ramtops

I was in Tesco last Saturday – I don’t like Tesco one bit, but they were the cheapest place to buy a couple of slimline water butts, which we wanted for the garden, and so I whizzed round and bought a few bits while I was there.

They had a special offer on chicken legs – 3 packs of four legs for a tenner. Now, I know it won’t be great chicken, but times are hard, and there was space in the freezer, so I swallowed my principles and bought some.

I turned them into Madhur Jaffrey’s lemon and coriander chicken, one of our very favourite things. With the additional of a bunch of coriander from our local Indian grocer (65p) and a couple of lemons which would have been, what – 80p?, and a few pence worth of spices, we made 14 portions of Indian chicken for under 12 quid. Seems OK to me.

The recipe link I’ve given you is just a guideline as always. We up the garlic quotient a far bit, use more spices, and this time used dried chilli flakes, as we had no fresh ones in. I do it in the slow cooker too, which works a treat. I do generally make this dish with chicken wings, but I’m here to tell you that legs work just as well.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

From time to time – actually, quite often – our local CoOps (and probably yours, if you have one) do great offers on fresh chicken. I like to take advantage of these and stow them in the freezer. The most recent was two packs of chicken thighs for four quid, which seems like a bargain in anyone’s eyes.

I fetched two packs out of the freezer on Saturday, and yesterday turned them into Madhur Jaffrey’s lemony chicken and coriander, which is one of our very favourite things to eat. That recipe is a good guideline, but we use far more garlic and ginger, and I tend to do it in the slow cooker, then the meat falls off the bones.

We tend to eat this with rice and dhal, so we have small portions, and the two packs of thighs made 10 servings – £4 for the chicken, 75p for the coriander, and sunk costs for the ginger, garlic and chillis, which we always have in, I reckon about six quid the lot. Can’t grumble at that.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

We had a load of cold cooked chicken left over from a roast, some rather tired coriander leaves, a wizened yellow pepper, so time for one of our favourites.

Roughly chopped two onions, several cloves of garlic and the yellow pepper, and sauteéd them off in some olive oil. Added some chopped chorizo and let it cook down, and then added some cumin seeds. Hurled in the chicken, a load of chickpeas (which I’d soaked and boiled, but tinned is fine).

Made a stock of Marigold bouillon powder (no home should be without it) and a teaspoon or so of arrowroot to thicken it. Squeezed in the juice of a lemon, and some salt and pepper. It looked a bit unbalanced, so I bunged in half a jar of roasted yellow peppers, sliced thinly. Left to cook for about half an hour with a lid on, then added the chopped coriander and cooked for another ten minutes.

Delicious!

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

As I’ve mentioned before, our local CoOp is really not bad, and I always take a beak at the reduced section where they put the items that have reached their sell-by date. About three weeks ago, I picked up two packs of chicken thighs – 11 thighs for £3.30. I stowed them in the freezer under the stairs, as had no particular plan for them.

Pete came home from his foraging on Saturday with a big bunch of coriander, and so we decided to make lemony coriander chicken. This is a Madhur Jaffrey recipe that we have refined over the years, and one of our favourites.

I did ours in the slow cooker, but I’ll give you the destructions for the more conventional means. If you want to use a slow cooker, bung everything in, and cook on low for about 6-7 hours.

Brown the chicken pieces in groundnut oil in a shallow pot, ideally wide enough to keep the chicken in one layer – I usually use a Le Creuset saute pan. Set the chicken to drain on some kitchen paper. Keep the oil.

Chop up some garlic small. Blend some fresh ginger with about 4 tablespoons of water – as much as you like, we use lots, as we like things gingery. Chop up 1/2 – 1 green chilli; up to you whether you use the seeds or not, depending on your chilli tolerance. Take some ground coriander seeds, cumin seeds and turmeric, and possibly a pinch of cayenne. Chop up lots and lots of fresh green coriander. Halve a lemon.

Re-heat the oil, and add the garlic – stir till browned. Add the ginger/water paste and stir about for a minute or so. Add the ground spices, the green chilli, juice of the lemon, and the coriander. Stir a bit.

Put the chicken back in; I put the lemon halves in too – shame to waste them. Bring up to a simmer, put a lid on and cook for about 40 minutes. Turn the chicken pieces part way through if you feel like it – I don’t generally bother.

Eat with basmati rice – utterly delicious, I assure you.