Cooking is all about improvisation. Results not guaranteed, of course. But, tonight, my little improv worked a treat. The original dish: chicken korma (from Jamie’s Ministry of Food). I present you: chicken korma-chameleon.
chicken korma-chameleon
800g skinless and boneless chicken breasts
2 medium onions
a thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger
a small bunch of fresh coriander
1×400g tin of chickpeas
groundnut or vegetable oil
a knob of butter
half a jar of Patak’s korma curry paste
1×400ml tin of coconut milk
a small handful of flaked almonds
2 heaped teaspoons of desiccated coconut
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
500g natural yoghurt
1 lemon
What I did:
Cut chicken in approx 3cm pieces. Peeled, halved and finely sliced the onions. Peeled and finely chopped the ginger. Drained the chickpeas.
Put a large pan on a high heat and added about one tablespoonful of canola oil (Cut down from Jamie’s couple of lugs). Stirred in the onions, ginger and coriander seeds (Did not have any fresh coriander at home) with the butter, making sure they didn’t burn (about 10 minutes).
Added tikka curry paste (Cold Storage didn’t have korma curry paste), coconut milk and fresh milk (I used 200ml of coconut milk and 200ml of fresh milk to cut down on the fat), pine nuts (didn’t have almonds at home), chickpeas, four chopped tomatoes (I added this for extra taste), a bunch of baby potatoes (I added this for extra taste too) and chicken breasts (I left the desiccated coconut out as I didn’t have any).
Half filled the empy tin with water, poured into the pan and stirred again.
Brought to a boil, then turned the heat down and simmered for an hour (twice as long as the 30mins Jamie called for) with the lid on. Added more water during that hour so that the curry wouldn’t dry out.
Did not season or serve with any sea salt, freshly ground pepper, natural yoghurt nor lemon.
Served it with crusty bread and blanched broccoli.
Damo had quite a few helpings of the curry and cleaned up his bowl. I guess the improv worked pretty well! We managed to get through less than half of the dish, so we’ll be having the leftovers for dins tomorrow (and possibly the next day too). But, we’ll be trying it out tomorrow with basmati rice instead.
On a side note, Jamie’s Ministry of Food cookbook is really really simple, no frills, idiot-proof and suitable for anyone who has never cooked before. That said, it is a little boring if you’re quite a seasoned cook and are looking for something more challenging or adventurous to whip up. Anyway, we bought the book at half-price for £12.50 at Waterstone’s in London, so… what am I complaining about?
Korma-korma-korma-korma-korma-chameleon… mmmm…