Chinese style Chicken Curry
My last Roast Chicken dinner.
And it was dead simple!!
I always get curry from the Chinese take-away. It’s really tasty and was dead simple.
I used this type of curry paste from the Chinese supermarket. You can get different brands of this paste from all sorts of places, markets, butchers, Asian supermarkets. Just get what you can. After you open it, it does keep for a good few months in the fridge. It’s also really nice on chips!
Other ingredients…
- A handful of frozen onions
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed
- A handful of frozen peas
- 1 large mushroom, chopped into large pieces
- A small handful of frozen peppers
- 1 portion of cooked chicken breast, cut into pieces.
- A portion of rice
Here’s what I did…
- Firstly put on your rice.
- Soften your onion in a glug of oil, leaving the lid on, whilst you get your garlic ready. Once onions are soft, add the garlic. Leave for a minute or two and then add your mushrooms. Quickly coat in the onion and garlic then leave – do not stir.
- Boil the kettle, and mix half a pint of boiling water to 1 and a half generous tablespoons of curry paste (it’s 3oz of mix to a pint usually). Stir until the mix is dissolved.
- Add your your curry mix to the pan. It should thicken up pretty rapidly at this point. If it gets too thick, add more water, if after a minute or so it isn’t thick enough add a touch more paste.
- Add your peppers and peas, stir through. Then your chicken. Stir through. Turn down the heat and put the lid on your pan.
- Be careful not to overcook, as the chicken will disintegrate into stringy nothingness. You just need to warm it through.
- By this point your rice should be done. (If not, your curry is fine for a couple more minutes, just stir occasionally and keep the lid on.) Drain it and plate the whole lot up.
This is such an easy recipe, you can of course use raw chicken. You will just have to cook it through along with your onion at the start. I guess you could also marinade the chicken in a little watered down paste for an hour or so if you wanted more flavour.
You could also add some chilli, or chilli powder to this if it’s not hot enough.
Hope you enjoy it! It costs about £1.70, a fraction of the price the Chinese take away usually charges! And it’s just as tasty.
Gnocchi with Chicken and Pesto
I’m sorry, I have no photo…
I was way too hungry! I had to wait for my housemates to finish cooking, so by the time I got in there to throw together my dinner all I wanted to do was flop down, enjoy it and watch Sherlock (again – Isn’t it a good un!!??).
But I’ll still tell you what I did.
Ingredients…
- A portion of cooked chicken
- Half an onion, sliced thinly length ways
- A portion of Gnocci.
- I used half of a 78p pack, but I really should have used a third of it (I read the portion size on the back after I cooked them – fool), there was WAY to much.
- 1 clove of garlic
- 2-3 sun dried tomatoes, sliced thinly
- A large spoon of pesto
- I bet you’re thinking… Pesto and sun-dried tomatoes, what kind of student can afford those?!? Well they were both cheap from Home Bargains. Otherwise I would not have bought them. Haha!
- A handful of grated mature cheddar
- A knob of butter
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method…
Okay this is dead simple. And stupidly quick.
Boiled water from the kettle, put it in a pan with some salt, and then put in your little lovely gnocci. Bring the water back to the boil for 2-3 mins, until they have risen to the top. Drain them.
Whilst they’re boiling away, soften the onions. Then add the garlic. Fry for a few minutes. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Give it all a good stir. The add your gnocci. Stir it round until every little gnocci is coated in cheesy pesto yumminess.
You’re done.
Plate up on a warmed plate, put your plate in the microwave for a minute whilst everything is cooking. Then when you plate it up in wont go cold as soon as you whack it on the plate.
I wish I had taken a photo before I inhaled the whole lot. If I do it again I’ll put the photo up.
Until next time….
Won ton noodle soup
Yummy yummy in my tummy!
I really love won ton noodle soup, and soup noodles in general. My favourite noodle bar in Liverpool (Big Bowl near the Chinese Gates) serves the most delicious Chicken Laksa. So I’m kind of using ideas from that too.
I’ve never made anything like this before, so it was a massive experiment, and I steamed some dumplings too, which I’ve never done. So if you’ve got any good suggestions on how to improve what I’ve done, please share.
This is really customizable (like everything I post really), so add and take away the flavours that you want. But as this recipe stands, it’s coming to about £1.00 for the soup and 45p for four dumplings, depending on were you shop.
(Yes you may notice there are only 3 steamed dumplings – One of them jumped up off the plate and went into my mouth before I had a chance to take the pic)
Okay so here is what I bought to make the soup….
- Some instant soup noodles, which includes a sachet of flavouring – or just normal noodles you can make soup out of with some chicken stock. B0th work well.
- You can get some really nice, Asian-ey style instant noodles from Home Bargains for 23p. They are really tasty.
- 3 or 4 Won tons
- I got mine from the Chinese supermarket in the frozen section. I think it was £5.00 for a tray of 32, which will easily do me around 8-10 portions.
- A small dash of curry powder
- A dash of Light soya sauce
- Chilli sauce, add this to taste
- 1 large mushroom, very thinly sliced
- 1 spring onion
Boil the kettle, and place your frozen won tons in the smallest pan you have, pour over boiling water, I would say a mugs worth, until the won tons are covered. Put the stove on it’s highest heat and leave for a minute or two. Then put in your flavour sachet or stock cube and curry powder and stir carefully until dissolved. Then add the rest of the ingredients, except the spring onion. Leave for another few minutes until your won tons have cooked through (I tested mine by stabbing them with a sharp narrow knife, to about half way through the wonton, and seeing if the tip of the knife was hot – they also turn a slightly different colour). You may need to add a little more water if your noodles soak it all up. Serve in the biggest bowl you have and top with spring onions.
If you want to make your own won tons, there is a great recipe here, which looks surprisingly easy. http://wp.me/p1yhE5-cA
The dumpling steaming was a lot easier than I thought. I bought them again from the frozen section at the Chinese supermarket. Firstly I filled a small pan with hot water, and put it on the boil. I also lined my steamer with a sheet of grease proof paper which I stabbed a couple of holes into, to stop the dumplings sticking. I then placed the steamer over the pan of hot water for around 6-8 minutes, or until cooked, again I wasn’t sure on exact timings (all instructions were in Chinese) so I stabbed into the middle of each one to see if it was hot. I got “Triple Meat” dumplings, they were very yummy, and I had them with a dash of light soya sauce. Seeing as my local Chinese take away charge £2.80 for four of these, and my four cost me a measly 45p, they tasted even better…..
Ker-ching!
Student Recipes 