Chicken and cashew nut curry

This is a relatively mild curry that includes, yes, chicken and cashew nuts. Buy the freshest cashew nuts you can. I'm lucky enough to have a grocer near my house that sells a wide range nuts, dried beans and dried fruits at a reasonable price. His produce is always very fresh due to a high turnover. Only buy nuts from retailers that have a high turnover. The nuts sold in supermarkets are often of questionable freshness.

Too, a word on ghee. You can buy ghee in Indian grocers and some supermarkets. What I use technically isn't ghee--it's a vegetarian product from Ethiopia that's far healthier. Ethiopian 'ghee', whether it's the vegetarian stuff I have or nitter kebbeh (made in the same way as Indian ghee), contains spices so as it melts it emits the most wonderful aroma and imparts flavour into the onions, garlic and ginger. Apologies for your not being able to tell you what this stuff is called. The writing on the packaging is entirely in Amharic.

Ingredients:

2 chicken marylands (legs), separated into thighs and drumsticks, skin removed
400 mL coconut cream
100 g unsalted cashew nuts
10 curry leaves
10 dried Kashmiri chillies
6 cardamom pods, ground
6 cloves garlic, minced
4 cloves, ground
1 onion, diced
1 tomato, diced
a piece of ginger, diced
a piece of a cinnamon quill, ground
2 tbs hot curry powder
1 tbs ghee (substitute the Ethiopian stuff I use or regular oil)
1/4 tsp tandoori colouring
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
steamed rice, to serve

Season the chicken pieces with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Melt some ghee in a large saucepan. Fry the onion, garlic, ginger and dried chillies over a low heat for five minutes. Add the curry powder, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. Stir and fry for five minutes. Add a little more ghee if it looks like it's going to dry out. Add the tomato. Fry for another five minutes and add the chicken. Stir so the chicken is well covered by the spiced tomato and onion. Fry for a further five minutes. Add coconut cream and tandoori colouring. Cover pan and simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the lid and simmer for five minutes before adding the curry leaves. Simmer for ten more minutes and serve.