Curry-time

After a lovely roast chicken last night (thank you Waitrose and Nigel Slater), there was tons of meat left. I picked off most of it and then boiled the carcass for chicken stock, to freeze and form the basis for some tasty autumn soups. The best thing about a free range chicken is the amount of meat on it - I ended up throwing away some of the bits left on the bones from the stock, mainly as I didn't have time to turn it into soup straight away. It still seems like a waste (which of course it is) but for under a tenner we've had today and yesterday, two fantastic main meals for two, some roast chicken for sandwiches and it'll be the basis for at least another couple of meals in stock form over the next few weeks.

So I was left with a large bowl of roast chicken, and I thought I'd make the most of it and turn it into curry. BBC Recipes came good with an excellent and easy Jalfrezi recipe, which didn't take too long to make. It's also a good store cupboard stand by, as I've usually got most of these ingredients in apart from fresh chillis and coriander, which the local corner shop always has on hand. It's really cheap too.

The sauce:

1/2 a large onion, chopped (you'll use the other half in a minute)
2 - 3 cloves of garlic
1 green chilli, chopped
1 tin plum tomatoes
1/2 pint of water
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp turmeric

The meat and veg:

2 or 3 chicken breasts (or the remains of last night's roast, yum yum)
1 red pepper
The other half of the large onion, chopped
2 red chillis (I used a large thin one)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsps garam masala
Handful of fresh chopped coriander leaves

1. Chop the chicken and coat in the smaller quantities of cumin, coriander and turmeric from the meat ingredient section. Leave to marinade whilst you're doing everything else.
2. Fry half the onion, the garlic and green chilli til softened and browned. Add 1/2 pint of water and simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Whilst that's cooking, whizz the tomatoes in a food processor til smooth. Chop the rest of the onion, red pepper and chilli and sit to one side for a moment.

4. When the onions have been simmering for 10 mins, in a separate pan, heat a splosh of oil and fry the larger quantities of spices from the sauce ingredient section. Give them a minute to toast and add in the tomatoes. Leave both pans simmering on the stove for ten minutes.

5. Then, process the onions in the processor til smooth and add to the tomato mixture. These simmer together for 20 minutes (and smell lovely and curry-like). You can make this sauce up in batches and freeze ahead, meaning a quick home made curry on a cold night - something I'll be doing over the weekend, I think!
6. Fry the chicken in a frying pan, adding the reserved onion, chillis and pepper after a couple of minutes. Cook together until the chicken is cooked through and the onions are softened.

7. Add the chicken mixture to the sauce and simmer together for a further 20 minutes. Before serving, add the chopped coriander and garam masala. You can serve this with chapattis, rice or naan bread (I sent Jonno to the takeaway to buy proper naans - the ones you can home bake in the oven are horrible, and I don't have a tandoor, nor sadly the space and money to invest in one). So, ta da, the finished product:

It was lovely, pretty low in fat, and far nicer than almost all takeaway curries. It's just so easy to make. I'd like to say just like Mum made but she always swore by Patak's curry pastes, which to be fair are pretty good.

It certainly got eaten up! It's meant to be good for four people, but given the quantity of meat it did one portion for me and two and a half for Jonno. I think it's personally a little dry for much more meat than I added, so tweaking this for more people in future, I'd add more water to the onions earlier on, and maybe a couple of tins of tomatoes - if fussy, I'd make up a massive batch of the sauce, freeze in medium sized portions and then add the meat once I knew how the sauce would work out. It also wasn't quite hot enough for my tastes, so I'd probably either use a scotch bonnet instead of the red one, or use two long red chillis instead. Let me know if you try it! More curry recipes coming soon.

Anne's last supper - well, lunch

My friend Anne, after a number of happy years in London, announced a couple of months ago that she was moving back to Vancouver (sniff, sob). She came around to mine for a final meal before I took her to the airport. The day's challenge was to make something light enough that wouldn't make her feel too full for sitting around and waiting a while for a flight (pesky ash cloud) and would be suitable for brunch - and also didn't take too long to cook or too much attention when I wanted to talk to her.

I'd tried Nigella's Red Prawn and Mango Curry before a couple of times, but never felt the recipe got it entirely down pat. This is my take. I also dislike her preference for pre-cubed veg, lazy devil, and this is much cheaper. Serve with steamed or boiled jasmine rice (in small quantities - curry to rice ratio should be about half and half).

1/2 tsp of sesame oil, 1/2 tsp vegetable oil
4 - 6 spring onions chopped roughly
2 large tbsps of red thai curry paste (a non-salty one if poss)
1 400g can organic coconut milk (not low fat or it comes out too runny)
150ml chicken stock from homemade (if making with concentrate or stock cubes use half recommended quantity)
2 tsps nam pla (fish sauce)
1 smallish butternut squash or half of one and most of a sweet potato, cubed small-ish
Around 300g fresh prawns (much nicer than frozen)
Juice of half a lime
1 large mango, cubed small-ish
Generous shake of green tabasco (red will do)
Chopped coriander, generous handful.

Heat up the oils in a large pan; when hot fry the chopped spring onion. Stir in the paste; add the stock, fish sauce and coconut milk, stir til mixed well. You can start cooking the rice now. Bung in the squash (and/or) sweet potato to the sauce mix and simmer for about 10 mins - should still have a slight bite to it.
When veg are ready, throw in prawns and bring back to boil; add mango and lime juice and heat through. Serve on the rice with coriander chopped on top. Tabasco to serve too.

I find the variation in flavour in this recipe great - it gives you lots to play with; this version is very saucy and fragrant without being overpowering, but there's barely any heat, even though I've upped the curry paste. Definitely one to play with and I think she really liked it.

(We had Gu ganache for pudding which was gorgeous - I can't do desserts from scratch when we're due to eat at 12.00pm).