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Update:  Adding the recipe below.

• 2 T Olive Oil
• 2 Medium sized Shallots (diced smallish)
• 1.5 T Whole Cumin Seed 
• 1.5 T Whole Black Mustard
• .5 T Whole Fennel Seed (all seeds crushed using mortar & pestle)
• 1 T Aleppo Red Pepper Flakes
• 1 T Powdered Tumeric
• Handful dried Curry Leaves
• 4 medium sized Tomatoes (roughly diced)
• 1/2 cup Sauvignon Blanc
• 16 oz Water
• 2 Cups Great Northern (Cannellini) Beans
• 2 Lbs. Chicken cut into 1” pieces
• 1 can Coconut Milk

Step One: Make a yellow curry base.  

Heat the oil and add the shallots.  Cook until tender.  Add all dry spices, except Tumeric.  Sauté for a minute or so.  Add tomatoes, wine, water and curry leaves, and vigorously boil until tomatoes are reduced to goop.  Add Tumeric about half-way through.  If the tomatoes are not goopy, add some more water - you’re boiling it off mostly.  Once the tomatoes are good and goopy, and you have a sauce about the consistency of a decent marinara sauce, you either continue with the recipe, or you can store the sauce for use later.

Step Two: Finish the dish

Bring the sauce to a slow boil, add the chicken And the beans.  Add enough water to cover everything, and boil until the chicken is cooked, the beans are tender, and the water is reduced to roughly the previous level of liquid.  Add the coconut milk, and boil slowly until the sauce achieves a smooth, creamy consistency.

The good folks over at Huffington Post have a nice little introduction to rice types.  If you follow this blog at all, you’ll have seen a bunch of posts about rice, and I’d say that outside of a single bit of advice, this is a good post.

The one piece of advice I’d give is something I read somplace, tried, and think is generally good.  If you’re unsure about how much water to use with your rice, use too much and then strain the rice with a fine strainer.  This works for everything except risotto.

A great introduction to cooking risotto can be found on Jamie Oliver’s site.  Make it a few times before messing with it, but risotto ain’t rocket surgery.  And, I am no relation to the photo on his site.

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Update:  The risotto was made by sautéing shallot, roasted red pepper (bottled), artichoke hearts (also bottled), and proscuitto until tender, removing most of the mix, adding a bit more olive oil and then making the risotto normally using water (first liquid was a couple ounces of Bombay Sapphire), rather than any kind of broth.  About half way through, I started adding the pepper/artichoke/proscuitto mix back in.

The asparagus was simply grilled and tossed in a bit of butter once cooked.  Awesome!