Chicken Neck Curry (by G)

For a long time now I've been passing the irregular meat section in the supermarket and eying off the chicken necks without quite having the nerve to pick some up.  After watching Bourdain eat fried chicken necks in Mexico last weekend I decided to take the plunge.

Detailed research of chicken neck recipes offered a number of different ways of cooking them - I decided slow cooking them would be a safer bet for a first attempt rather than deep-frying. Despite not being able to locate shallots today at the supermarket everything went pretty well.

I fried some small white onion (in place of shallot) in coconut oil then added garam masala, dried turmeric, dried chilli, fresh minced garlic and ginger and some chopped fresh coriander. When all that had become aromatic I added some tinned tomato, vinegar, lemon juice, the chicken necks, fresh ground pepper and a little water.

I simmered all that for quite a while - about an hour and a half before taking the necks out because they looked like they were breaking down a bit too much. I simmered the sauce for a while longer to let it thicken a little before adding the necks back to heat through.  When serving I added quite a lot of coriander on top to disguise it a bit for Biggs - I also served chapattis on the side.  The chapattis were from a packet - they were surprisingly good and easy to prepare, just oven bake them for a couple of minutes on one side, flip, then a couple of minutes on the other side and they were done.

I thought the chicken necks were excellent - not too much meat on them for sure but the flavour was good.  I'm definitely going to do a fried version in the future.  I'm sure I'll have nightmares of neckless chickens haunting my dreams tonight, at least it will be a change from the hoards of baconless pigs that normally disturb my sleep.