Category: cloves

Categories
breadcrumbs cardamom carrots chicken cloves curry food peppers rice

chicken katsu curry

chicken katsu curry wagamama style

Whenever my son is offered a treat out to a restaurant, say for a birthday or good school report, before I’ve even finished the question he replies “Wagamama“. And he always orders the same thing: chicken katsu curry.

I’ve hard arguments with people on Twitter about Wagamama in the past; that it is lowest common denominator stuff, that it’s Westernised muck… they are aiming at global appeal to be sure. I can’t speak to its authenticity but I know I like what their kitchen serves up. My favourite dish by a long shot is yaki soba, and I must’ve had it a hundred times in and out of the restaurant.

But the katsu curry is really good too. Super-crunchy chicken and a spiky curry sauce, with fluffy rice to soak it up. I have got the Wagamama cookbook but this recipe isn’t in there, so here’s my interpretation which I think is pretty damn close.  They have salad alongside theirs, I went with some more Autumnal veg in fitting with October diets. But it’s the curry sauce I’m absolutely overjoyed with, a dead simple and really tasty condiment that goes with so many things.

Chicken katsu curry (serves 4):

4 chicken breasts

100g panko breadcrumbs

2 eggs, beaten

2 tablespoons flour

Mugful basmati rice

1 star anise

4 cloves

3 cardamom pods

2 carrots, peeled and diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 Knorr chicken stock pot

White wine vinegar

1 tablespoon Patak’s curry paste (whichever flavour you like)

400ml coconut milk (I like Maggi’s powder)

  1. You’ll need two frying pans and two saucepans on the go for this one. Sorry about that. You should also put the oven on a low setting, about 100°C and pop a baking tray in there.
  2. Get the large saucepan over a medium heat and add the rice, the star anise, cloves, cardamom and two mugfuls of water. Cover and stir occasionally while you get on with everything else.
  3. In another saucepan, gently fry the carrots for a minute in a little oil. Then barely cover the carrots with water and add half the stock pot. Simmer. After 5 minutes, add the peppers and when all the liquid is reduced add a punch of sugar and a dash of vinegar – check for seasoning.
  4. In a saucepan over a high heat, add the curry paste and cook out for a minute. Then add the coconut milk and the other half of the stock pot. Simmer until thick.
  5. Get a large frying pan, cover the base with oil and set it over a medium heat. Between two pieces of clingfilm bash the chicken breasts with a rolling pin until 1.5cm thick. Dust with seasoned flour, dip in egg then coat in breadcrumbs. Fry the chicken in batches as your pan allows, browning on both sides and transferring to the baking tray while you finish the rest.
  6. When all the chicken is cooked, the rice is fluffy (it will probably need some salt and pepper) and the veg is tender, serve with lashings of the curry sauce.


Gary Fennon

Categories
carrots chicken cinnamon cloves coriander cucumber cumin curry food garlic ginger lemon nigella seeds potatoes red onion

empire chicken with indian gravy and bombay roasties

What a triumph this is. Just when I was feeling a bit indifferent to Jamie Oliver’s Great Britain along comes this absolute belter. Jamie introduces this by saying most people when asked about their favourite foods will mention roast chicken and curries, and this utterly unites the heart of both of these.

With blackened, tangy skin the chicken comes out juicy and tickling on the tongue, although be warned it will make a mess of your oven as it sits on the rack.

Being the kind of blog this is though, I have to talk about the roast potatoes. They are a triumph. I used to get “spicy spuds” from a dubious takeaway near me and these are very, very close to those – crispy, spicy and fluffy.

I’ve made a few changes to the spices in the potatoes based on what I had, and used floury over new pots to get them really crispy. I’ve served mine with a refreshing salad.

I cannot recommend this recipe enough.

Jamie’s original recipe is here.

Empire chicken, Bombay roasties, Indian gravy and refreshing salad (serves 4):

For the chicken and marinade

1.4kg free-range chicken

1 heaped tablespoon each finely grated garlic, fresh ginger and fresh red chilli

1 heaped tablespoon tomato purée

1 heaped teaspoon each of ground coriander, turmeric, garam masala and ground cumin

2 heaped teaspoons natural yoghurt

2 level teaspoons sea salt

For the gravy

1 stick of cinnamon

2 small red onions, peeled

10 cloves

3 tablespoons each of white wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce

3 level tablespoons plain flour

500ml chicken stock

For the Bombay-style potatoes

800g new potatoes

sea salt and ground pepper

1 lemon

2 or 3 tablespoons olive oil

a knob of butter

1 heaped teaspoon each of nigella seeds, ground coriander, garam masala, fenugreek and turmeric

1 bulb of garlic

Pinch of chilli flakes

For the salad

½ a cucumber, peeled

3 carrots, peeled

1 red onion, peeled

½ lemon

    1. Slash the chicken’s legs a few times right down to the bone. Mix all the marinade ingredients together and smear all over the chicken. Leave to marinate overnight.
    2. Preheat the oven to 200°C and organize your shelves so the roasting tray can sit right at the bottom, the chicken can sit directly above it, right on the bars of the shelf, and the potatoes can go at the top.
    3. Cut the potatoes into golf-ball size pieces then parboil them in a large pan of salted boiling water with a whole lemon for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through. Drain the potatoes then let them steam dry. Stab the lemon a few times with a sharp knife and put it right into the chicken’s cavity.
    4. Roughly chop the onions and add to a roasting tray along with the cinnamon stick, cloves, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce, then whisk in the flour. Pour in the stock or water, then place this right at the bottom of the oven. Place the chicken straight on to the bars of the middle shelf, above the roasting tray. Cook for 1 hour 20 minutes.
    5. Put a roasting tray in the oven for five minutes to get hot. Add the olive oil, butter, the spices, halve a bulb of garlic and add it straight to the pan. Add your drained potatoes to the tray, mix everything together, then season well. After the chicken has been in for 40 minutes, put the potatoes in.
    6. Once the chicken is cooked, move it to a board to rest. Pass the gravy through a coarse sieve into a pan, whisking any sticky goodness from the pan as you go. Bring to the boil and either cook and thicken or thin down with water to your preference (I had to add some boiling water to deglaze the surface and make a sauce out of it.
    7. For the salad, use a vegetable peeler to make thin strips of the carrot and cucumber. Then finely slice the onion and add this to it. Add a pinch each of salt and sugar, then squeeze over the lemon and toss to combine. Leave for 15 minutes while everything else finishes off.
    8. Get your potatoes out of the oven and put them into a serving bowl, then serve the chicken on a board next to the sizzling roasties and hot gravy.
Categories
cloves gammon ham honey

honey-glazed christmas ham

I absolutely adore a ham or gammon at Christmas. My Mum always had one hanging around the house from Christmas Eve onwards, and it’s something I still do every year. I favour twice-cooking, a long boiling followed by a fierce blast in the oven with a sticky sauce dribbled over the top. I spotted Gordon Ramsay’s recipe from this year’s and knew I had to give it a try.

One of the key things that makes or breaks a dish like this is the quality of the meat. Start from a poorly-reared, not-looked-after anonymous pig and you’ll end up with a bland pointless dinner. It’ll probably be watery, tasteless and feel like a massive waste of time. Do you and your family a favour when buying gammon (or any other meat for that matter) – go up a level in the quality of meat you buy. Put the Basics range to one side and get something a little better. More expensive yes, but with a fuller flavour and the peace of mind that your animal had a decent life. Freedom Food, outdoor reared, outdoor bred, free-range or organic – these are the labels to look for.

If you’d like to learn more about pig welfare, please visit the RSPCA’s Think Pig Facebook page.

This recipe, based on Gordon Ramsay’s, was great. The key is to repeat the glazing over and over, every ten minutes or so. This will help deepen the flavour and form a beautifully sweet and tasty crust that’s irresistible. Aside from as a roast dinner, I also ate this with some bubble and squeak, as a sandwich and with some chutney. Then I also got a wicked stock to make a soup from, so although the meat is expensive in the first place it’s a dish that keeps on giving.

Adapted from a recipe by Gordon Ramsay. The original honey glazed ham recipe is here.

Honey-glazed Christmas ham:

2.5kg unsmoked gammon joint

4 carrots, roughly chopped

2 celery sticks, roughly chopped

1 onion, quartered

4 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1 tablespoon coriander seeds

1 cinnamon stick

3 bay leaves

A handful of cloves

For the glaze:

100g golden caster sugar

50ml Marsala

25ml sherry vinegar

125g honey

  1. Put the gammon in a large pot along with the veg, peppercorns, coriander, cinnamon and bay. Barely cover with water, bring to the boil and leave to simmer for about 3 hours, or until you can easily sink a knife into it. Every so often skim and scum that floats to the surface. Allow the meat to rest in the liquor for at least half an hour, but any more or less wouldn’t hurt.
  2. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. Melt the glaze ingredients together gently in a saucepan.
  3. Remove the skin from the gammon and score the fat in a pretty diamond pattern. Stud each diamond with a clove. Very gently trickle some glaze over the meat. Take your time and make sure the whole surface is covered. Pop in the oven.
  4. After 10 minutes take the ham out and repeat the glaze, again gently. Do this every 10 minutes until the gammon has cooked for 40 minutes, when the joint is a gorgeous golden brown. Allow to rest for 10 minutes before carving. It’s amazing, and brilliant cold too.
Exit mobile version