Curry Chicken & Veg

Time to use that chicken from earlier in the week. Surprisingly, the summer squash is still going strong, but the parsnip's faded (note the wrinkly bits starting), and I have an entire bag of carrots to demolish, so I'm doing the root vegetable thing again. I've also still got that half of a butternut squash. Crank the oven up to 350, and start with the peeling and chopping.


Today's Hulu feature: The Tick! I love this show. The prep time for this meal is less than the 20-something minutes a Tick episode runs, too, so that's convenient. (Surprisingly, I am not sponsored by Hulu.) I'm also feeling spectacularly lazy today, and am going to try and limit myself to cleaning one pot: a Le Creuset dutch oven.

Batmanuel has reminded me that I'm already putting two sweet-tasting vegetables into this pot (the two carrots and the giant parsnip), so why add butternut squash? Wise Batmanuel. So I've shelved the squash for another day --it looks like it can wait -- and instead pulled out a medium yellow onion, which I chopped into rough eighths. I also added three cloves of garlic, which will get very savoury as it cooks. Everything gets mixed together with 1.5 tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of pepper, and a good three-quarters tablespoon of rosemary needles. All of this goes into the preheated oven uncovered for 20 minutes.

The chicken bit's easy. It turned out the last two breasts in the packet weren't separated, so I didn't bother cutting a pocket, I just folded the single piece along the breastbone after peppering and salting it all over. Two slices of lemon inside, which could be fixed in with skewers, I guess, but I'm not that fussy. But then I remembered I just got a new blend of curry powder (with cardamom and saffron in), and decided to add that in. Curry can be powerful, and I am a wimp, so I just sprinkled a dusting on the inside and outside of the chicken and rubbed it in well. I know that the photo makes it look like the chicken's the colour of a butternut squash -- don't worry, it's still good, that's just curry.

When the 20-minute buzzer goes, pull out the vegetables and mix them up. Place the chicken on top of the vegetables, keeping the lemon tucked inside. If you don't like lemon in this recipe, it's not key, you can leave it out.

Cover your dish, either with a lid or with tin foil (obviously, be careful if putting on tin foil). Back in the oven, set the timer for 30 minutes.

Damn, Tick's over. Find alternate viewing option, though hopefully not "The Biggest Loser", which will make you feel guilty about oil and starchy vegetables, and likely make you lose your appetite for what's in the oven.

After 30 minutes, remove the lid of the dish and flip the chicken to the other side. If you've got the room, shove the veg around a bit. If not? Eh, whatever. Everything, back in the oven! Keep the cover off for the last round of cooking, because we want to counter the steam session everything just went through and get everything slightly crispy again. 20 minutes this time, so you can run off to find the wine you'll be drinking with dinner.

Once you're back from the wine cellar (for the former investment bankers out there), the buzzer should have gone. Ahhhhhh, dinner! And let me tell you, this was definitely delicious. It also probably had a little too much oil on the vegetables, which is why I'm suggesting 1.5 tablespoons, rather than the excessive amount I think I ended up putting in there.

But the chicken (that's one breast on the plate, the second's joining the rest of the veg as leftovers) was absolutely fantastic! I love curry! And of course, as always, this would go really well with rice -- not at the same time as carrots and parsnips, clearly, but if your supermarket's got better green beans than mine does, you're in business.