A dish currently in development in the test kitchen, not quite ready for prime time – but rather tasty.

Structurally it’s a southern Indian curry base, heavy on the tomato with additional turmeric beyond the amount found in typical curry powders (we grind and toast our own). Okra and banana are added midway through the sauce reduction. Chipotle in adobe is finely minced and added about the same time. The banana isn’t meant to be a primary flavor component, rather acting as a milder backbone to the sauce and lending some rich thickness along with the okra. You can play a bit with the ripeness of the bananas to adjust the sweetness.

Depending on the native heat of your curry, the smokiness and heat can run wild with the chipotle in adobe – so care must be taken to strike a balance and not let any one component overrun the dish. Seeing as how this was a quick pass just to see how the flavors would work together, the dish was rather hastily constructed. Notice the sharp edges on the potatoes, a leading indicator that they haven’t cooked long enough. The dish also benefits greatly from some high heat grilling or tandoor roasting of the chicken, which in final production would be separately seasoned and cooked before being added to the sauce. This allows each element of the dish to stand out in the final meal. We want to be able to taste everything that went in. None of the flavors should be masked. At least that is the ultimate goal and why we work so hard to test things to get them right. That is the fun part of cooking and what keeps people like me up at night and busy in my dreams.