Jamie Oliver's Chicken Tikka Masala

Here's  another recipe from the lovely Jamie Oliver for you all, this time one that actually worked better than my attempt at fishcakes, mainly because I had all the ingredients this time...  This was my first time making a homemade curry and I was pleasantly surprised at how it turned out - I've had curry sauces from jars before but I feel that it's always nicer to know exactly what goes into your food. 

For the Tikka Masala, you will need:

• 1 red chilli
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 15g ginger (Jamie Oliver specified fresh ginger but I had to resort to dried thanks to my somewhat pathetic local supermarkets)
• Paprika
• Garam Masala
• Cinnamon
• Turmeric
• Coriander (fresh if possible, Tesco surprisingly had packets of this)
• 1 onion
• 2 peppers
• Tinned tomatoes
• Tomato puree
• 2 chicken breasts
• 100ml plain yoghurt
• 100ml double cream

For a student-orientated cooking blog, this is quite a ridiculous list of ingredients, but don't be put off!  I already had all of the vegetables, spices and tomato-based things in the house, apart from the ginger and coriander, so it really wasn't all that expensive a meal. If you don't have anything on the list but are serious about getting into cooking, you could always use this recipe as an excuse to go out and buy a ton of herbs and spices - most of these are useful, everyday things that I use in a lot of my cooking, so think of it as an investment!  Remember supermarket brand spices are a lot cheaper, plus the ones in Tesco have letters on the bottles so you can also use them to spell out cute/obscene words to decorate your kitchen.

1. Firstly, chop the chicken into small pieces and place in a dish or bowl.  I think this is the first time that my blog has featured photos taken in daylight rather than my horrible kitchen lighting, thus marginally improving the quality of my terrible photography.  Hooray!

2. Chop the chilli, garlic and ginger (if you've managed to acquire fresh ginger).  Discard the chilli seeds if you don't like your curry to be too hot.

3. Mix the chopped chilli, garlic and ginger together with the chicken.  Add a generous sprinkle of paprika and garam masala, plus a couple of tablespoons of tomato puree, a drizzle of olive oil or sunflower oil, and some chopped coriander.  Jamie Oliver suggests leaving this to marinate for 24 hours, but as I am far too disorganised for such a proposition, I left mine for about 4 hours and it was still very flavoursome.

4. After leaving the chicken to marinate for as long as your hunger can withstand, begin to prepare the rest of the meal by chopping the onions and peppers.  Sadly I only had green peppers so my curry isn't as dramatically colourful as I would have liked.

5. Fry the onions and peppers in a large pot or wok and add a pinch of cinnamon and turmeric and some more chopped coriander.  At this stage it should hopefully begin to smell really nice.

6. After about 10 minutes when the onions and peppers are soft, add the tin of tomatoes and the yoghurt.  Then add the chicken pieces and simmer gently for 15-20 minutes.  Now would be the time to think about boiling your rice and so on.

7. Just before serving, add the double cream and some more chopped coriander and stir through until the curry is bubbling again.

Here is the finished product!  I served the curry with rice and garlic and coriander naan breads.  If you want to go all out and have an Indian feast, get some poppadoms and chutneys as well, or whatever else you fancy.

I tasted the curry before adding the cream and it was perfectly spicy, but after the cream was put in it was quite mild, so if you like hot curries I would suggest using less cream.  Other than that it was lovely, and the quantites were enough to give Tetley and I a substantial dinner plus lunch the next day - definitely worth the extra effort!

Spicy Chicken Skewers

Hey guys, here's another recipe for you all.  These chicken skewers are quick and easy to make, you literally only need 4 ingredients.  On top of that, they're super tasty as well, so why not give them a try?

The ingredients you will need are:

• 2 chicken breasts
• 2 peppers (and other vegetables if you like)
• 5 tablespoons natural yoghurt
• 1/2 tube of chilli paste

These quantities serve two people, if you want more or less skewers the the quantities are pretty easy to adjust.

1. Firstly, work out roughly how many wooden skewers you're going to use and soak them in a bowl or washing up basin full of cold water.  This will stop them burning in the oven.

2. Next, make the marinade by putting the yoghurt into a dish and adding the chilli paste. The paste I used is from Schwartz and it or something similar should hopefully be available next to the herbs and spices in most supermarkets.  I also add a bit of chilli powder and some tabasco at this point, but if you don't like your food to be too spicy then leave the marinade as it is.

3. Cut the chicken into small pieces and mix into the marinade.  Remember to wash hands or utensils thoroughly if they have touched raw meat.

4. Cut up the peppers into small pieces and add them to the marinade as well.  For variety, you could add in other vegetables, like courgette, cherry tomatoes or small wedges of red onion, or whatever you like best.

5. Mix everything together and leave to stand for a while if you have the time, to allow all the lovely spicy flavours to work their way into the meat and veg.  Put the dish in the fridge to marinate if you're leaving it for more than 15 minutes.

6. Pat the skewers dry and push the chicken and pepper pieces on to them, alternating between meat and veg.  Place on a baking tray or a grill tray with a dish underneath so your oven doesn't get ruined by drips.

7. Cook in an oven preheated to 200 degrees for 10-15 minutes, turning once halfway through cooking.

I appear to have taken more photos than usual for this post, so I'm sorry if that creates the illusion that these are complicated and time-consuming to make, they really only take about half an hour!  I normally serve them with my spicy potato wedges but I realised too late that I only had one potato in the cupboard (that was attempting to grow mutant baby potatoes), so I made some rice instead which complemented the spicy chicken very well.  For a lighter meal, the chicken skewers are perfect on their own or with some dips - enjoy!