Curry sauce, version 2

There is a hint of sweetness with this flavor blend, even though there are no sugars in it.

1 tbsp curry powder
1/4 tsp Chinese five spice powder
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin (cooking sake)
+ enough boiling water to cover the meat

1. As you would with any meat you're about to fry (e.g., chicken drumsticks), heat the olive oil over medium in a heavy bottomed pan that is large enough to accommodate all the chicken on a single layer. Once the oil is hot enough to swirl easily across the bottom, add the curry powder and five spice powder and cook for about a minute.

2. Add the chicken and lightly brown both sides of the chicken part. Add enough boiling water to cover the meat. And, lastly, add the soy sauce and mirin.

3. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to low. Simmer the chicken for 45 minutes, or until the meat starts pulling away from the bone.

You'll have a lot of curry sauce leftover. I removed the chicken to a serving dish, and then added sweet potato chunks to the sauce and cooked that on medium heat for 20-30 minutes. The longer the potatoes cook for, the thicker the sauce becomes, so add more water if necessary.

Homemade Seasoning Mix

This spice ratio was found to not work so well in a beef stew environment (for me it was a wee bit too spicy), but this tastes great when used as a spice rub for rotisseried chicken. I suppose you could swap out the flour component of it for another starch that has less gluten in it, if you were trying to stay away from wheat. I keep this in a glass jar; mostly because a plastic container would absorb the odor of many of the spices in this mixture and it's easier to see what's in the jar.

Ingredients

1 c. all-purpose unbleached flour
2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp black pepper, freshly ground
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp ground thyme
1 tbsp dried basil, crushed
1 tbsp celery seed
2 tsp dried oregano, crushed
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp dried rosemary, crushed
1 tsp ground cayenne pepper

Directions

In a clean glass jar, add all the ingredients, stir together with a fork/knife/spoon/chopstick/etc, cover the jar with its lid, then shake to combine. It's only dried spices, so as long as you don't allow moisture into the jar it should keep for a few months.

For beef stew, use 2-3 tablespoons per pound of meat. Add to stew and stir in to incorporate. If you're making this in a slow cooker or Crockpot and you have vegetables in it, crack the lid open a little to simmer off the excess liquid or the stew won't thicken up.

For BBQ or rotisserie chicken parts, use 2-3 teaspoons per pound of meat. Put mix into a small bowl and use your fingers to coat each chicken part with the seasoning mix. The addition of flour (versus other types of food starch) creates a crisp savory layer as the chicken cooks, assuming you haven't taken the skin (the best part!) off the chicken.