Chicken, Aubergine & Coconut Curry

The original recipe for this comes from the new August 2011 OLIVE magazine. I've adapted it a little to suit the contents of my cupboards and fridge.

Some months ago, I promised myself that unless I made at least ONE thing from every food magazine I buy, I cannot have another. I do hang on to them for rather a long time and more often than not, it was just a case of flicking through pages and looking at pictures - just food porn and nothing else !

I was quite pleased to see a recipe for an aubergine curry, as one of the few things on Thursday in my fridge was a wrinkling aubergine in desperate need of using up.....

The colour of this curry was rather surprising. It was green. VERY green.. not just slightly green. Even my husband commented when he came in from work "What on earth are you cooking ?"

Flaked almonds were scattered over the top in the original recipe. I omitted these as neither of us really like flaked almonds. I used extra coconut milk and quite a bit of salt as well as using 3 red chillies instead of 2 green ones. Also added the chicken meat.

Recipe (serves 3 > 4)

1 x onion, roughly chopped

2 cloves of crushed garlic

3 red chillies, chopped

1 stalk of lemongrass

1/2 a small bunch of coriander

1 large aubergine

pack of boneless chicken thighs

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp turmeric

juice of a lime

1 can coconut milk

Whizz the first 5 ingredients in a mini blender.

Add 2 tbsp of cooking oil to a pan and fry the blended ingredients for a couple of minutes. Brown the meat and then add the coconut milk and lime juice. Simmer gently until tender, then season to taste and serve with basmati rice.

Easy week night meal !

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com - July 2011