Citrus & spice chicken

I've been going through a whole heap of old paperwork recently - which included my many and various files and folders chock-a-block full of collected recipes.  In doing so, I have re-discovered several favourites from pre-Rhubarb & Ginger times, one of which being this citrus & spice chicken.

The recipe has developed over the years (as recipes are wont to do) but I note from the paper recipe in my folder, that the original was adapted from the Good Food Magazine's "40 Best Chicken Recipes" booklet.  Well, it's been adapted yet again - and very much for the better.  The very first recipe was basically a traybake, my first version added several ingredients such as the honey and chilli powder.  This last incarnation has separated out the vegetables to be cooked on the hob instead of in the oven, which I much prefer.

Marinate, my little lovelies!

Oven cooking the vegetables inevitably led to burned ends and undercooked middles, as the sheer quantity of meat and vegetables in the tray didn't really allow for even cooking.  Plus, it is nice to have a small degree of char on the chicken, but not so nice on the peppers and mushrooms.

This way, the chicken has plenty of air space around each piece and the cooking is much more even - particularly if you place the larger pieces to the outside and the smaller pieces to the inside of the tray.  The surface attains nice little charred corners, while the chicken itself stays moist and delicious.

Cooking the vegetables in a frying pan enables much more degree of control.  Inevitably the leftover marinade isn't enough moisture to see them through the entirety of the cook, but adding a little water from time to time not only allows the vegetables to steam, but also keeps the marinade saucy.  This way, you have the relatively dry chicken, accompanied by the saucy vegetables - which provides a lovely balance and completely without burned ends.

Ready for the oven - Bacofoil's non-stick aluminium foil is great for this!

Another huge positive to this recipe - apart from the flavour which is really tasty - is its speed.  Provided you get the chicken on to marinade in advance, it is a really simple task to prepare a couple of salad veggies, cook some rice, put the chicken in the oven and pan cook the vegetables.  From taking the marinating chicken out of the fridge to dishing up, probably only took around 45 minutes in total.  I love that - especially when there's such a pay-off by way of flavour.

So what's the flavour like?  The chicken flavour is there, no one flavour overrules it and because the curry past is used fairly sparingly and is very much tempered by the use of the yoghurt, it doesn't take precedence.  The honey gives a quiet sweetness and the garlic helps to savoury it all up nicely.  In fact, don't tell anyone, but if you add the yoghurt, then the lemon juice, then the honey, stir it all together and have a taste - mmmmn, it would make a smashing dessert!

Once the curry paste, oil and garlic are added though, I wouldn't recommend tipping it on top of your strawberries.  The oven adds the last element of flavour to the chicken, in the small degree of charring as the tops of the chicken pieces catch in the oven.  It all amounts to an absolutely scrumptious whole.

Now, as for Cook's Tips, I don't have many but there are a few worth mentioning.

The recipe calls for the juice of half a lemon.  If, however, you don't have a lemon but do have a lime - then no worries, use that instead!  You will need the whole lime's juice and the flavour will be slightly different, but no less nice.  I have used both in the past and can't decide which one I like the best.

Where the chilli powder is concerned, feel free to add as little or as much as you like.  However, if you're new to chilli powder and curry spice, I'd suggest you err on the side of caution to begin with - you can always add a little bit more the next time.

You can certainly freewheel a bit where the accompaniments are concerned.  I think the chicken and vegetables would be lovely served in a soft Indian flatbread with some salad alongside.  On this occasion, I served the chicken with some basmati rice that I had cooked in chicken stock and turmeric, along with the cooling influence of avocado and cucumber.  For my son, who isn't keen on avocado, I served a sliced juicy tomato and cucumber.  The chicken is certainly flexible enough in flavour profile, that there are a whole host of accompaniments you could serve with it.

Calories are in the range of 398 per portion, it is low in sodium and high in Vitamins B6 and C, so it could be worse!

I am so happy to have rediscovered this recipe.  I think it is going to appear fairly regularly on the menu plan and I recommend it to you.  Without the chilli powder, it would be great for children, too.

CITRUS & SPICE CHICKEN   (Serves 3)

Ingredients:

For the marinade :

150ml natural yoghurt (I used Greek yoghurt)
juice of half a lemon
1 tsp runny honey
1 tbsp vegetable oil (I used sunflower)
2 generous tsp curry paste or powder
1 garlic clove, crushed
chilli powder to taste (I used 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder).

Other ingredients :

3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts cut into large chunks
1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into large slices
half a green pepper, deseeded and cut into large slices
1 onion cut into large slices
6 medium chestnut mushrooms , quartered
1 tbsp olive oil.

Method :

1.  Mix together the marinade ingredients in a bowl.

2.  Add chicken chunks to the marinade, stir to coat and set aside to marinate for as long as you've got - from 4 hours to 30 minutes.

3.  Pre-heat your oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas 4.

4.  Place the chicken chunks onto a baking tray, taking care to leave as much of the marinade in the bowl, but without scraping any off the chicken.

5.  Bake the chicken for 30 minutes, remembering to turn the tray half way through to ensure even colouring.

6.  Add the vegetables to the bowl and stir to coat them in the marinade.

7.  Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and add the vegetables, marinade and 200ml water.  Cook, covered, on a medium heat until the peppers are softened and onions are cooked through.  You may need to add more water, but only a little at a time.

8.  Once the vegetables are cooked, remove the lid and allow the sauce to reduce and thicken, which will only take 2-3 minutes if you haven't added too much water.

9.  The chicken is ready once the chunks are cooked through and they have gained a little bit of charred colour.

Serve with steamed basmati rice, avocado and cucumber.

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Curry baked chicken with vegetable curry & green pea rice

Just recently, I've made several chicken & salad meals by coating chicken pieces in some kind of sauce or rub, then baking it in the oven.  I think, so far as I can remember, I've done a BBQ version, a Cajun version, a garlic and herb version - you get the idea.  So when I was considering a curry for one of the week's meals, it occurred to me that I could do the same sort of arrangement - but with a vegetable curry instead of salad.

If I were to marinate the chicken in something, then bake it - and make a vegetable curry earlier on in the day, then that would result in a really quite simple dinner preparation.  All I'd have to do is put the chicken in the oven, warm up the vegetable curry and cook the rice and peas.  Lovely!

Now sometimes, this sort of plan goes awry at the last minute as I haven't anticipated how long it would take me to chop the vegetables, or I'd run out of pans and make horrid amounts of washing up.  This time, however, it all went beautifully according to plan and was indeed the most satisfying dinner not just from an eating perspective, but from the preparation and clearing up perspective too.

I started off the processes by marinating the chicken in a mixture of curry paste, mango chutney and Greek yoghurt (doesn't have to be Greek - it's just that Greek yoghurt is my plain yoghurt of choice) for the day.

Next - and during the morning - I sat down and peeled, cut and chopped all the vegetables for the curry and set about making it.  I do so enjoy cooking without time constraints.  It was lovely to just sail along, cooking without having to keep an eye on the time.  We try to have our meals on the table for 6pm, you see.  Sometimes I have a lot of trouble hitting that 6pm deadline!

As ever, when cooking a curry, I had an end result in mind but no real idea how I was going to get there.  So, I knew I wanted to emulate the British Takeaway vegetable curry flavour and texture of the thing - without over cooking any of the veggies and without it winding up too watery, too stew-like or too greasy.  Shouldn't be a problem!

I went through the fridge and pulled out everything that didn't have a home to go to as well as the few veggies that I'd bought with this particular dish in mind.  So we wound up with onion, garlic, red chilli, carrot, potato, mushroom, baby red peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, fresh quartered tomato, fresh coriander and red lentils.  That should take care of our five a day!

Whenever I do the chopping-and-a-peeling, I always put the cut veggies onto plates or in dishes in the order I'll be needing them.  So the onion, garlic and chilli went onto one plate, the carrots were in a dish on their own.  The potato, mushroom and baby red peppers went into the colander and the tomato, cauliflower and broccoli were on another plate.  That way, I don't have to waste any time separating one from the other - and they're all ready to go when I start cooking.  I can't cook and chop - just doesn't work.

I was tempted to spice the curry myself, but in the end decided to use our pre-prepared Sharwoods Korma curry paste - the same one I'd used on the chicken.  I was going for simplicity and the Sharwoods is a very good middle of the road curry paste that you can pep up with additional chilli if you want.  The ingredients list reads very well, too.  With tomato puree, coriander, cumin, turmeric, ginger, chilli, paprika, cardamom, mustard seeds, fenugreek and fennel and the only additive being acetic acid, it is a very acceptable quick curry fix.

So, it went like this.  First of all I chose my biggest saucepan in which to cook so that I had enough room for everything as I wasn't entirely sure how much it would come to.  I put 2-3 tbsp of sunflower oil in and got that heating, then added the onion - and a small pinch of salt - which cooked until golden brown, but not burned.  The garlic then went in for a minute, before I added the chilli and carrot.  Next in was the curry paste and tomato puree which I cooked until the oil was released - just a few minutes.  The next things into the pot were the potato/mushroom/red pepper combo which got mixed all around and coated in the aromatic loveliness.

I wanted to include some coconut milk at this point, but didn't want to use a whole 400g tin of the stuff.  Amazingly, I found a small carton of Blue Dragon coconut cream which did the job perfectly - and was just about to go out of date - so that went in next.  I added a teaspoonful of Essential Cuisine chicken stock powder and approximately 200-300ml of water and gave everything a good stir.  I was tying my hands behind my back to prevent myself from adding more salt at this stage.  The temptation was enormous, but I resisted - and jolly good job too.  I satisfied the urge by adding some black pepper instead.  *chuckle*  In went the red lentils and I let everything simmer gently together for around 20-30 minutes until almost cooked.  Finally, I added the cauliflower and turned off the heat - leaving it to cool.

When I came back to start the dinner properly, first thing was to put the chicken into the oven, then start the vegetable curry warming up and boil the water for the rice.

Once the curry had heated through enough to start bubbling, I removed the lid and let it reduce slightly - just to thicken the sauce a little.  In went the broccoli and the tomato quarters, plus three quarters of the chopped fresh coriander.  Once the broccoli was cooked and the sauce reduced to my liking, it was done.

The chicken came out of the oven still beautifully coated in the curried yoghurty mix, which had slightly caramelised on top, thanks to the mango chutney - which was exactly what I was hoping for.

The plain basmati rice was brightened up by the addition of a few green peas.  A tip for adding frozen peas to cooking rice is to run the peas under the hot tap to defrost them and warm them up before adding them to the rice with around 2 minutes to go.  That way, you don't stop the cooking process by adding freezing peas and they will stay a vibrant green.

The whole meal was absolutely delicious, comforting, satisfying and got a huge thumbs up from everyone.  So long as you make the veggie curry earlier in the day, it was ultimately all finished in around 30 minutes and was a perfect arrangement for anyone who loves curry but wants healthy along with it - and who can't spend too long in the kitchen making it.

Son and heir was practically begging for this curry to be made again and soon - so I'm sure it won't be long!

CURRY BAKED CHICKEN, VEGETABLE CURRY WITH RICE AND PEAS   (Serves 3 with leftover vegetable curry)

Ingredients :

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
3 tbsp plain (Greek) yoghurt
1 tbsp mango chutney
1.5 tbsp curry paste.

3 tbsp sunflower oil
2 onions, sliced finely
2 fat garlic cloves, chopped finely
1 hot red chilli (seeds are optional)
1 donkey carrot, peeled and diced
3 tbsp curry paste
2 tbsp tomato puree
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
6-10 mushrooms, washed and quartered
6 baby red peppers (or one red pepper, cut into pieces), top & tailed
250ml coconut cream
1 tsp chicken stock powder or a low salt chicken stock cube
enough water to just cover the contents
3 heaped tbsp red lentils
3-4 cauliflower florets, broken into small pieces
3-4 broccoli florets, broken into small pieces
1 large ripe tomato, quartered (or smaller) into wedges
a large handful of fresh coriander, chopped.

1 cup of uncooked basmati rice
sea salt
half a cup of frozen peas.

Method :

1.  In the morning, mix together the yoghurt, chutney and curry paste in a large bowl.

2.  Trim the chicken breasts of fat and gristle, then score lightly across the top to allow the marinade to more easily penetrate the meat.

3.  Add the chicken to the marinade and mix gently to ensure every little bit of chicken is covered in marinade.  Cover with cling film and refrigerate until 30 minutes prior to cooking.

4.  To make the vegetable curry (which I recommend should also be done in the morning), heat the oil in a large, deep saucepan.  Add the oil.

5.  Add the onion - and a small pinch of salt - and cook for around 10-15 minutes until golden brown, but not burned.  Add the garlic and stir quickly, then add the chilli and stir.

6.  Next, add the carrot pieces, which will help to cool the pan and so avoid burning the garlic.

7.  Next add the curry paste and tomato puree and stir well to combine with the rest of the ingredients.  Cooked until the oil is released - just a few minutes.

8.  Add the potato/mushroom/red peppers and stir well to ensure they are coated with the curry mixture.  

9.  Add the coconut cream, stock powder and water and stir gently to combine.  Do not add any salt at this stage, but if you're yearning to - add a little black pepper instead!

10. Stir in the red lentils and let everything simmer gently together for around 20-30 minutes until almost cooked.

11.  Finally - for this stage - add the cauliflower, turn off the heat, cover and leave to cool.

12.  Several hours later and when you're ready to prepare the dinner proper, begin by turning on the heat under the vegetable curry and pre-heating the oven to 200degC/400degF/Gas 6.  Line a shallow baking tray with silver foil (optional - but it helps with the washing up!) and place the chicken onto the foil.  Spoon any additional marinade over the top of each chicken breast.  Place into the oven for 25-35 minutes or until the juices run clear if pricked with a knife.

13.  Three quarters fill a good sized saucepan with water, add a pinch of sea salt and place it on a high heat, to boil.

14.  Put the dry rice into a seive and run it under a hot tap until the water runs clear.  Once the water in the pan boils, add the rice and cook - simmering - for 7-9 minutes.  2 minutes before the rice is due to be ready, add the defrosted peas.

15.  As the rice is cooking, the vegetable curry should have come up to temperature.  Remove the lid and allow the sauce to reduce a little as you add the broccoli, tomato and three quarters of the fresh coriander.  Stir from time to time, to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

16.  Once the rice is ready, drain and return to the warm pan.  You can add a little of the chopped coriander for some extra flavour, if you like.

17.  Once the chicken is done, serve with the vegetable curry and green pea rice - with an added flourish of a sprinkle of chopped coriander for garnish.

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Everyone loves Kedgeree - don't they?

Aaah, Kedgeree.  If ever there was a recipe that puts a smile on everyone's faces, it's that.  We're all very keen on anything that involves curry - and a Kedgeree that doesn't involve curry just isn't a Kedgeree, in my book.  Of course, there is the added bonus of it also involving smoked fish - and as we all love fish and especially smoked fish, then it is a given that we're going to love Kedgeree.

In fact, it is my ambition to one day have Kedgeree for breakfast.  I can't help but think that we'd have to go out tramping across the moors, wearing tweed and muttering about the damned beaters afterwards in order to justify the investment.

I have a very definite preferred type of Kedgeree, too.  I've been making Kedgeree for what amounts to donkey's years now and have changed the recipe quite considerably from the days when I would poach the fish in milk, add turmeric to the rice cooking water and so on.  These days, my recipe is fine tuned and designed to not lose even the tiniest iota of flavour.  Today's Kedgeree is a fairly dry concoction of delicious flavours that guarantees clear plates at the end of the meal.  In fact, I now know the recipe so well that this is the first time I've written it down! 

29 July 2016

I'm still cooking Kedgeree and it's still one of our family's very favourite meals.  I have taken the opportunity to edit the recipe slightly - for the better, I feel.  I haven't changed an awful lot, just slightly altered the order of cooking and added some garam masala, so don't worry, it's still the same yummy Kedgeree and still easy peasy to cook.

KEDGEREE (feeds 3-4)

Ingredients :

2 eggs
Basmati rice : 1 cupful per person, plus half a cupful
2 tbsp groundnut oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
a pinch of sea salt
a pinch of black pepper
half a tsp ground cinnamon
20-30g salted butter
4-5 mushrooms, sliced
a flat tsp ground coriander
a half a tsp ground turmeric
3 rounded dessertspoons of Korma curry paste
150ml warm water
400g smoked haddock or cod, skinned and cut into sections
half a tsp garam masala
a tablespoonful of fresh coriander, chopped.

Method :

Place a small saucepan of water on to boil.  When boiling, gently add the eggs and boil for some 8-10 minutes, until hard boiled.  Drain and refill the pan with cold water.  Set aside. 

Fill a large saucepan with water, add a little salt and bring to a boil.

Place the rice into a sieve and rinse under hot water until the water runs clear.  Leave in the sieve to drain, in a colander.

In a large frying pan, heat the groundnut oil and add the onion and garlic along with the cinnamon, sea salt and black pepper and fry on a slow heat until the onion is softened and beginning to brown (around 10-15 minutes).  Make sure to not let the garlic burn.

Add the butter and mushrooms and continue to cook until the butter has melted and the mushrooms have softened slightly.

The water for the rice should be boiling by now, so add the drained rice and cook until the rice is cooked through, but don't let it become too soft.  It needs to retain some "bite".  Once cooked, drain and replace into the hot saucepan until required.

To the vegetables, add the curry paste, ground coriander and ground turmeric and cook for some 5 minutes or so, stirring so as not to let it burn.  Add the water and stir through to create a thick sauce.

Reduce the heat under the pan and add the fish and cover while it gently cooks.  If the curry mixture has become a little dry, add a little more water.

Meanwhile, shell the boiled eggs and separate the yolks from the white.  Chop the white finely - I usually mash it with a fork.

Slightly before the fish is entirely cooked through, roughly flake into large pieces.  Add the garam masala, egg white, chopped coriander and drained, hot rice.  Stir everything through with a fork, using as few mixing strokes as possible in order to avoid breaking up the rice.

Serve onto hot plates and sprinkle each serving with the crushed egg yolk.

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