The launch of a competition in the UK to create a special dish to mark the Queen’s diamond jubilee (60 years on the throne) has prompted a lot of people to find out just what is in the original coronation chicken dish. There are several coronation chicken recipes amongst the range of curry recipes on the Curry Focus website so you can check out the details for yourself.

The original coronation chicken dish was created for the silver jubilee of George 5th (Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather). The dish was called Jubilee Chicken and a different version of this dish was created for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth 2nd.

Elizabeth came to the throne in 1952 although her coronation did not take place until 1953. The recipe for the dish was published at the time. But food rationing was still in effect in the UK at this time, some 7 years after the end of the 2nd World War. So the British population used their ingenuity to come up with a version of the dish that they could make with the limit ingredients available. And this is probably why there are so many different recipes for coronation chicken.

The coronation chicken dish is basically chicken in a curried mayonnaise sauce but you often see recipes that contain ingredients such as fruit, nuts, yogurt and cream. The dish is usually served as part of a salad but coronation chicken sandwiches are commonplace in the UK where they can be bought in lunch bars and cafes in the city and town centres.

It’s going to be interesting to see what dishes are created for this year’s diamond jubilee event. Will it be a variation on coronation chicken or will it be something totally new? We’ll find out in a few months.

As regular readers of my blogs will confirm, I’ve long been a fan of dal (or daal, dahl or dhal). Dal is usually made from lentils or beans and is one of the tastiest vegetarian meals around (if you leave out the cream or yogurt that sometimes feature in the recipes then they are also vegan).

A few weeks ago I went to my local curry house with Wendy and she chose the dal makhani from the menu. I must admit that I’d never eaten dal makhani myself and I tried a couple of mouthfuls from Wendy’s plate. It was delicious.

There was no dal makhani recipe on the Curry Focus website and so I looked through the recipes that I had received that were waiting to go onto the website (I have a lot of recipes to add to the website but never seem to find the time to clear the backlog before more recipes appear). And there was indeed a recipe waiting to go onto the website and so I formatted it in the Curry Focus style and published it. In fact, there were two recipes and I published both of them.

So this weekend it is Dal Makhani on the menu. The one that I tested was Dal Makhani recipe (version 1) and you can find this amongst the Dal recipes on the Curry Focus website.

I bought the red kidney beans and urad dal from my local Indian food shop and Saturday evening saw me picking through the beans and dal looking for little stones and grit (and any other foreign objects) to discard. You do need to do this. I picked out 6 little stones from the dal and these could cause a bit of damage if bitten whilst eating. The red kidney beans were OK. I put the beans and dal into bowls of water and left them to soak. They soaked for about 20 hours before I drained them on Sunday afternoon. Note that is extremely important that you soak the red kidney beans for at least 6 hours because, believe it or not, dried red kidney beans can be toxic.

Preparing the other ingredients is really easy because there are only 4 ingredients needed for the long cooking, plus water. And so I started the cooking over an hour and a half before the dinner guests were due. The water came to a boil and I turned down the heat until a gentle simmer was underway. Most of the rest of the cooking time consisted of wandering into the kitchen every 15 minutes and giving the dal a stir. Hardly complicated.

After 90 minutes I added the salt and cream, gave the dal a good stir and left it to simmer for another 30 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so. The dal does start to thicken near the end so you need to keep an eye on it and stir when needed.

I washed and chopped up the coriander (cilantro) whilst the final cooking phase was underway and put the rice into the microwave 15 minutes from when it was needed. The dal thickened up near the end of the cooking time but not overly so I did not need to add any extra water.

As usual, the dinner guests arrived in plenty of time (they rarely turn down a free meal) and soon I was serving up the Dal Makhani on basmati rice with a sprinkling of coriander (cilantro). Some people don’t like coriander (cilantro) so can just leave it off.

And how was the dal? It was simply delicious. The dal had a great consistency being not too thick and not too thin – in fact, it was about the same consistency as served up by the curry house. Everything was cooked really well and there was a smooth, creamy texture. The coriander (cilantro) added a nice taste (we all like this ingredient). The meal was very filling and would easily satisfy 6 people (there were 2 portions left over which I froze to use as work lunches). Everyone was happy with the meal and it received an excellent 8.5 out of 10 with a spice/heat rating of “Medium”.

So I am now a dal makhani convert. If you like dal then this is a recipe that you simply must try for yourself. It is a great vegetarian meal and it becomes vegan if you leave out the cream.

We get a lot of visitors reading our curry blogs so just what were the most viewed blogs in 2011?

Just like in all previous years, the most viewed blog was “How to Cool Down a Curry That’s Too Hot”. This has been the most viewed blog every year since it was written. The advice in the blog is still as current as it ever was. I usually have a raita on the table if serving up a curry to somebody where I’m not sure how hot they like their curries. Even if the dinner guests don’t need the raita to cool down their curry, it is a tasty side dish so does not go to waste. There is a raita recipe category on the Curry Focus site.

And, once again, the second most viewed blog was “Indian Food – The Facts”. With thousands of restaurants and supermarkets delivering billions of pounds worth of curries to millions of hungry Britons every year, it is news to nobody that Indian curries are the most popular ethnic food in the UK.

The third most viewed blog was titled “Leftover Turkey Curry”. This blog is viewed a lot around Christmas and Thanksgiving and it is amazing that it comes third in popularity against blogs that are viewed over the whole year. The number of turkey curry recipes, especially leftover turkey curry recipes, has increased since the blog was written and there is now a turkey curry recipe category on the Curry Focus site.

You will hardly be surprised to read that a “Leftover Ham Curry” blog appears in the top 100 viewed blogs but it is unlikely to overtake the “Leftover Turkey Curry” blog in the number of views, at least in the foreseeable future. You can see the latest leftover ham curry recipes in the “Pork Curry Recipes and Ham Curry Recipes” category on the Curry Focus site.

Now you know the most viewed blogs on the Curry Focus site. Will they be the same next year or will the top three blogs be totally different? We will let you know next year.

In the meantime, we hope you continue to enjoy the curry blogs and curry recipes. Don’t forget to tell your friends about us. And remember, everything on the site is FREE.

Analysis of the Curry Focus website logs show that visitors are looking for curry recipes as well as the blogs.

So what were the most looked at curry recipes in 2011?

The most viewed curry recipe in 2011 was for Chicken Bhuna Curry and this is the second year in a row that this recipe was the most viewed. There is a recipe category for bhuna curry recipes on the Curry Focus website.

The second most viewed curry recipe in 2011 was for Poppadoms and, once again, this is the second year in a row that the recipe was the second-most viewed. There are a couple of poppadum recipes amongst the Starter, Soup and Snack recipes category on the Curry Focus website.

And the thirst most viewed curry recipe in 2011 was for Chicken Biryani. There is a curry recipe category for biryani recipes on the Curry Focus website.

Once again we need to mention the seasonal turkey curry recipes. There is a turkey curry recipe category on the Curry Focus website and these recipes are viewed by a huge number of visitors over the Christmas and Thanksgiving festivals. The leftover turkey curry recipes would easily be the most viewed recipes if the festival period recipe views was constant over the whole year.

Now you know the most viewed Curry Focus curry recipes for 2011.

If you have your own good curry recipe then why not share it with us? Just give us the details using the Add Recipe page. We’ll edit the recipe and publish it for the whole world to see. Don’t worry if you only know the metric or imperial measures – we’ll check them out and make sure they are OK. If you already have an electronic copy of a recipe then you can simply email it as an attachment to us.

We hope you continue to enjoy visiting the Curry Focus website and find some great recipes to try out for yourself. Tell your friends about us. And remember, everything on the website is FREE.

The Curry Focus website was launched in January 2007 and continues to attract an increasing number of curry lovers from around the world.

2011 saw an increase of 12% in visitors and, as forecasted last year, we had to increase the hosting package to satisfy the demand.

The UK still provides the bulk of visitors with 74% of the total number of visitors coming from the UK. The top 10 countries are shown in the following table.

The sequence of the countries supplying the highest number of visitors remains pretty constant with changes only in the last two places (Germany slipped from 10th to 11th place in 2011).

We welcomed visitors from 185 countries and territories during 2011 with first-time visitors from Benin, Central African Republic, Comoros, French Polynesia, Liechtenstein, Micronesia, Suriname, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Altogether, the Curry Focus website has attracted visitors from 207 countries and territories since its launch in 2007. So we’ve been seen by the whole world except for a handful of countries in Africa and a couple of places in Asia. Curries are loved the whole world over!

It’s great to see so many curry lovers visiting the Curry Focus website and we hope that you will continue to drop by to check up on new curry recipes and blogs. Don’t forget to tell your friends about the great FREE Curry Focus website.

This is the 6th year for the Welsh Curry Awards and there are over 280 restaurants for are in the running for this year’s award. A staggering 11,000 votes were received last year.

Wales has been divided into 3 regions and you have until 31st January to cast your vote.

The votes will be counted and the 30 top restaurants will be announced on 16th February.

Then the regional judges will take up to 5 weeks to visit all of the restaurants in their area – now that’s a job we would love to help with.

For the first time, the Welsh Curry Awards competition will include Wales’ largest Curry Festival and all of the top 30 restaurants will take part in the festival. Locally sourced produce is once again the theme for the top 30 restaurants with each restaurant will create a new curry which uses Welsh lamb. The Curry Festival will run for 5 weeks, starting from 20th February, and the full event schedule will be announced on that date.

The overall winner of the competition will be announced during a gala dinner at the Red Dragon Centre, in Cardiff Bay, on 23rd April.

You can vote by visiting the awards website or by visiting your favourite restaurant, collecting a voting form, filling it in and posting it to the organisers (snail mail still exists!).

So come on all you Welsh curry fans. Get voting now.

The main times for eating turkey are Christmas and Thanksgiving and we get lots of leftover turkey curry recipe searches during those two festivals.

We checked out the visitor details for Thanksgiving and Christmas 2011 and found that some of you may be risking eating bad food by keeping the leftover turkey for too long. We found that a lot of people were still looking for leftover turkey recipes 8 days after the US Thanksgiving and 9 days after Christmas.

You should not be eating leftover turkey if it has been in the fridge all of this time – it is way past its safe eating date.

We did a bit of searching on the Internet and have found some sites saying that it is OK to eat turkey that has been in the fridge for 5 days but we feel that 3 days is a more acceptable maximum.

What you could have done with leftover turkey meat is to strip the meat from the bones, put the meat into freezer bags and then pop the bags into the freezer. You can safely keep your cooked turkey in the freezer for about a month and you can defrost, and then eat, the meat at your leisure. It is too late to do this with your 2011 turkey but try and remember this for this year’s festivities.

We hope you enjoyed your leftover turkey curries.

Latest Articles
South India Pepper Chicken Curry Recipe Review – This is a delightful curry and one that you really should try if you like a great hot chicken curry…

Leftover Turkey Curry Sauce – This new turkey curry sauce means that you can create a leftover turkey curry in just 10 minutes…

Curcimin Fights Prostrate Cancer – Once again we read about a component of a major curry spice being used in the seemingly never-ending fight against cancer…

Easy Chicken Curry Recipe Version 2 – There is nothing difficult about following this recipe at all and the recipe does live up the “easy” tag…

Leftover Ham Curry Recipe Review – All in all, this was a very acceptable meal and definitely tops eating leftover ham sandwiches or salad…

Top 10 recipes for last month

1 Chicken Bhuna Curry
2 Poppadoms
3 Leftover Turkey Curry
4 Chicken Biryani Curry
5 Madras Curry Paste
6 Chicken Pathia (Patia) Curry
7 Saag Bhaji
8 Peshwari Naan
9 Mushroom Curry
10 Gujarati Potato Curry

Why not tell us the recipes that you like? You can submit a new recipe here and a restaurant here.

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Once again the weekend has rolled around. And we all know what the weekend means – curry time! I browsed through the great range of curry recipes on the Curry Focus website and found the South India Pepper Chicken Curry recipe amongst the large number of chicken curry recipes. This looked like a really easy chicken curry recipe to make, which suited a part-time cook like myself. Despite cooking curries for the last 4 years, I wouldn’t claim to be a master curry maker by any means. There’s just no way that I will be able to compete with cooks who have learnt to cook with the guidance of their mothers.

I picked up the chicken thighs and some coconut milk whilst out shopping. I really like recipes that use chicken thighs because I find that the meat is far tastier than chicken breast.

I saw that the first part of the method was marinating the chicken in spices so I did this first stage some 3 hours before needing to start the cooking. The recipe said to marinate for an hour but one thing that I’ve learnt is that marinating for longer usually means tastier meals. I was a bit perplexed at how to lightly crush the peppercorns until I realised that probably the best way would be to use my mortar and pestle. It was amazing that having this piece of kitchen equipment had fallen to the back of my mind since I invested in a spice grinder a couple of years ago. I suppose another way to crush the peppercorns would have been to use a rolling pin. Anyhow, I chopped up the chicken thighs and marinated them in the spices for 3 hours.

Cooking time came around in the evening and everything went smoothly – as I said earlier, this is a really easy chicken curry recipe. The one thing that I did notice was that the recipe only uses 1/2 a cup (125ml or 4 fl oz) of coconut milk so now I have the best part of a can of coconut milk in the fridge to use up (I’ll find a recipe to use the coconut milk – no way am I going to throw it away).

I cooked the curry without any problems, the curry tasters arrived about 15 minutes before the meal was ready and I served up the South India Pepper Chicken Curry on rice to the eager diners.

The chicken thigh meat was well cooked and the curry had the expected lovely coconut taste. The curry sauce was a runny but, being unfamiliar with the South India pepper chicken curry dish, I do not know if this is to be expected or not. It’s not really a problem though because the rice soaked up the gravy pretty well. There was a lot of pepper in this curry which gave the curry a bit of a kick with a hot aftertaste on the lips after the meal was eaten. But even though the curry received a spice/heat rating of “Hot”, it was not a mouth burning hot that you get with a vindaloo curry. Everyone enjoyed the meal and the curry received an average taste score of 8 out of 10.

This is a delightful curry and one that you really should try if you like a great hot chicken curry.

Some of the courses that are run include instruction on how to make a multi-course feast for your guests, so that you can host the ultimate dinner party at your home. Other Indian cooking courses include instructions on how to cook specific curries (like Punjabi Chicken Curry, Tarka Dhal, etc.).

We saw a whole range of different courses offered besides Indian Curries. So if you were interested in learning how to make tasty Thai food, or perhaps a delicious Vietnamese dish, you could simply add these courses to your shopping cart (from their website) and then turn up on the day.

If you have attended the initial classes, or are already a confident cook, there are also master classes available for that extra challenge.

If your company is looking at team building or bonding, what better thing to do than get involved with one of the Corporate Days out that these schools also offer. One cooking school that we reviewed offered corporate events either hosted at their school or they come to your place of business.

Personally I think that vouchers for culinary schools make a great gift idea for a Christmas or birthday present.