Category: Poultry

Oh My – Chicken Pie!

Chica Andaluza52 Comments

On my recent trip to London I spent plenty of time talking to my mum.  As a fellow cook and foodie herself, we talked quite a lot about food. As you do.  She mentioned that she really enjoys making and eating pies, but that my dad is not so keen on them.  When she asked me what Big Man´s view was (you can tell can´t you that this was a deep and meaningful conversation) I realised that I had never made him a savoury pie.

Of course, once I was home, I couldn´t get the thought of a chicken, mushroom and bacon pie out of my head.  The rain came down, the fog closed in, the tiny hole in the roof that we think we´ve fixed each year started its relentless drip, drip, dripping.  It was time to make that pie.

I´d bought two old fashioned pudding basins in a junk an antique shop in Lewes, a beautiful town where a friend of mine is hoping to move.  As I´d managed to get them home without breaking them, I needed to road test them.

Making a pie is a straightforward business if you´re using ready made puff pastry – which was the case for me. If you´re making your own pastry (flaky or shortcrust), it´s not all that much extra work, just a little waiting time while it rests in the fridge.

To make two hearty pies I used

  • 2 small chicken breasts, cubed
  • About 4 slices of thick cut bacon, cut into small cubes (or use lardons or pancetta)
  • 6 mushrooms thinly sliced
  • 2 cups of chicken broth (or you can use a mixture of milk and water)
  • 3 tablespoons of olive oil
  • 4 tablespoons of flour
  • Seasoning
  • Puff pastry
  • One beaten egg

Put the chicken into the flour which you will have seasoned and toss it around.  Heat the oil in a deep frying pan remove the chicken from the flour and seal it.  Don´t throw the flour left in the bowl away.  Now add the bacon and mushrooms and cook on a medium heat until the mushrooms have softened.

Add the remaining flour to the pan and stir with a wooden spoon to slightly cook the flour and then gradually add the stock whilst stirring to prevent lumps forming.  Once the liquid has all been added, turn up the heat and let it bubble gently until it reaches the consistency of pouring custard.

Put the mixture into a pie dish or small oven proof dishes if you want to do individual portions. Lay the puff pastry over the top, trim if necessary and cut a couple of small slits in the top to let the steam escape. Brush with the beaten egg and bake in a medium over (about 180º C) for about 25 mins or until the pastry is golden brown and risen.

Delicious served with baked or mashed potatoes and vegetables.  I made runner beans in garlic and tomato, we drank wine and watched the rain dripping down the windows.  Big Man voted the pie a big hit, and now wants to know if I can make him a beef one. I think we can safely say that we have another pie eating convert in the family.

For an idea of what to do with any leftover puff pastry, check out this tasty recipe.

Travelling Hopefully

Chica Andaluza51 Comments

I believe there is a saying which goes something like “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive” – well I have to say that I can´t quite agree with Robert Louis Stevenson. But I expect he wasn´t heading to London for eight days to visit my family and friends, so I´ll just have to excuse him.

I arrived home late last night to be met by my wonderful Big Man bearing flowers.  Lilies…my favourite. It´s been a while since he bought me flowers, (impossible to get where we live) so the surprise romantic gesture was very much appreciated.

Being a canny packer of cases, I always go right to the limit on my baggage allowances.  20kg in the suitcase, 10kg in the hand luggage and the biggest hand bag possible.  No, I most definitely don´t travel light!  I went out loaded with Christmas presents (can´t tell you much about them though, as I don´t want to give any surprises away).  The case was also packed with packs of chorizo and morcilla to make Fabada Asturiana, plastic lid things to “flip” your tortilla, chillies from my garden, wine glass/tumblers, gifts from my recent holiday, chocolates for my niece and nephew, books to entertain young children on a long flight to the States to see their grandmother, Spanish fans for a friend´s mum, olives, biscuits….well, I think you get the picture.

The advantage of this is that once you´ve unpacked and “shared the love”, you have an almost empty suitcase waiting to be filled with gorgeous things to take back home with you.  Of course, I wasn´t about to go home empty handed.

I carefully packed some lovely pictures done by the wonderful children I got to spend time with.  A very flattering portrait of me done by my 10 year old niece, Lara.  Look at that fabulous waist and bust…if only! A lovely thank you card from 4 year old William and his 2 year old brother Matthew.

Chocolate.  And then some more chocolate.  If you haven´t tried Quality Street, track it down!  Lots of lovely chocolate toffee and caramel sweets in a tin.  They just take me back to childhood Christmases when these were a very special treat.  And then you get to use the tin to put your cakes in!

I had a bit of a mad fabric buying spree.  I´m laying some of the blame for this on my new blogging pal Evie, over at Pendle Stitches.  I was the very lucky winner of this beautiful shawl that she had made, and it was waiting for me at my parents´ house.  Very handy actually, as it was a little nippy last week in London.  Anwyay, Evie suggested some wonderful fabric shops for me to look at in London.  The fabrics were amazing.

"Weigh" too much fabric!

Eventually I bought a huge variety of fabrics in Tooting Broadway, my old neighbourhood in South London, plus an amazing discovery of some vintage fabrics, still neatly folded and never taken out of storage since about 1950.  They almost tipped me over the baggage allowance, but as there were only 31 people on the flight home (I felt like I was on my own private jet), the check in girl turned a very kind blind eye to my extra kilo…20 metres of cotton, linen, silk, jersey, viyella, crepe and who knows what else do weigh rather a lot.  I also bought a new magazine to inspire me.

I´ll make that one day.....

And finally, to food.  My mother stocked me up with all sorts of odd and bizarre things I find hard or expensive to buy out here.

All spice berries, Golden Syrup, Maldon Salt.

Sugar and spice and all things nice

Loaf tin liners and vanilla for my baking.

My mum made me a wonderful beef curry with lots of vegetable curries to accompany it.

Best friend Ria made a fantastic chicken and cannellini bean casserole (recipe another day) even though she was feeling poorly last week.

And talking of food, guess what?  I got to meet one of my new blogging pals face to face.  It was Mad Dog, who was not in the least bit mad and not remotely dog like!  We spent a happy and all too short hour in Bar Italia, in the heart of London´s Soho, drinking coffee and chatting about food, Spain, food, photography, food, ourselves.  What a great guy he is, and he gave me a fantastic gift of the film Tampopo, a comedy featuring…yes you´ve guessed…food!

So, now I´m home again and looking forward to getting back into my kitchen. Big Man has already started stocking up on autumn fruits and vegetables.

A neighbour gave us a crate of Membrillo, or quince, so we´ll be making quince jelly this weekend.

Another neighbour gave us some enormous pomegranates (or Granadas) from his tree.  I may just have to eat them as is, as I adore them served simply.

I also have a couple of kilos of broad beans, but I think you already know many of my recipes for this gorgeous little vegetable.

So, time to unpack, wash, cook and sew.  Sounds odd, but I can´t wait!

PS. Am looking forward to a few days of blog catching up – really looking forward to seeing what you have all been up to.

Green Summer Vegetable and Chicken Casserole

Chica Andaluza41 Comments

Now that we are starting to have a little drop in temperatures during the day, and a nip in the air first thing in the morning and last thing at night, we know that autumn is just around the corner.  While this means saying a gradual farewell to summer, it also means an autumnal welcome to the next season and the food and change in cooking it brings.

Off out for a busy morning and knowing I was not going to be in the house while it was still relatively warm, prompted me to cook the first casserole for a long time.  We came home to delicious chicken, vegetable and brothy smells and apart from opening the wine and grabbing the loaf of bread left for us earlier that morning on the gate by Bread Man, there was nothing more for us to do other than set the table and enjoy lunch.

The dish was a celebration of almost the last of many of our summer vegetables.  The bobby (french) beans finally started producing yellow as well as green beans, with kilos of them stored in the freezer for the months ahead.  The green peppers are still doing well, we´ll see how much longer they last.  Our onions have dried out nicely and are sweet and delicious and I had been hoarding the last handful of potatoes we had left from our first ever potato crop.

Into a big pot went two large legs (drumstick and thigh) of our free range chicken, some chopped peeled potatoes, large chunks of courgette given to us by a neighbour along with some whole unpeeled garlic cloves.  A few chopped green peppers, a roughly chopped onion, a few handfuls of green beans and some seasoning finished off the ingredients.  I covered everything with water and bought it to the boil then put a lid on the pot which then went into a very low oven for about 5 hours. You could, of course, cook it much more quickly on the stove top with equally good results if you´re not off out shopping for the morning!

And that was it…memories of summer and anticipation of autumn all in one delicious bowlful.

Am off to London to visit my family tomorrow for a week.  Will try to keep up with all your lovely blogs and posts, but apologies if I can´t always comment.  Looking forward to a proper catch up when I return!

Salsa Verde Spanish Style

Chica Andaluza56 Comments
Shake before serving...

Well, it´s not exactly Italian salsa verde in that there are no capers or anchovies…but, it´s a green sauce so that most definitely makes it a salsa verde!

Restaurants round where I live have good, simple food.  It can sometimes get a little repetitive, and often there´s no menu as they all serve pretty much the same selection of grilled meats (usually pork cuts) and some grilled or fried fish.  What you get though is fresh, well cooked and tasty food.  Often the meat or fish will come drizzled with a delicious garlic and parsley mixture blended with olive oil.

One of our regular local restaurants moves everything outside onto the “summer terrace” during the hot months.  This includes the cooking, so you can sit at your table and almost within an arm´s reach you have Luis at the bar, his partner Sonia in the kitchen area and the mountain views.  I noticed that Sonia makes her sauce up and keeps it in a squeezy bottle which she then uses to dispense the delicious mixture over the cooked food as it leaves the kitchen and is delivered to us by Luis.

All she does is finely chop parsley and garlic and blend with a season of salt and local extra virgin olive oil.  I make mine up in the food processor or in a small jug using the hand stick blender.  I have now taken to keeping a bottle of this in my fridge.  Sometimes I add the zest of a lemon, and squirt it over simple grilled dishes (including vegetables) to liven them up.

Sadly, no waiter service at home, so we dished up ourselves!

Do give it a go, it´s handy to have around and apart from looking pretty, tastes wonderful. Probably best not to eat it if you´re going out on a hot first date though!

Chicken Paella

Chica Andaluza34 Comments
Guess who loves black pepper?!

I can´t believe I´ve done so many posts without doing one on the famous Spanish Paella!  Paella traditionally comes from Valencia, up towards the north of Spain, and very good it is too.  People think of prawns and mussels when they talk of paella (which here is pronounced along the lines of pie-eh-ya) but there are meat versions and mixed meat and seafood versions, although not many vegetarian ones.

If you can buy proper paella rice, it does make all the difference.  Use long grain and it won´t be able to soak up all the flavours.  Use risotto rice and it will go creamy.  Paella rice plumps up, absorbs the flavour but the grains stay separate.

In Andalucía they tend to make more Arroz or Arroz Caldoso, which translates as Rice or Brothy Rice.  This is exactly the same as a paella, but with more stock, giving a more soupy dish. Whether you make Arroz or Paella, the technique is the same, it´s just the quantity of liquid that varies.

And now, allow me to let you into a little secret.  The beautiful colour of a Paella?  Saffron? Well, sometimes, but most housewives here use artificial colouring.  I was shocked when I found out – perhaps even more than when I realised how expensive saffron is, but I´m just letting you know.  I try not to use anything artificial in my cooking, and have been known to slip a little turmeric in, which doesn´t really affect the taste but gives a good golden colour.  You can also use paella spice sachets which contain salt, garlic, paprika, saffron and ground cloves….oh, and a little colouring too.  There´s no getting away from it.  I leave it to you…make your own mix with a few strands of saffron, or use a mix.  I won´t judge you!

So, here´s how I made this paella.  I can´t claim my version today is typically Andaluz, it was a ”what have we got in the fridge?” kind of day.  The beauty of this is that you can make it however you fancy.

  • A cup of cooked chicken
  • A quarter cup of diced jamon
  • Two cloves of crushed garlic
  • One small onion, finely chopped
  • One long thin green pepper, finely chopped
  • A stick of celery finely chopped
  • A cup of chopped tomatoes
  • About 3 cups of chicken stock
  • One and a half cups of rice
  • Seasoning
  • Olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons of hot pimentón (optional)
  • Paella spices
  • Lemons to serve

You can make this in a large frying pan if you don´t have a paella pan, or a saucepan if you want to make arroz. The paella pan in the photo is meant to serve four (!).  We ate about two thirds of it between the two of us and there was enough left over for a few tapas portions the next day.

Soften your onion, celery and pepper in olive oil and then add the crushed garlic.  When the garlic has softened, add your pimentón (or chilli powder) and spices and stir in. Now add your tomatoes and cook gently for a minute or two then put your chicken, jamon and stock in and allow to boil.  I find that for a paella I use double the quantity of liquid to rice, 3 times for arroz. 

When the liquid is boiling, add the rice and some seasoning, stir it all around and reduce the heat.  I often partly cover the dish with a large lid.  You don´t need to stir it like a risotto, some will stick on the bottom, but in my house we fight for those bits!  I can´t be more precise about quantities as a lot will depend on how much liquid your rice absorbs. Have a pot of boiling water or stock on the side and if you feel it´s cooking too quickly add a little more.

When the rice is almost cooked, but not quite there, turn it off and cover it.  Use tin foil or a lid.  These last few minutes “resting” are important.  Here they say that arroz can be “mal cocinado, pero bien reposado” which means badly cooked but well rested.  Hopefully yours will be both bien cocindao and bien reposado!

Laid back and rested rice

And that´s it, serve with plenty of lemons to squeeze over and a glass of your favourite wine.

I´ll do a seafood version soon – my two best girlfriends in the world are coming to stay tomorrow, so no doubt we´ll have plenty of cooking, eating and wine drinking sessions together that I can share with you all!

Chicken Pinchito Salad

Chica Andaluza10 Comments
A tickle of spices...

Pinchos, or Pinchitos, are Spain´s answer to Kebabs.  Despite their “Moorish” (i.e. Arabic) origins, they are usually made of pork, but you can also find them made of chicken.  This is typical Feria food, cooked in front of you at the bar, speared with a slice of bread, and if they use metal skewers, you just hand them back when you´ve finished eating!

The spices which the cubes of meat are rubbed in can vary slightly, shops and butchers sell their own mixes.  Typically though it´s a mix which is like Ras el hanout, which is used widely in North Africa, from which Andalucía receives many food influences. 

When we went to Morocco earlier this year, we bought a supply of spices to see us through a few months and because it´s so good, I didn´t want to just save it for kebabs. 

Beautiful Spices...

Here´s an easy salad, which (if you have any kind of spice mix you like to use on meat) you can pull together from store cupboard ingredients.  This recipe made a light supper for two.

For the salad

  • Two chicken thighs deboned, cubed and rubbed in 1 heaped tablespoon of spice mix and seasoned with salt.  These are then cooked on the griddle (plancha) with a small amount of olive oil and left to cool
  • 6 rashers of streaky bacon cooked for 6 minutes in the microwave then left to cool and roughly chopped
  • 2 medium cooked potatoes, peeled and cubed
  • Half a cos lettuce finely chopped
  • Half a cup of pitted black olives, roughly chopped
  • One small green pepper, finely sliced

For the dressing

  • Half a cup of mayonnaise
  • Two tablespoons of milk
  • An additional teaspoon of spice mix
  • A squeeze of lemon juice
  • Salt and Pepper

Mix all the salad ingredients in a large bowl then in a jar shake together all the dressing ingredients.  Pour over the salad and toss well to get all the dressing into the leaves.  Would also be good with some croutons.

Spring Chicken One Pot

Chica Andaluza12 Comments
 
Bedding Down for a Slow Braise

Now, before I get going I have to apologise that I haven´t posted a photo of the finished dish!  It´s been a cold, wet rainy day up the mountain after a very stormy night.  Big Man, the two dogs and I were tired and grizzly after a night of no sleep and needed comfort food to fill our bellies and soothe our frazzled nerves.  I can only think that we were so in need of something calming that we were tucking in and sipping a glass of Rioja before I realised that I hadn´t snapped the finished result. Apologies, it was a delicious bowl of braised chicken, spring vegetables and steaming mashed potatoes.

Because we don´t have a machine to pluck our chickens for us, and as I don´t have the patience to pluck chickens “en masse”, they are skinned after dispatch and usually cut up and frozen.  One chicken was kept whole so that I could cook a one pot dish, and today was its day.  I cooked it slowly on the hob in a large tagine that I have, but it can equally well be cooked in a heavy based saucepan with a tight fitting lid (I think they may be called Dutch Ovens in the US) either on the hob or in a very slow oven.

It´s a simple dish with only a little preparation, then you go away and forget about it for a few hours whilst enjoying the smells of slowly braising chicken wafting through your home. 

Here´s how to do it…

  • One whole chicken (with or without skin) or chicken pieces for however many people you are cooking for
  • About 3-4 carrots per person, peeled and cut into large chunks
  • A cup of broad beans per person  (but  feel free to use whatever vegetable is seasonal)
  • Half an onion roughly chopped per person
  • A tablespoon of chopped parsley and of olive oil per person
  • Grated lemon rind to taste and the juice of half a lemon per person
  • Seasoning
  • About 2 medium potatoes per person, peeled and quartered – keep these in a bowl of water until needed
  • Extra olive oil
  • Milk (optional)

Mix the carrots, beans, onion, parsley, lemon zest, juice and olive oil in a bowl.  Season to taste.

Crunchy Spring Vegetables

Put half the vegetable mix at the bottom of your cooking dish then place the chicken on top.  Use the rest of the vegetables to fill the chicken cavity and tuck and the lemon shells in with the chicken.

Rub a little olive oil, salt and pepper over the chicken, put the lid on and place on a low heat.  This needs to cook very slowly for about two hours.  Check every so often and if it looks as though it´s drying out, add about half a glass of water.  If the lid of your pot fits well, you should find that the chicken starts to cook in its own steam.  When the chicken is almost cooked (i.e. it looks cooked on the outside but the juices do not quite run clear when you stab a thigh with a skewer), remove the lemon shells and put the potatoes in on top of the bed of vegetables and around the chicken.

The potatoes will take about another half an hour to cook, by which time the chicken will be cooked.

Remove the potatoes and mash with a little milk or the juice from the chicken and vegetables – it´s your choice!

Serve the chicken with the vegetables and mashed potato.  Now you only have one cooking pot to wash up and, if you have them, you can use any leftovers plus the bones to make a delicious stock for another day.

Chicken, Chive & Sweetcorn Fritters

Chica Andaluza8 Comments
Don´t Burn Yourself!

Having spent the day rushing around and generally being a busy bee, I wanted something quick and easy for a light supper.  Leftovers from a chargrilled chicken dish made the night before included most of a chicken breast, so I decided to make some fritters and serve them with a big mixed salad.

Here in Andalucía they often make fritters with salt cod (which has been soaked and desalted) and serve them with Molasses (or sugar cane honey as it´s called here) drizzled over. When I was first introduced to this concept, I wasn´t sure it was going to be for me.  The idea of sweet and salty mixed together seemed strange, but then I thought about how in the UK we often eat meats with fruit sauces (pork with apple sauce, turkey with cranberry) and realised that it wasn´t such a weird idea.  I´m so glad I did give it a go as it´s a fantastic combination and works really well with these fritters. 

Beautiful Jar of Miel de Caña

If you just can´t face the thought of Molasses though, a sweet chilli dipping sauce or mayonnaise also tastes great with these little fritters.

Ingredients used (which are approximate) made 14 fritters.

  • 1 x 150g sweetcorn which I blended to make creamed corn (we can´t get it here)
  • Half a large or one small chicken breast, grilled and then finely chopped
  • 4 heaped tablespoons of self raising (or cake) flour
  • About half the empty can full of milk
  • 2 tablespoons of finely chopped chives
  • 1 egg
  • Seasoning
  • Oil for frying (I used olive oil)

In a bowl add the flour and egg to the sweetcorn and mix well. Gradually add the milk until you get a paste the consistency of a thick porridge. You may not use all the milk, or you may need a little more, it will depend on your flour.  Add the chicken and chives and season to taste.

Heat your oil in a deep frying pan and when ready, drop heaped tablespoons of the mixture in, flattening them out slightly with the back of the spoon. 

Each side will take about a minute to cook, remove, drain and serve.  And if you´re feeling Spanish, you can call them Tortillitas de Pollo, Cebollina y Maiz. Olé!

Chicken with Mushrooms and Artichokes

Chica Andaluza1 Comment

Once you´ve planted a couple of artichoke plants, they seem to last for a couple of years.  As long as you keep cutting the “fruit”, more keep on growing.  A couple of weeks ago we cut more than we needed, so stop them from getting too big and tough and a peeled off the outer leaves to reveal the hearts, blanched them in water with lemon juice to stop them turning black and then froze what we didn´t use.

As we now have more artichokes blooming, I thought I should use up the batch from the freezer (although a tin of artichoke hearts would do just as well).  I also had some chicken breasts which would go well with the artichokes in a lovely dish with a thick sauce.  Neither Big Man nor I are huge fans of the chicken breast, but when you rear your own chickens for eating, you´re always going to have them!

Ingredients for this dish for two are

  • One large or two small chicken breasts, cut into small cubes
  • A tin of artichoke hearts or about 8 fresh ones (prepared as above), sliced into quarters
  • Half a dozen medium sized mushrooms, thickly sliced
  • Two fat cloves of garlic, thickly sliced
  • Two cloves, ground (or about a quarter of a teaspoon of ground cloves) with about 5 peppercorns (or use half a dozen twists of freshly ground black pepper)
  • Half a teaspoon of paprika
  • A pinch of saffron soaked in a tablespoon of water (if you have a packet of paella spices, you can use half a packet in place of the cloves, pepper, paprika and saffron)
  • Two thick slices of day old bread, crumbled roughly
  • A bay leaf
  • A sprig of thyme (optional)
  • Salt
  • Olive oil
  • Water
  • A glass of white wine (optional) plus one for drinking while cooking (not optional in my kitchen)

Start by lightly browning the chicken in a little olive oil in a deep frying pan or a wide saucepan.  Then add the garlic, artichokes and mushrooms and fry gently until the mushrooms and artichokes start to brown.

Browning Nicely

Add the spices and herbs and season with a little salt.  Pour over the wine and enough water to comfortably cover everything and simmer, without a lid, for about 15 minutes. 

When the liquid has reduced by about half, but is still watery, remove the herbs and then add the bread crumbs, stirring as you do this.  You will simmer this for another 5 minutes stirring a couple of times.  The sauce will come together and will look smoother, with some texture from the bread after a couple of minutes.  You want to end up with a sauce roughly the texture of a thick gravy.  If it looks too runny near the end of cooking, add another half a slice of bread.  If it´s too liquid, just simmer until it gets to the consistency you want – it´s down to you! Check and adjust the seasoning, and you´re ready.

This can be prepared ahead and reheated, and takes about 40 minutes to prepare from scratch.

Looking Rustic

Delicious served either as a “spoon dish” (as they call dishes the consistency of stew which are served in bowls and eaten, as expected, with a spoon) if you prefer the sauce more liquid with bread and a side salad or with some green beans,  mashed potato or rice.

Easy Chicken Curry

Chica Andaluza2 Comments
Yum Yum!
Easy Chicken Curry

As Big Man was out and about today, and not home for lunch as he usually is, I thought I´d make the most of the opportunity to cook a curry – he´s not a big fan of them.  So, not having a ton of spices to hand but finding a jar of curry paste in the “despensa”, that´s a Spanish Larder, I concocted something quick-ish and delicious from what I found in the fridge.  Please bear in mind that I am not great at giving measurements.  This recipe could well have been made with no meat and lots more different vegetables.  I also like my curries with a lot of “sauce” so how much water you add to your curry is entirely up to you.  Start with a mug full and when is has reduced stop, if you like it “drier”, or add another mug and reduce just a little more.  It´s all down to personal taste.

  • Two small chicken breasts (from our own hens) diced
  • One medium tomato, peeled and diced (or about a third of a tin of tomatoes)
  • A mug full of split lentils, rinsed then cooked in twice their volume of water for about 10 minutes and drained
  • 1 small onion finely chopped
  • About an inch of fresh garlic, peeled and finely chopped
  • 2 fat garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • A small red pepper (the last from our vegetable garden from last summer, can you believe it in January?!) finely chopped
  • 8 leaves of chard (again from the veggie garden) with the white stalk removed (and given to the chickens) finely shredded
  • Three large tablespoons of Madras Paste (or whatever you fancy)
  • About a third of a block of cream of coconut dissolved in 150ml of hot water then beaten – but feel free to leave this out if you want a lower cal version of the curry
  • Water
  • Vegetable Oil

 So, in a medium (but deep) frying pan I softened the onion, garlic and ginger in about a tablespoon of oil for several minutes until it was transparent then added the tomato and red pepper for a further 5 minutes or so.  The heat was low to medium, so everything was “sweating” rather than frying.

Then I added the curry paste which I cooked off for about 2 minutes then threw in the chicken pieces, stirred it around for a few moments and added a mug full of water and the lentils.  I let this reduce, then added the shredded chard (but you could use spinach or just leave it out) and another mug full of water.

When this had reduced by about half I added the creamed coconut, cooked for about 3 minutes gently and that was it! If I´d had some fresh coriander to chop finely and sprinkle over, I´d have added this too.  Unfortunately I didn´t, so I just had to imagine it…

I served it with basmati rice, poppadums and a small bowl of yogurt to dollop and dunk.

It serves four if, especially if you make a side dish to go with it, two hungry people if not…

Stir it all in!

or just me today and leftovers tomorrow.  Enjoy!