Bee’s Kitchen

A Chinese persons solution to tv dinners is chicken curry, everything just goes into one pot you don’t have to watch it, its a one dish dinner with minimal fuse and clean up. If you like rich and tasty sauces that go well with rice, this is a good one to try. My mum usually doesn’t add coconut cream and substitutes this with milk instead. As please be warned adding coconut cream does add extra un needed calories into the dish, but makes everything oh so very creamy, and fragrant.

Don’t be discouraged by the word curry in this dish, its very smooth and mild, even “The Man” who isn’t a big fan of spicy or curry dishes always goes for seconds.

Ingredients

1 1/2 kg chicken wings or pieces
2 potatoes (roughly cut)
1 onion (diced)
2 cloves garlic (crushed)
2 slices ginger
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp curry powder
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup water
2 tsp chicken powder
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp raw sugar
1 cup coconut cream
Salt & Pepper

Optional Extra
1 tbsp Cornstarch
2 tbsp Water

Method

Using a large non stick pot, pour in oil, crushed garlic, ginger and onions, cook till fragrant, then remove from pot and set aside for later.

Add in chicken and potatoes to pot. Once chicken is browned, stir through curry powder making sure everything is nicely coated.

Now add the onions, chicken stock, water, and flavour with chicken powder, pepper and sugar. Bring to boil then simmer on low heat with lid on for 30 minutes.

Lastly stirring in coconut milk, and simmering for another 5 minutes. Taste and adjust to suite with salt and pepper. Serve with steamed rice

Optional Extra
If you like the sauce thicker, in a bowl combine cornstarch and water together then pour into pot and stir till thick.

This is a really basic hot meal that’s easy to make and tastes delicious, and serves two with generous portions. I sometimes add extra garlic to the dish depending on mood.

I learnt the Italian term al dente when in high school studying food technology, one of the ways the teacher taught us to test if the pasta was ready was to grab a strand of pasta chuck it onto the microwave! Luckily I wasn�t one to pay too much attention to teachers.

I went with a more commonsense approach and check the status of the pasta by tasting and making sure there are no white marks in the centre. So my rule of thumb, taste the pasta, it should be slightly chewy and firm and never overcook it, once this is done, drain immediately, leaving a bit of the pasta water so it doesn�t dry out and stick together.

Chinese noodles are cooked the same way to al dente, after the noodles are cooked, refreshing by draining the noodles then placing in cold water to stop the cooking process, then drained again and set aside to be used in stir fries or to be added to soup.

I used a seafood mix in this recipe which you can buy from your local fish monger, or you can make you own, my usual seafood mix contains shelled and deveined prawns, calamari rings, baby octopus, shelled mussels, salmon pieces, fish pieces.

Ingredients

150 g seafood mix
250 g fresh fettuccine
5 cloves garlic (crushed)
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup fresh parsley (chopped)
Salt & Pepper
Extra Olive Oil

Method

In a large pot fill 3/4 full with water and bring to boil. Place fettuccine in and cook till al dente. Drain and set aside.

Place crushed garlic and olive oil in a small bowl and combine.

Heat non stick pans on high, once hot use a few teaspoons of the garlic oil and cook seafood mix till nearly done, then remove and set aside.

In the same pan add the remainder of garlic oil then pour in the drained fettuccine, tossing through the seafood mix, adding more olive oil if needed.

Once everything is heated stir through freshly chopped parsley, adding salt and pepper to taste.