Category: curry

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chicken coconut curry food tomato

jamie oliver’s cornershop curry

cornershop curry

Unashamedly lifted from one of his YouTube videos, I had to write down Jamie Oliver’s cornershop curry as it’s a blinder. It’s not complicated, but I’ve made it twice and people have begged for more.

The whole thing is up there, but I’ve written it out below so I can make it again without having to watch the video! Go and check it out though, lots of classic Jamie shortcuts that don’t compromise on flavour. The gimmick is – as you may have guessed – is it is made from all store cupboard ingredients, or things easily found from your local convenience store. Jamie Oliver’s cornershop curry has now entered my regular rotation as a crowdpleaser. His approach is a fusion of traditional Indian flavours and techniques with a modern twist, making it a popular choice for UK home cooks and foodies alike.

My recommendation – not sponsored! – is to use Geeta’s mango chutney. It’s so good. Sweet but really heavily spiced, it builds a great base for this gravy and serve more on the side for dipping. Terrific!

I make one significant change: I brine the chicken breasts. If you have the time dunk your meat in salted water for a few hours beforehand; the chicken will be moist and so tasty. Very difficult to overcook too. Completely optional but I always do that if I’ve had time to prep.

By using ingredients that are readily available in most UK convenience stores, this dish is very accessible regardless of location or cooking experience. What’s great about Jamie Oliver’s cornershop curry recipe is that it can be easily adapted to suit different tastes and dietary requirements. For example, you can swap out the chicken for tofu or chickpeas to make it vegan or vegetarian-friendly. You can also adjust the level of spiciness to your liking, by adding a more potent curry paste. The versatility of this recipe makes it a go-to for busy weeknights or impromptu dinner plans, and the fact that it’s both delicious and nutritious is an added bonus.

Want more midweek curries? Try my turkey tikka, or this cauliflower and lentil curry. Or for more of a showstopper, my whole roast chicken katsu curry.

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jamie oliver's cornershop curry

A dead easy weeknight curry recipe you can knock out with common ingredients.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Indian
Keyword curry, easy
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Brining 6 hours
Servings 4
Calories 1300kcal
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the chicken and brine:

  • 2 chicken breasts
  • 1 star anise
  • table salt see method
  • 1/2 teaspoon turmeric

For the curry sauce:

  • 1 tablespoon curry paste whatever you like
  • 1 onion
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 4 cm piece of ginger
  • 1 large pepper deseeded and diced
  • 1 heaped tablespoon mango chutney
  • 400 g tinned tomatoes
  • 400 g light coconut milk

Instructions

For the brine:

  • Cover the chicken with a sheet of greaseproof paper, and bash them to about 2cm thick. Take a bowl deep enough to carry the chicken and put on scales. Fill with water and note the weight. Work out 6% of that weight (I usually shout at Google for the answer) and add that much salt. Add the star anise and turmeric, stir well and submerge the chicken. Leave in the brine between 3 and 6 hours.

For the curry sauce:

  • Peel and coarsely grate the onions, garlic and ginger. Put a large non-stick pan on a medium heat with 1 tablespoon of oil and the grated onion, garlic and ginger, stirring regularly.
  • After a few minutes add the pepper. Once the veg has softened, stir in the curry paste, followed by the mango chutney. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring regularly to avoid it catching and burning.
  • Add the tomatoes, breaking them up with a wooden spoon and scraping up any sticky bits from the base of the pan. Simmer for a few minutes.
  • Pour in the coconut milk then simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the consistency of your liking. You may wish to add a splash of water to get it right.
  • Drain and pat dry your chicken, discarding the brine ingredients. Either using a grill or frying pan, cook the chicken quickly on both sides over a high heat.
  • Remove the chicken to a board and thickly slice. If the chicken isn’t cooked through that's a good thing, as it will finish cooking in the sauce and not be overcooked. Stir the chicken slices into the simmering sauce for the last 5 minutes, or until cooked through. Season the sauce to your liking.
  • Serve the curry with rice and / or bread, and extra mango chutney.

Notes

You can sub out the protein for almost anything else, a piece of fish, cauliflower, tofu, seitan, whatever you want. Sub in a hotter paste for more fire in your belly.
Categories
curry curry powder lamb potatoes tomato

is HelloFresh worth using?

HelloFresh set me a challenge: recreate one of their recipes. HelloFresh have a wide range of recipes on their website, so I tried HelloFresh’s Bombay-style lamb curry. Was it as expensive? Was it easier than getting it delivered?

Delivery box recipe services send you a set amount of ingredients each week to make specific dinners. Set your dietary preferences, how often you want a delivery, and away you go. Weekly you’ll get ingredients delivered to your door. HelloFresh offer such a service, among others, and has been traditionally popular with professional couples, small families looking for inspiration, and those just looking to go beyond ready meals.

I browsed HelloFresh’s most popular recipes. I was impressed with the range of dishes from many different cuisines, none of which would look out of place on a modern TV cookery show. I asked Mrs Spud what she fancied and she asked for their lamb curry.

I won’t go through every stage of the recipe, you can read the recipe on HelloFresh’s website here.

It’s a quick stir-fry of lamb mince, tomatoes, green beans and onion served with lightly spiced potatoes. It was tasty! There’s not far to hide with the small amount of ingredients, and it reminds me of an dish I used to cook called balti beef. Definitely a good one for midweek meals.

I made a video of my thoughts and a quick cookalong. Have a look here:

Comparing cost

Per portion, my ingredients cost £4.32. You could probably get that down with bulk buying and buying cheaper brands, but I went for mid-range ingredients from Tesco.

HelloFresh have a blanket cost depending on how frequently you want meals delivered, so it varies per portion. But the range is from £3.22 to £5 per serving. I expected my meal to be much cheaper, but I was surprised how similar the costs were.

Comparing time

The time quoted on HelloFresh’s website was 20 minutes. I took about 26 minutes; I wasn’t hanging around but the additional peeling, chopping and grating added up. So the HelloFresh version is there.

Verdict

HelloFresh serve a perfect need for cook-curious but time-poor people. The cost surprised me the most, being really close when making from scratch. The pre-portioning made things quicker for sure. When you buy yourself you can end up with half a jar of something or a jar of spice you don’t know what else to do with. That also gives HelloFresh’s downside, in that the prepackaged ingredients are individually wrapped. This means less food waste, but a little more packaging waste. It’s a delicate balance but a good alternative if you want to expand your culinary horizons but want tested recipes.

HelloFresh’s lamb curry recipe is here

And check out the full range of HelloFresh’s recipes here

HelloFresh have sponsored this post; I was not give any instruction what to say and my opinion was not influenced.

Categories
chicken curry

whole roast chicken katsu curry

One of my favourite comfort foods is a chicken katsu curry. Crispy panko breadcrumbs, tender meat, mildly spiced curry sauce… it’s so enjoyable. You know what else I like? A roast chicken. So one Sunday I thought, why not combine the two? A whole roast chicken katsu curry!

Simple really; make a katsu-style sauce from two ingredients – or use your own katsu sauce if you prefer – then baste and roast a chicken on top. Easy!

I’ve served it here with another of my favourite things: roast cauliflower. And some rice perfumed with preserved lemons.

Why not try it for your next Sunday roast with a twist?

If you’d prefer a more usual chicken katsu curry, check out my recipe here. Or for something a little different, try my black garlic and chicken coconut curry.

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whole roast chicken katsu curry

Course Main Dish
Servings 6 people
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the chicken

  • 1 whole chicken about 1.5kg
  • 1 heaped tablespoon curry paste e.g. korma
  • 500 ml coconut milk
  • 50 g breadcrumbs panko if you can get them

For the tangy rice

  • 300 g basmati rice
  • 1 red onion
  • 1 preserved lemon
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil

For the roast cauliflower

  • 1 large cauliflower
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1/2 teaspoon cumin
  • 1 teaspoon black onion seeds

Instructions

For the chicken

  • Preheat the oven to 170C. You'll need two baking trays, and a lidded pot or dish.
  • Put a baking tray big enough to take the chicken on the hob and over a medium heat. Add the curry paste and cook for a minute until sizzling. Add the coconut milk and stir well to combine. Once the curry sauce starts to bubble, turn the heat off, put the chicken into the sauce and baste the chicken with some of the sauce. Put into the oven for about 1 hour 20 minutes, or until cooked to your liking. You may want to baste once or twice during cooking. After an hour, sprinkle over the breadcrumbs to crisp up.
  • Allow the chicken to rest for at least 10 minutes before carving and serving.

For the cauliflower

  • Trim the cauliflower of stalks and leaves, and enough base so it sits flat in a lidded pot. In a pestle and mortar combine the garlic, seeds and curry powder with a pinch of salt, and add oil to form a paste. Douse the cauliflower with the mixture, put into the pot and add the lid. Cook for 45 minutes or until tender.

For the rice

  • Fill your kettle with water and set to boil. Slice the onion into half moon. In a baking tray add some oil and put over a medium heat. Fry the onions for a couple of minutes until it starts to soften. Halve the lemon and add to the pan along with the rice and oil. Add 700ml of water from the kettle, a large pinch of salt and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until the rice is tender. You may need to add a splash more water if the rice on top starts to dry out.
Categories
black garlic chicken coconut curry garlic

black garlic and coconut chicken curry

Have you ever cooked with black garlic? It’s a sweeter, richer version of it’s whiter cousin. Sainsbury’s sent me some to try.

There’s no getting around it, it looks wrong. The flavour is very similar to regular garlic, but a bit like when you roast garlic cloves black garlic is a little sweeter and more intense. Wikipedia says it has balsamic vinegar-type flavours, and I can see that. The packet recommends eating it like a snack, but I’m not quite that antisocial. I did however get an idea to put it into a curry.

My black garlic and coconut curry uses leftover chicken from a roast as the main protein, but you could cook chicken separately and add to the pan, or use any leftover meat you like. It’d also be really good with some crispy tofu.

The garlic flavours are sweet and savoury at the same time, and coconut has similar properties so they’re really good together. You could use tinned coconut milk but I’m a big fan of powdered coconut milk as you can make up as much as you like, as rich as you like.

Thanks to Sainsbury’s sending some black garlic for me to try.

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black garlic and coconut chicken curry

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 400 g cooked chicken shredded
  • 2 tablespoons kecap manis
  • 1 inch ginger shredded
  • 3 cloves black garlic
  • 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
  • 1 onion sliced
  • 1 red pepper sliced
  • 400 ml coconut milk
  • 300 ml chicken stock
  • Handful of frozen peas

Instructions

  • In a bowl mash the black garlic with a fork and mix with the kecap manis, ginger and vinegar. Add the chicken and toss to coat thoroughly. Allow to mingle while you get on with the curry.
  • In a large frying pan heat a little oil over a high heat. Add the onions and peppers and stir fry until starting to soften. Add the chicken, coconut milk and chicken stock and bring to the boil. Add the peas and continue to cook until thickened. Adjust seasoning as required. Serve with rice and lime wedges.

Not enough curries for you?

Try Margot’s chicken korma

Or Nazima’s crab and coconut curry

Mabintu’s garlic and chickpea curry

More black garlic recipes

Michelle’s black garlic pate

Black garlic flatbreads

Black garlic and blue cheese bake

 

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