Very basic Chicken and Vegetable Curry

I used to think that curries were arduous, longwinded affairs that could only be cooked by people who had a lot of time on their hands and a plethora of exotic hard to find ingredients gracing the shelves of their cupboards. The truth is, some curries are that complicated and time consuming but others are so simple and quick to make that honestly, you’d have to come up with a different catalogue of excuses not to at least try.

I have been making curries from scratch for about a year now and this is one of the simplest and basic I have made and is very loosely based on a recipe I found in the Slimming World magazine not so long ago. It could arguably be considered as more of a lightly spiced stew than what I used to believe constituted a curry (a thick, creamy and highly fattening salt saturated sauce that came from a jar) but it does have curry powder in and so I’m sticking to my curry guns on this one.

I have tried to make the recipe and ingredients as simple as possible and if you can get this right after a couple of tries and feel like experimenting, I’ve added a couple of suggestions for simple variations at the end.

Ingredients:

• 4 medium sized potatoes (maris piper are good but honestly any will do), cut into cubes
• 2 onions, roughly diced
• 2 carrots, grated
• 1 garlic clove, crushed (optional)
• 1 inch piece of root ginger, peeled and finely chopped (optional)
• 2 tablespoons curry powder (mild, medium or hot – it’s up to you!)
• 2 tablespoons water
• 4 skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized cubes
• 2 tins chopped tomatoes

Serves 4 – 6 (My boyfriend and I eat this over two days but if you’re less greedy than us, you could get 6 servings out of it!)

Method:

1. Spray a pan with Fry Light. Peel your onion and roughly dice. Wash potatoes and cut into cubes (you can peel these if you like but I leave the skin on) and then peel and grate your carrots. Pile all that lovely veg into the pan.

                             Roughly dicing the onion                  

                             Cubed potatoes

2. Peel the garlic and ginger (if using) and chop the ginger before adding to the pan along with the crushed garlic. Chop the chicken into bite sized cubes and leave to one side.

                             Veg in pan ready to go                      

                             Chicken cubes ready for later

3. Turn on the heat under the pan to about medium. Cook the veg for about 8 to 10 minutes, stirring regularly to prevent any burning.

4. Sprinkle the curry powder over the veg in the pan and add the 2 tablespoons of water. Cook for a further minute or two, stirring until the veg is evenly coated with the curry powder.

5. Add the chicken cubes to the pan and increase the heat slightly. Cook for about 5 minutes stirring regularly to ensure all the chicken pieces get a chance to seal.

                             Chicken just added                           

                             Chicken sealed, move on

6. Add the 2 tins of tomatoes to the pan and stir to mix everything thoroughly. Turn the heat right down and place a lid on the pan. Leave to simmer gently for about 20 minutes. Tip: I move the pan to a smaller ring on the hob at this point as if the heat is too high, the curry can stick to the pan and taste very toasted at the end of cooking.

                                Tomatoes added to the mix                

                             Simmering away

7. At the end of the cooking time, lift the lid, give the curry a final stir and leave to rest for 2 minutes before serving with your choice of rice.

Served (my photography needs to be soooo much better!)

Variations:

• Try adding some green beans or sugar snap peas into the mix for a bit of crunch.

• For a slightly thicker sauce, leave out the potatoes and add two tins of plum tomatoes instead of the chopped tomatoes.

• Try experimenting with the spice combinations. Add some chilli powder for a bit of an extra kick or some cumin and ground coriander for a richer depth of flavour.