Chicken Curry and a Blowout

Curried Chicken (click for link to recipe) is such a simple recipe.  The flavors are amazing.  You take some ordinary spices, toast them in some oil, add onion and let it cook until the onions are soft.  Then add chicken, tomatoes (used my last jar of tomatoes from last year), potatoes and cilantro.  Let it simmer for 30 - 40 minutes and stir in some sour cream and raisins.  Oh my goodness!  Rich, creamy, a little spicy and tender.  I put it on rice to get all that luscious sauce. 

The recipe is also forgiving.  Don't have chicken breasts? Use boneless thighs.  Cut the chicken into bite size pieces if you like. Leave the onion in slices or chop it tiny.  No fresh ginger? Use a teaspoon of dried ground ginger.  No cilantro?  Use parsley - dried will work too.

The Blowout

I don't know what happened.  When I lifted the jar at the end of the processing time, the bottom had blown off and the contents spewed.  This is the first time this has happened to me.  Either I screwed the ring on too tightly which didn't allow the air to vent, or the bottom of the jar had a flaw.  Normally, a too tight ring would cause the metal lid to flex up and out of the ring. Since the break is so cleanly around the bottom of the jar, I believe that the jar bottom had some defect I didn't detect when I examined them.  Or, maybe I knocked that jar when putting it in the canner.  The end result is one less jar of tomatoes and a large mess to clean up.

This is what makes it worthwhile: