YES. I’m serious.

RAY OF LIGHT APPEARS IN INDISTINGUISHABLE DARKNESS. ANGELIC CHOIR COMMENCES. GANDALF EMERGES FROM LENS FLARE HOLDING HANDS WITH CAPTAIN PICARD AND SPOCK. THEY ARE EATING THIS PIE. UNIVERSE COLLAPSES INTO SINGULAR POINT OF JOY.

SHHH! Not now! Come on, really? So cliché…

No seriously. If you can ignore my perverse nerd fantasies, this hack IS AMAZING. Did I mention that its also Gluten Free, Nut Free, Shellfish Free, SCD and Candida Diet friendly? What is that, like, a pentuple threat? The only person who can’t eat this is your quirky vegan friend, or someone who is allergic to chicken. (Sorry C., R., and R., I’ll get to you all next time, I promise) Oh yeah, and the 3 of you who hate Indian food. (Get off my blog!) Anyway. Those of you who know me well, which likely constitutes my entire readership, know that little thrills me more than a culinary challenge. Whether that means my life sucks or not, this recipe remains one of my more favorite victories.

As an aside- I never cease to be amazed at how often people assume that those on restrictive diets “can’t eat real food”. To all you haters: I dare you to make this, eat it, then try to say that to my face. Go on.

The Curry

Any curry will do, really. I chose a Goan curry, since I had never made it before. (It’s good!) The recipe I used is a variant of the Goan Chicken Curry Recipe on About.com. This curry takes about 1.5 hours to make, so make sure you make it in advance. It serves 4 people on its own.

• 1.5 Lbs Chicken Breast, boneless, skinless, cubed or sliced.
• 2 Tbspn Vegetable Oil
• 1 Teaspoon Mustard Seeds
• 1 Large Onion, Sliced
• 3 Garlic Cloves, Finely Sliced
• 1″ inch chunk of Ginger, thinly sliced, or to taste (OPTIONAL)
• 3 Cups of So Delicious Coconut Milk Beverage (to keep calories down). If you want to go the legit route, use 2-3 cans of, straight up coconut milk.
• 1 teaspoon paprika. (You can also use Sweet Smoked Paprika, if you want a smoky flavor and don’t care about authenticity)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 1/2 tablespoons ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup water
• OPTIONAL: Coconut Flour (2 TB)

Combine the paprika, turmeric, coriander, cumin, cayenne, lemon juice, salt and water into a runny paste. My version of this was downright liquid, but don’t worry.

Throw the chicken in there, and mix it to make sure it is fully coated. Marinate for 10-60 minutes. (Depends on how much time you have)

Meanwhile, Slice your Onions, Garlic and Ginger.

Get out your cooking receptacle. Over medium high heat, heat the oil. Make sure you are heating the oil INSIDE the wok or skillet (lol.) Add the mustard seeds, and wait just until they start popping and skipping . When you are done cooking, you will have mustard seeds lodged everywhere from your cooking vent to your eyeballs. Don’t panic. This is normal.

Add the garlic and ginger, fry for a minute or two. Do not allow them to burn.

Add the onion, cook until the edges of the onions start to turn golden brown, stirring as needed so the garlic doesn’t burn excessively. Lower the heat to “gentle”

Add the chicken/marinade mix and cook until the chicken pieces are sealed, or basically, until they are white on the outside.

Add coconut milk. This will cool the mixture and it will stop boiling, so raise the heat until you can get a good simmer going.

Simmer until the sauce is thick. If you are lazy and impatient, then simmer until the chicken is cooked all the way through, and add the coconut flour to thicken it. Coconut flour is crazy absorbent, it will do the trick, I promise.

Garnish with cilantro and sliced cucumber, and go eat your curry!

DOE EYED SCD DEVOTEE PERKS UP

What about the pie??

Hush, my child… here is that part of the recipe. Just make sure your curry is quite cold before you do this, or else you are just going to melt all the ghee in the crust and burn your hands!

THE CRUST/PIE (for 4)

• Coconut flour 3 Cups, add more if needed.
• Salt- to taste
• 4 Eggs, well beaten
• Coconut Milk (just enough to air out the batter so it is workable. use your judgement)
• Ghee- 3 Tsp
• Melee of Indian Spices, up to you. I used sprinklings of Ginger, Garlic, Onion, Coriander, Cumin, Garam Masala, Cinnamon, Cardamom and Pepper, to taste. Go easy on the salt, you don’t want a saline crust.
• If you happen to have them handy, the leftover guts of a cheese-less (THAT MEANS NO CHEESE) spinach pie taste really good with this curry. So, you know, feel free to have them on hand. By the way, if you do choose to use them, mix them up with just a tiny bit of beaten egg)
• 4 Mini skillets (like, you know 4-5 inches), or 4″ Ramekins. (If you don’t know what a ramekin is, Google it)
• Cilantro, Chopped.

We begin.

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees (Ok, seriously. Did you expect a photo of this? One would hope that if you can turn on a computer and navigate the internet, you know how to turn on an oven, okay?)

Mix together the coconut flour and dry spices

Break the COLD. (IT MUST BE COLD!!) Ghee up into tiny crumbs and “rub” into the coconut flour. Once this is done, the coconut flour will be slightly “sandy” You see what I did here? I had my friend take a lengthwise shot, because I am epic.

Add the eggs, mix together until you form a dough. We are looking for something that resembles soft uncooked pie crust, or just plain dough. It should stick together fairly well. If it is too dry, add coconut milk. If it is too wet, add more coconut flour, but in very small amounts! Coconut flour is very absorbent. By now, it should start to be rather fragrant. The dough below is just a tad bit too dry, so I added a tiny bit of liquid to make it adhere a bit better.

Grease your skillets/ramekins with ghee.

Separate your dough into 8 equal sized balls. I was only making two pies, so I halved my recipe, and therefore only have 4 balls. Too bad for me. You will need two “balls” per container: one for the bottom crust; one for the top. Whether you choose to do one pie at a time, or do all the bottoms and then all the tops is up to you, but remember you can’t roll out more than one ball at a time, so stop panicking at the pin and start rolling!

Place your first ball of “crust” between two sheets of baker’s parchment. Roll out to the desired thickness. I’ve found that just under 1/8″ works out pretty nicely. You can go a little over, but don’t go up to 1/4″- that’s too thick. Don’t worry too much about the shape, it’s gluten-free, so it’s going to fall apart anyway.

It’s all good….

When done, carefully peel off the top layer of paper. You are going to have a sheet of baking parchment with some thin-rolled dough attached to it. Slowly and carefully flip the paper/dough over onto the skillet/ramekin.

Loosen the dough by flexing the paper. It will fall apart on top of your pie tin. Don’t worry, just arrange your dough shards to that they are coating the sides and bottom evenly. If there’s any cracks, use your fingers to “stitch” them together. You might want to leave a little “lip” on the outside rim, so you can do a crimped crust later.

Spoon your curry into your empty pie shell. If you have your spinach, throw some of that on top. The wetter you make the filling, the better, since coconut flour is very dry and you need a little something to keep it from being “sandy”.

Finally, include chopped (or whole) cilantro.

Now we need to seal the pie. Repeat steps you did to make the bottom of the pie, except do your very best to prevent the top of the pie from “cracking”. If it does, whatever. It’s still edible, and the cracks will allow any steam to escape. We’re trying to eat, not impress anyone, here.

Crimp the edges of the top and bottom layer together to form a seal. Or, if you are like me, make a fake “seal” using leftover scraps of dough. Yes, I realize this is ghetto, but at the time I was in a hurry and didn’t have time to make things look CIA-certified.

Brush crust with melted gee and put in the oven for 20-25 minutes, but check frequently to make sure it isn’t burning. It is done when the edges and top are just starting to turn brown. To give the crust an extra crispness, you can also put it under the broiler for exactly 20 seconds.

Serve with more chopped Cilantro and a generous helping of (important!) SCD Yogurt, or Plain Yogurt, if you are not on the SCD Diet. Delicious!

Coming Next Week: Not sure, but I’m open to suggestions! Maybe some kind of pudding based cake?