The Ultimate Chicken Curry

The Ultimate Curry Protions: 6

This recipe comes from the days of kitchen work when I have to make food for the staff. It is an important time when working in hospitality because its hard to get time to sit down and eat a proper meal. It also means that you and your work mates can sit down and catch up and bond building the relationships between each other

The most important thing to remember is to play around with the recipe that suits you and that there is no right or wrong
After making different food for everyone for what feels like a hundred times, I feel like I have perfected it some what and need to pass on the recipe now!

Ingredients:

• 1kg of diced chicken thigh
• 1 Aubergine
• 1 Medium spanish onion
• 6 Garlic cloves
• 1 Tin coconut milk
• Ground cumin
• Ground Chilli
• Ground Corriander
• Ground Turmeric
• Ground Fenegreek
• 2 Lemons
• Fresh corriander
• 50ml Double cream

Yoghurt Raita:

• Yoghurt
• Lemon juice
• Fresh coriander
• Ground Cumin

To Marinade the chicken

I chose to use diced chicken thigh because I believe its more moist, soft and flavoursome than chicken breast however you could use chicken breast or legs for the same dish.

It is important to marinade your chicken if you have the time to do it because it can be a bland meat to use and cook with but if you could it properly and in the right ways, then it can be just as good as any other.

Start off by preparing the marinade. Place all the dry spices in a dry pan to cook off a little bit otherwise you might find you will get a grainy texture to your curry which you can feel the spices. Don’t be shy with the spices because these are the only spices you will be adding to your dish. Add roughly equal amounts of all the spices except the chilli which I will leave to you how spicy you want it, but usually only a drop will do. This will only take a minute on a medium heat, then add some sunflower oil and and the lemon juice of 2 lemons to make a paste, bring to the oil and take off to cool. Once cool, pour over the chicken and season with salt and pepper. Place this into the fridge for at least 24 hours to marinade.

To cook the chicken

You can cook this dish in two different ways, which I find both are just as good as each other. One is frying in a pan but the way I prefer is roasting in the oven. Roast the chicken in the oven, evenly spread out on a roasting tray and roast for about 20 minutes at 190 Celsius, but depending on the size of the pieces it could be longer or shorter.

Once cooked, take the tray out and take the chicken pieces out leaving all the roasting juices and spices in the pan.

To make the sauce

Using this pan, place it back on the hob on a lower heat and place your thinly sliced onion and garlic and cook them off slowly until soft. Remember to season onions at the start of cooking! Dice up the aubergine and cook them as well. If you wanted to add pre cooked potatoes then now would be the time to do so. Make sure you are not burning anything, especially the garlic as this will give you a bitter flavour to the curry.

Finish it by adding the coconut milk and a drop of cream as well until you have a nice silky consistency. Finish it by adding chopped fresh coriander and checking the seasoning. Add the chicken back and bring back up to temperature.

To serve......

Personally I would serve it with some basmati rice, with chickpeas or garden peas. I would also serve it with a yoghurt raita, made with mixing yoghurt, lemon juice, chopped coriander and a drop of ground cumin. But again remember to experiment and I hope you enjoy!