This is another family favourite that I’ve adapted from a children’s curry recipe when they were small. Its not too calorific at 270 calories per portion, without sides, you can eat it on it’s own with a wrap or poppadoms. If you add rice or nan bread it’s a 400 calorie dinner.
I use Alfa One’s Rice Bran Oil, it is cholesterol free has a high smoking point and is a tasteless oil. I have been calorie counting on and off for a while and I’m amazed at how much it reduces your calorie intake when you use a healthier cooking oil. Whilst its a little pricey I highly recommend it, its available at most large supermarket chains.
If you are making this for the children remove the red chilli, use 2 teaspoons rather than tablespoons of curry paste. When the kids were small I used a Balti or Tika Marsala curry paste. We’ve moved on to a madras curry paste as our heat sensors have adapted. You should use what you favour in other curry dishes as this will off set the sweetness of the potato’s and will be familiar to your taste buds. My tip for the kids is to remove the cardamom pods before you feed them, they have a very intense flavour if you bite into one and might put them off eating this again.
I use a vegan vegetable stock power Marigolds Swiss Vegetable Bouillon, it’s not too salty and adds a nice flavour to your dish.
This freezes really well, I often batch cook it so we have something quick and tasty to eat on busy days. Once cooked cool the mixture until its room temperature, portion it up in a suitable container label it with a name and date and freeze for up to 1 month. Defrost it in the fridge overnight before reheating.
Serves 6
Takes 20 minutes to prep + 60 minutes marinading and 35 minutes to cook, 270 calories per portion
Ingredients
500 g sweet potato
4 chicken breasts
Juice ½ lemon
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground garam masala
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tbspn rice bran oil
5 cardamom pods
2 onions
1 red chilli
1 small bunch fresh coriander
2 tbspns curry paste
500ml vegetable stock
500g baby leaf spinach
To serve
1 tbspn fat free natural yogurt, White long grain rice, Nan Break
Method
- Chop the chicken into bite size chunks place in a freezer bag and add the juice of half a lemon and the dried spices. Shake the bag seal and place in the fridge to marinade for 60 minutes or overnight if you have the time.
- Peel and roughly chop the onion, roughly chop the chilli remove the seeds if you don’t like too much heat. Strip the leaves from the coriander stalks put them to one side and roughly chop the stalks. Puree the onion, chilli and coriander. This will form the base of your sauce.
- Heat the oil in a large frying pan with a lid over a medium heat, add the cardamom pops and fry for 1 minute, add the curry paste and cook for 2 minutes to wake up the spices. Now add the onion puree and fry for 5 minutes until it starts to dry out. Keep watch on the onion puree don’t let it burn.
- Add your marinated chicken pieces and cook until they change colour, don’t brown them as you will burn your sauce base. Add the potato and the vegetable stock, bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer with the lid ajar for 35 minutes. Stir regularly it’s ready when the sweet potato begins to break up, this will thicken the sauce. You can uncover and raise the heat to reduce the sauce if its a little watery but don’t do this until the end.
- To finish stir through the spinach until its wilted, serve with your choice of sides a dollop of natural yogurt and sprinkle over the coriander leaves.
