Baked Chicken Curry with Green Beans and Rice

This recipe originates from Madhur Jaffrey, Curry Easy, but has been adapted a little. My dad got the book from Christmas (I don't think he's used it !) and it looked so good I had to go and buy a copy for myself.

I've used it a few times now and can really recommend this book for easy and tasty home made curries, most with minimal effort and suitable for weeknight cooking. I made this about 5 or 6 weeks ago. I'm afraid I still have a big backlog of blogging to do ... Despite the diet, I'm intending making this again soon but will sub the rice for some roasted red peppers that have been simply seasoned and just rubbed with the tiniest bit of olive oil.

The original recipe used 1.25kg of bone-in chicken, but I used 1kg of boneless chicken breast and drastically reduced cooking time

Ingredients for curry

1kg chicken breast fillets, each cut into bigish pieces but not too thick

1 tsp salt

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

1 large clove of garlic, crushed

5 tablespoons of greek yoghurt

1.1/2 tablespoons ground corriander

2 tsp ground cumin

3/4 tsp ground turmeric

1/2 a tsp of cayenne pepper (or double as I did for a bit more punch)

6 cardamom pods

oil (for basting

4 tablespoons finely chopped red onion

Put the chicken in a large , non reactive dish in a single layer. Season with salt and pepper and the lemon juice. Set aside whilst you prepare the other ingredients

Combine all other ingredients (cumin, corriander, yoghurt, cracked cardamom pods, turmeric and cayenne) in a bowl and then smear this all over the chicken. Cover with cling film and refrigerate overnight.

Bring your marinaded chicken to room temperature the following day.

Preheat fan oven to 1800deg C

Put the chicken on a baking tray and drizzle with a little olive oil.

Scatter the chopped onions over the top and bake for 15 minutes.

Take out the oven, turn the chicken pieces over and baste with any juices / onion pieces. Cook for another 15 mins at approx 200deg C.

For halogen oven cooking, cook on backing tray at top rack at 250deg C (grill function) The chicken pieces will be cooked from raw in approx 12 minutes or less.

Serve the baked chicken with rice and your choice of vegetables. I used some green beans, boiled until just cooked and then stir fried with some cumin seeds, mustard seeds and linseed.

My mum and Oliver, Mellon Udrigle - late August 2011

At the end of last month, I took a trip with Oliver to the very north of Scotland to tiny little place called Mellon Udrigle where my parents have bought a little beach house.... It's quite a long trip to get there (plane flight and then 5 hours or so by car). Oliver and I intended to stay up there for a week, but unfortunately we had to make an emergency trip back home after just two days as my husband was taken very ill.

You really cannot get closer to a beach, and it's right on a secluded little bay. The weather when we were there was pretty dire - the whole of the UK was having very high winds and rain. In the two days, I think Oliver only got on the beach for about 2 hours total. You can see there is a lot of seaweed on the beach, ripped up from the seabed floor during the storm.  I believe all the seaweed was taken back out to sea the following day and the beach left clean.

Steve is still very poorly. We spent Sunday night in a&e at the hospital. Doctors again tomorrow - it's been going on for a month now and we need some answers ! Rather stressful around here at the moment.

Another photo - shows how close the beach house is to the sands ! A stones throw....

I've had a few emails asking how the diet's going. I'm good thanks. 3.1/2 weeks in, 13lb down. Long road ahead - but I've adjusted well. Been doing a bit of baking (though not eating it personally) and have a few things to blog soon. You might start seeing things like loads of soup recipes in a month or so - as I'm generally having a bowl of homemade soup once a day and some salad or lean meat / fish and some fresh veg. That's about it..... but I'm not missing sugary stuff or carbs. Long may it continue !

Sarah-Jane Nash, www.siliconemoulds.com  - September 2011