Chicken Curry with Ratatouille
Chicken Curry with Ratatouille
Steve Lister
The reason for making this curry with a tin of ratatouille, which some might consider odd, is from my dim and distant past..... My old brother had a friend called Kevin Singh, who had been shown by his dad how to make curries. Kevin showed my brother how to make this curry and my brother showed it to me. So, this is a sort of dish that has travelled far! Ratatouille was used to "spice it up", to make it more exotic. My guess is that this came about because his father had a tin of ratatouille handy and made good use of it. This tasted so good that it became traditional in their family. I know that ratatouille is not Indian but I too think that it adds to the overall flavour of this curry, it makes a positive difference to the taste.
Ratatouille is a French/American vegetable dish, made with a mix of tomatoes, aubergines, courgettes, red or green peppers, onions and seasoning.
Serves 10
Ingredients
100 ml. olive or other oil for frying, enough to cover bottom of pan about 1 cm deep. It sounds a lot but this is feeding 10 people
1.5 kg chicken breast - large bite sized chunks
4 white onions - finely sliced
2 tbsp. fenugreek seeds
2 tbsp. cumin seeds
2 tbsp. fennel seeds
1 tbsp. garlic puree (or 4-8 cloves finely chopped/crushed)
1 inch cube ginger - grated
2 mild red chillies - finely chopped
1 lemon - juice and rind (peel skin with potato peeler then finely chop)
Salt and pepper to taste, probably about 1 tbsp. of each
2 tins chopped tomatoes
2 tins ratatouille (similar to tins of tomato but with other veg added)
1 big handful of fresh coriander leaf (50-100 mg.) - roughly chopped
Instructions
In a large pan, heat the olive oil to medium hot.
Add the onions, fenugreek, cumin and fennel seeds, then stir well as onions soften and brown (could take 15-30minutes).
Add the chicken, mix in and stir about as it changes colour (it is not going to get brown, just opaque/white). This could take 15 minutes.
Add the ginger, garlic, lemon rind and chilli then mix around allowing to heat for about a minute.
Add plenty of pepper and salt to taste.
Add the juice of the lemon and mix in. Make sure nothing is sticking in the bottom of the pan.
Pour in the tins of tomatoes and ratatouille. Add a little hot water to each tin to get all the last bits out and add that too.
Turn heat down to medium and allow to cook for a good hour or more, stirring occasionally
Add most of the fresh coriander leaf (save a little for garnish) and mix in
Cook until a nice thick consistency.
Serve (add garnish of coriander)
Notes
It would work well with some green or red peppers added during the frying of the chicken, but I didn't have any.
