If your fella is English, like mine, he loves a good curry and constantly complains about the lack of good Indian curries in Australia. As a special treat I’ll cook him an ‘English’ curry.

You have to love a good creamy, fat full dish. Some of you may think I’ve ruined it by sneaking in eggplants, but I’m trying to increase our vegetable intake and didn’t fancy cooking a side dish. You can’t take any shortcuts with the fat in this dish. The ghee gives it the butter taste. It’s all or nothing…

This will serve 4.

Ingredients
2 single chicken breasts (about 800g) chopped into 2cm cubes
4 cloves garlic
3cm ginger
a handful of cashews
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon chilli
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamon
1 tin (400g) tomatoes
2 tablespoons cream
1/2 cup coconut cream
3 tablespoons ghee
1 onion, sliced
2 skinny eggplant, sliced
corriander for garnish
boiled rice for serving

Method
Put everything up to and including the coconut cream into the blender and blend until smooth. Add to a plastic bowl with your chopped chicken. Cover in put in the fridge for at least half an hour, if not an hour.

After your marination time, heat ghee in heavy based pan (or big fry pan). Add onion and eggplant and fry on low heat for about 5 - 10 minutes. Add the giant bowl of marinated chicken and keep on low heat. You’ll want to stir it around for the first 5 minutes to encourage the chicken to change colour, after that put a lid on it and keep it simmering on very low heat. Cook for roughly another 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile cook your rice. When all is ready serve the butter chicken on steamed rice with corriander sprinkled over the top. Take your special treat one step further and serve with a can of Carling lager.

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I was feeling like cooking a creamy dish with some chicken breasts I had and since we just got a delivery of some yummy white wine I decided it had to be French. I’ve borrowed some bits from Elizabeth David and her French cookbook - the creamy sauce, I may have bastardized it by adding the white wine, but I have to say it tasted divine.

My timing is a bit crap, so I cooked my greens when I had free time, rather than at the end so they were a bit cold, but hey, it’s still summer here so it’s not that bad.

Ingredients
4 baby desiree potatoes, quartered
1 tablespoon goose-fat
2 chicken breasts
some seasonal green vegetables, I used a bunch of asparagus, a handful of green beans and half head broccoli
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
250 ml white wine
250 ml water
500 ml cream
2 egg yokes
parsley and chives

How it works
Most Excellent Roast Potatoes
Heat the oven to highest temperature. Put your potatoes in a pot of water and bring to boil. When the potatoes have boiled for five minutes drain, melt the goose fat in an oven tray for a minute. Drain the potatoes and then to melted goose fat with a little bit of salt. Give the tray a good shake so the potatoes are covered in the melted fat and salt. The oven should be at roughly 220. The potatoes will take 30 mins. If you have some sort of super oven that cooks at more than 220 (celsius) then perhaps you might want to keep an eye on them.

Green Vegetables
Boil a pot of salted water. Add the broccoli and beans. After 1 1/2 mins add the asparagus. Cook for 1 min (or maybe a bit more), then drain and plunge into cold water. I find it takes two  rinses to stop the vegetables from cooking. Drain and set aside.

Chicken Breasts
Season the chicken breasts with some rock salt (or other chunky salt) and some pepper. Fry or grill with some olive oil for about 15 mins until cooked. I cooked mine in a fry pan on very low heat. You don’t want it too hot as chicken breasts are not an ideal size for grilling, being thicker in the middle. If you’re dieting you could always poach them, but then you wouldn’t be having this cream sauce either!

The Piece De Resistance
Melt the butter in a saucepan. When melted and bubbly take off the heat and stir in the flour. When combined and smooth return back to heat and add the water and wine. Stir until sauce starts to thicken, then add the cream. Stir and make sure heat is very low. It should take about 15 to 20 mins to thicken up. Just before you’re ready to serve add in two egg yolks (note these should be whisked and if you have some lemon juice handy, whisk a bit in with the egg yolks). I know this seems like a strange addition, but the sauce ended up being divine, so just go with it. Stir in the yolks for a minute then turn off heat and add chopped parsley.

So serve your green vegetables with chicken breasts and then coat with creamy sauce. We had left over, but if we were feeling really naughty you could finish it off. But instead I’m going to put it in the freezer and use it on a rainy day. I served the potatoes desperately as I wanted them to stay crispy.

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