Curried Spatchcocked Chicken

This recipe is a cross between Madhur Jaffrey’s Curried Whole Chicken (“The Ultimate Curry Bible”) and Diana Henry’s Spatchcocked Chicken with Chilli, Garlic etc (“How to eat a Peach”).

1 large chicken (about 1.7kg) and 2 red onions

Marinade ingredients: 5cm piece of fresh ginger; 3 cloves garlic; juice of half a lemon; 2 tablespoons olive oil; 2 green chillis or a scant teaspoon chilli powder; 1 teaspoon each of cumin, coriander and sea salt; some black pepper

To serve: curried roast potatoes, green beans or salad, yoghurt, wedges of lemon, fresh coriander

1. Plonk the chicken on the surface, breast side down, legs towards you.
2. Use good scissors to cut through the flesh and bone along either side of the breastbone, and remove it.
3. Open out the chicken, turn it skin side up, then flatten it by pushing down hard on it with your hand.  Cut off any raggedly bits of flabby skin.
4. Skoosh together the marinade ingredients in a mini-processor.
5. Ease up bits of skin and squeeze in teaspoons of marinade between the meat and the skin, all around the breast and legs, wherever you can find a point of entry.  Gently massage the remaining marinade all over the outside and underside of the chicken and leave in the fridge (covered) for any time between 10 minutes and six hours, whatever suits you.
6. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees and let the chicken come to room temperature.
7. Put a few slices of the red onion along the base of a roasting tin and plonk the chicken on top, skin side up.  Roast, uncovered for an hour.  Wiggle a leg or two to see if it’s done and make sure the juices run clear.
8. Cut into serving pieces (you’ll want to prise the meat away from the spindly little bones if you have young diners) and serve with curried roast potatoes (Liz’s recipe: just roast in the usual way, but mix in a tablespoon or so of curry powder fairly early on), green beans or salad, yoghurt, lemon wedges and fresh coriander.

 

LDS

Advertisement

Vegetable Pakoras

Four or five large potatoes, diced

One onion (or three shallots), sliced or diced

Four or five handfuls of spinach, roughly chopped

Mix the vegetables in a large bowl.  Add half a teaspoon each of turmeric, ground coriander and chilli powder.  Add a rounded teaspoon each of ground cumin and sea salt.  Grind in some black pepper.  Mix well with your hands.  Add 300g of gram flour, mix, then add a few drops of water, mixing all the time, until you can form clumps with the mixture.

Heat up a large, deep-sided frying pan with oil.  When the oil is really hot, drop in four or five balls of the sticky vegetable mix (about a heaped tablespoon per pakora).  Cook for 4-5 minutes until nicely browned, then keep warm in the oven while you do the rest.

Chicken Curry with Green Beans

3 onions, in wedges

4 green chillis, halved lengthways

3″ ginger, peeled and grated

6 garlic cloves, bashed

4-6 chicken breasts, in thinnish pieces

tin of tomatoes

a squeeze of lemon juice

a handful of green beans

fresh coriander

spices:  ground coriander, ground cumin, paprika, turmeric, cardamom pods, bay leaves

First make the sauce:

Put one of the onions, half of the tomatoes, the ginger, 3 garlic cloves, the 4 green chillis, a big handful of fresh coriander, stalks and all (reserve about the same amount for sprinkling later), and 4 tablespoons of olive oil into a small pan with a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of turmeric and 200ml water.  Boil together with the lid on for 20 minutes.  Now use a hand blender to blitz this into a sauce.  By all means leave some of the chillis unscathed, if that’s how you like it.

Now, make the curry:

Put 3 tablespoons olive oil into a frying pan.  When it’s hot, add 3 bashed cloves of garlic, 2 bay leaves, and 6 bashed cardamom pods.  Let them sizzle for a few moments, then add the remaining sliced onions.  When they are just starting to burn, add the chicken and a little more salt.  Let the chicken colour for a couple of minutes before turning down the heat and adding a teaspoon each of ground coriander, cumin and paprika.  Stir well, and add the remaining tomatoes, the green beans, the sauce from Stage One and about 100ml of water.  Before popping the lid on, add a squeeze of lemon juice.  Simmer for 30 – 40 minutes.  Stir in some more fresh coriander before serving.  Serve with a drizzle of natural yoghurt and some basmati rice.

Lamb Curry with Tomatoes and Green Beans

The photo doesn’t do it justice, but this is my new favourite curry.  First, get about a kilo of diced lamb.  It’s best to buy a leg of lamb joint, and snip it up yourself, because it’s easier to trim away all the fat this way.  Put the lamb into a bowl with one teaspoon each of turmeric, dried ginger, sea salt, half a teaspoon of cinnamon and a squeeze of lemon juice.  Mix well and set aside.

In a large, lidded pan, heat two tablespoons of oil until shimmering.  Add four cloves, two bay leaves and sizzle.  Now, add two sliced onions and let them brown.  Remove the onion from the pan, then add the lamb and let it brown.  When it’s browned, pop the onions back in, and add two chopped cloves of garlic and a teaspoon each of ground coriander, cumin and paprika.

Stir well, then add half a tin of tomatoes and 200ml of water.  Put the lid on and simmer for 60 minutes.

Meanwhile, make your fresh, tomatoey, curry sauce by putting one and a half tins of tomatoes, 100ml water, a chopped onion, four cloves of garlic, four long, green, hot chillis, six slices of fresh ginger, one teaspoon of turmeric, one teaspoonful of salt, two tablespoons of oil and a handful of fresh coriander into a medium-sized saucepan.  Boil with the lid on for twenty minutes, then liquidise.  Set aside until the lamb has cooked for an hour.

When the lamb is tender, add the sauce and a few handfuls of green beans.  Simmer for 15-20 minutes. Serve with plain, boiled rice and fresh coriander.  Also delicious with a few potatoes added.

Lamb and Spinach Curry

Fry 2 large, sliced onions in 4 tablespoons of oil until browning.

Skoosh up a two inch piece of ginger and 3 cloves of garlic and add to the onions.  Stir this into the onions with a teaspoon each of chilli powder, turmeric, ground cumin and salt.  Continue stirring and cook for 2 minutes more.

Add 500g lean diced lamb (I usually buy a leg or shoulder joint and cut it up myself so that there is no visible fat) and stir well.  Add half a tin of chopped tomatoes and stir.  Then add 400ml water and stir.  Put the lid on and cook slowly for 50 minutes.

Add 200g chopped spinach and cook – lid on – for a further 10 minutes.  Then take the lid off and turn up the heat to reduce the liquid for the last ten minutes.

Garnish with sliced chillis, ginger or coriander.