Easy, well-loved curry recipe

I don’t often do recipes on this blog but this curry is such a hit with our fussy eaters and our friends that as we were having it tonight I thought I really should blog about it. I won’t claim it as my own. It comes originally from the Cook Yourself Thin cookbook, so is pretty healthy but absolutely yummy. Now, this is no place for a curry purist, this isn’t proper homemade curry, but it is about as homemade as this busy mum gets when it comes to curry (and even busy dad is trained to make it).

I’ll give you the original recipe then tell you my modifications.

Chicken Tikka Masala

Serves 2

For the marinade:

1 tablespoon tikka masala curry paste (Patak’s is the best we’ve tried)

150g of 0% fat natural yoghurt

2 diced chicken breasts

salt

For the sauce:

1 rounded tablespoon tikka masala curry paste

1 onion finely chopped

200g passatta

200ml tin light coconut milk

1 tablespoon 0% fat natural yoghurt

handful chopped corriander

To make the marinade, mix curry paste, yogurt, chicken and salt together, cover and leave to marinade ideally overnight

Preheat oven to 220C/fan200C. Wipe marinade off chicken and place on a baking tray. Bake for 10 mins.

Meanwhile make the sauce by heating the curry paste in a saucepan. Add the onion and sweat slowly for 5-8 mins. Add passatta and coconut milk and bring to the boil. Turn down heat and add chicken. Cook over a low heat for 5 mins or until chicken cooked through. Finish by stirring through yoghurt and coriander.

Now, here’s what I do: almost never actually measure any of these ingredients. I’m fairly liberal with the curry sauce and just adjust to how much we have left. This recipe says it serves two, but all that passatta and coconut milk make for a very runny curry. We just add more meat and we can make it serve 2 adults and a 5 and 2 year old for two nights. Also we rarely use chicken breasts, we often use leftover roast chicken, in which case we might marinade in curry paste (if we remember) but don’t cook in the oven. just straight into the sauce. I’ve never added salt and can’t remember ever reading the instruction to wipe off the marinade so I’ve never done that!

When I can get away with it I add grated carrot and courgette in with the onion (carrots work best as they blend in with the sauce, or potatoes (it doesn’t keep so well over two days with potatoes as they go mushy, and I pre cook them if I do add them for a quicker meal). I have also never added coriander as I never have any, and to be honest any greenery makes Betty suspicious. I tend to add yoghurt on the plate rather than during cooking, but to be honest you could omit yoghurt from the whole recipe and it would still taste great.

Both our baby led weaned kids had this as soon as they could eat, mixed with rice (to thicken and make it easier to pick up) and with yoghurt to cool, both temperature and spice wise (though this isn’t a hot curry).

Everyone we feed this to loves it, and one friend who we loaned the cook book to has made it a staple of her household and evangelised to her friends too. I also shared it with a Twitter friend who’s family also loved it. Like I said, this isn’t for the curry connoisseur, but it is great easy, healthy dish, for a busy family, and even fussy kids.