Quick chicken, tomato and spinach curry

 

Ok, the photo is a shocker but, in my defence, curries are notoriously hard to photograph.  Just to prove my point, there is no photo of this recipe in the cookbook where the recipe was published and … there was no photo on the web page featuring this recipe.  But I was not going to let that deter me.  If you have been following this blog for a while, you would have seen some shockers.  What is one more?

I chose this recipe because I have a lot of silverbeet in the freezer and I wanted to use some of it before the next lot matures.  The recipe calls for fresh baby spinach which is barely wilted.  If I had stuck to the recipe, I am sure my photo would have been more attractive but … I would have one more container of silverbeet in the freezer.  Even though I don’t have any fresh potatoes from the garden and the tomato harvest was not the best this year, I can imagine a time when all the vegetables in this dish did come from my garden.  I would love that. The trick will be to have them all ready to harvest at the same time.  Even without that pleasure, it is certainly a recipe I would make again.

Also, I love that word “quick”.  I find more and more people don’t have the time or the inclination to be preparing dinner from scratch every night.  We want a meal which is quick to make but still tasty and nourishing.  This one ticks all the boxes.  I have simplified it even more than the published version.  This is a recipe for those days where we really don’t feel like cooking.

The recipe calls for skinned chicken thighs.  I bought a whole chicken and cut it into eight pieces.  It will be enough for 3 meals for us which is a double bonus – two cook free days ahead.  You could also buy chicken marylands and cut them into two.  The important thing is, you need skinned chicken on the bone.

The recipe is by Belinda Jeffery from her book Tried and True Recipes.

Ingredients:

• About ⅓ cup oil
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 2 tbs* fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 1-2 red chillies, seeds and all, finely chopped
• 2-3 tbs* curry paste (Belinda recommends Madras curry paste)
• 6-7 chicken thighs, bone-in and skinned – or four chicken marylands cut into two or a whole chicken cut into eight pieces
• 3 medium size potatoes, cut into small chunks (about 1.5cm)
• ⅔ cup water
• 400g can tomatoes, coarsely chopped
• salt and  black pepper, to taste
• lemon or lime juice, to taste
• About 125g baby spinach leaves (or silverbeet (fresh or frozen))

*These are 20 mil tablespoons.

Method:

1. Heat the oil over medium heat in a large, heavy-based frying pan.
2. Add the garlic, ginger and chillies and cook them, stirring constantly, for a few minutes.
3. Add the curry paste and cook it, stirring all the while, for a minute or so until it smells fragrant.
4. Add the chicken, cook for 2-3 minutes, making sure each piece is coated in the curry mixture.
5. Add the potatoes, again making sure they’re well coated.
6. Pour in the water, tomatoes (liquid and all), salt and pepper. Bring it to the boil then reduce the heat, cover the pan and simmer for about 25 minutes, turning the chicken occasionally.
7. Uncover the pan and cook the curry for a further 10 minutes or so until the chicken is cooked to your liking and the liquid has boiled down and thickened a bit.
8. Add a squeeze of lemon juice. Taste the sauce, adding more lemon or salt if needed.
9. Reduce the heat, add the spinach and stir it in until just wilted.

 

It’s all about my capsicums

Look at my capsicums, would you?  I have to pinch myself.  I cannot believe how gorgeous they are.  It never occured to me that I would ever grow such beauties.  Previous attempts resulted in small, thin skinned capsicums that never turned red.

It’s our 40th anniversary!!!!

and we are home alone – no family, no friends, no party, no overseas romantic getaway and no presents! –

But who cares?  Look how gorgeous we were?

Simon Bryant’s Samosas

Who remembers The Cook and the Chef?   I used to love that show.

I started out a real Maggie Beer fan.  I mean I really loved her.  I have eight of her cookbooks which is not a bad effort. I even have autographed copies of her first two books, Maggie’s Orchard and Maggie’s Farm and, thanks to Maus, an autographed copy of Maggie’s Harvest.

Ok, I know, I am weird …

But what am I to do?   I can’t help it.

The latest example of this personality flaw happened a couple of weeks ago.  It was our friend Di’s birthday and, as we are social distancing, she couldn’t celebrate it in the usual way so she asked if she, and her husband Fred, could come around for driveway drinks.

Cheese and spinach triangles

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It is funny how I have been writing this blog for about eight years and still I haven’t posted some of my favourite recipes, recipes I make year after year.

We all have a recipe that you know you can rely on when someone asks us to “bring a plate” or when friends come over for drinks and nibblies.  Mine is these spinach and cheese triangles.  I think that is why I haven’t posted the recipe.  I don’t usually have time to arrange a nice photo when I have anticipatory guests and, in any event, it is very hard to take an interesting photo of some brown pastries.  I did my best.

Whatcha been doin’?

We have been cooking.  It feels comforting to be cooking.  I am getting really bad cabin fever which is a grand effort on seven acres.  I know just about everyone else is worse off than me but ….. grrrrrrrr.

It is not just because of the coronavirus.   A few years back, we leased our house in Perth.  This was because looking after two houses was getting to be a real pain in the arse.  Instead, we stayed in our flat when we visited Perth.  The flat worked out perfectly until we got the puppies because, unfortunately, the flat is carpeted throughout.

In search of the perfect ANZAC

Maus made some ANZACs the other day.  They were very good but not quite perfect… which got me thinking (Oh, no!).

Sour dough Straun bread

Hello everyone.

In February 2015 I wrote a post on Peter Reinhart’s Straun bread recipe (here is the link). The recipe was from Peter Reinhart’s first book, Brother Juniper’s Bread Book.  As I mentioned in my previous post when the first edition of Brother Juniper’s Bread Book was published, Peter Reinhart was living in a semi-monastic community of Eastern Orthodox Christians running a restaurant and bakery called Brother Juniper’s Cafe.  The most popular item at the café was this Struan bread.

First job done!

I have cleaned out my pantry and I am very proud of myself.

We had stocked up on a few items and the pantry was getting a bit full and very messy so I decided to do something about it. I am so glad I did because I had a few unpleasant surprises.  I recently bought two cans of fish but during my clean out, I found we already had three.  Damn it!  I am so grumpy with myself.  I hate doing that.  It looks like we will be having salmon patties and salmon mornay soon.  I also bought a few tins of sardines and there was one already there but, they are for the dogs, and will go quickly, so I am ok with that.  And I found some out of date noodles.  I will have to learn to practice what I preach 😦 . They may be a little too old to save.