Curry!!

We have an awesome Jamie Oliver chicken tikka masala curry that we do about once a week. It’s actually really easy and really delicious! I don’t have the exact recipe here, (not that I follow recipes that closely anyway) but it goes a little something like this:

Serves 3-4(ish) people

Ingredients

1 TB butter

2 TB olive oil

Chicken breasts – 1 per person, chopped into chunks

Around 200gm plain yoghurt

Around 200ml cream

2 TB tomato paste

Handful of ground almonds

250ml cold water

1 onion, sliced

3 garlic cloves

About 3cm fresh ginger

1-2 fresh red chillies, finely chopped (depending on how hot you like it)

1 TB mustard seeds

2 t ground cumin

2 t ground coriander

2 t paprika

3 TB garam masala

Fresh coriander, chopped

1.     Peel the garlic and ginger and grate the on the finest side of a cheese grater into a bowl. Add the chopped chillies, cumin, coriander, paprika and 2 TB of the garam masala.

2.     Fry the mustard seeds in the olive oil until they start to pop. Add this to the spice mix and blend into a paste.

3.     Take half of the paste and set aside. With the other half, stir in the yoghurt, and add the chopped chicken. Leave to marinate for ½ an hour or so.

4.     In the same saucepan that you cooked the mustard seeds in, melt the butter and add the sliced onion. Add the rest of the spice paste and cook gently for around 10 mins.

5.     Add the tomato paste, water and ground almond and simmer until it starts to thicken and reduce. Remove from the heat and set aside

6.     Cook the chicken – either in a frying pan or, better, on the BBQ.

7.     When the chicken is done, add the cream, the last TB of garam masala and a good pinch of salt to the sauce and re-heat. Just as it starts to boil, remove from the heat and add the cooked chicken.

8.     Serve with steamed basmati rice, popadoms and fresh coriander on top. Yum.