Bombay Chicken Masala

On Sunday evening I had all good intentions of writing an account of our cold, blustery, but fun weekend camping in the Peak District...however I borrowed someones compact digital camera and am struggling to get the photos off. That post will have to wait!

I'm a big fan of Indian food and slowly I'm learning how to cook curries at home from scratch that are just as good as the local Balti House. When we first moved into our cottage 3 years ago my Mum gave me a copy of 30-minute Indian by Sunil Vijayakar. Back then I wasn't the most confident cook and the list of ingredients scared me, so the cookbook sat at the back bookshelf. In the summer of last year, I dusted the book down and decided to have another go.

Tonight I wanted to cook a curry that didn't involve cream/coconut cream (like most curries I cook do) and found a recipe in 30-min Indian for Bombay Chicken Masala. What I like about this cookbook is that it tells you how to cook a curry from scratch, unlike the majority of food mags that tell you to use ready-made curry paste. I'll hold my hands up to using Thai curry paste at the moment as I can't get hold of the right ingredients near me, but considering I'm not too far from the Curry Capital of the UK I can get my hand on Indian ingredients relatively easily. Along with the curries, it also tells you how to make the accompaniments including paneer, barfi and puris.

I have to admit I was a bit scared when I saw the amount of chillis going into the curry, but there was no need to worry. It produced a beautifully fragrant, light curry where you could taste the chillis rather than having your head blown off by them. We really enjoyed the curry and am planning to cook some more from this cookbook soon.

Bombay Chicken Masala
Serves 2

3 shallots, roughly chopped
3 green chillies, deseeded and chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 tsp grated ginger
1/2 tbsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
handful of fresh coriander leaves, roughly chopped
70ml water
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 chicken fillets, cut into strips
125ml chicken stock
salt & pepper

1) In a blender blitz shallots, chillies, garlic, ginger, ground coriander, cumin, coriander leaves and water until you have a paste.

2) In a wok, heat rapeseed oil then fry paste for 1 min. Keep stirring, or it'll stick to the bottom of the pan. Add the chicken, stir until thoroughly coated in the paste and cook for a further 2-3 min.

3) Pour in stock, cover and gently simmer for 10-12min until chicken is tender. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

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