauce. I decided to buy a bottle of curry sauce, just in case it tasted more like the restaurant sauce than mine did.

I served the sauces in two different bowls; one bowl had my homemade curry sauce and the other bowl had the bottled curry sauce I had simply reheated. I didn't tell my family which bowl contained curry sauce made from my own recipe, as I didn't want to influence their opinions regarding which sauce tasted more like the restaurant version. Hands down, everyone agreed that the homemade curry sauce was much better and tasted more like the restaurant version than the bottled curry sauce. So while you may be tempted to resort to using bottled curry sauce for this recipe, since this recipe is pretty quick and easy to make, I'd recommend making the sauce from scratch.