These days I tend to make curry up as I go along; I have a basic recipe in my head which has evolved over the years and which I adapt depending on the ingredients I have and how much time I have to cook. This curry was particularly delicious so I thought I should write it down and share it with you.

A couple of notes before you start:

1. You could cook this a lot more quickly on a pan on the hob (and I would have done if I was cooking curry midweek after a long day at work), but I think that the flavours develop in at nice way when you cook it in the way described and the sauce becomes more thick and creamy.
2. You will notice that I only used half a tin of tomatoes. The other half can go in the fridge and be used for another meal later in the week, such as part of a pasta sauce or in lasagne.

Ingredients

• Two Onions
• an inch of Fresh Ginger
• a few cloves of Garlic
• Two Green Chillies
• Teaspoon Black Onion Seed
• Teaspoon Cumin Seed
• Teaspoon Ground Coriander
• Teaspoon Ground Turmeric
• 3 Cardamom Pods
• 2 Tablespoons Ghee (can substitute oil or butter)
• 3 Chicken Breasts
• 1/2 tin of Tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons natural yoghurt
• 50 g Coconut cream
• Chicken stock

Method

Heat the oven to 200^oC.

Put the ghee, chopped onions, garlic, chilli, ginger and dried spices into a casserole dish with a lid. Cook in the centre of the oven for about 20 minutes.

Chop the chicken into small pieces (I find it easiest to use kitchen scissors) and add to the dish. Add a little stock if it looks dry.

After another 20 minutes add about a third of a pint of chicken stock with a block of coconut cream stirred into it, the tinned tomatoes and the yoghurt. You could add a tin of chickpeas at this stage if you would like.

After about 15 minutes (when the liquid you have added should have heated through) turn the oven down to 160^oC and allow it to cook for at least another half an hour – the more patient you can be the better the taste and texture of the sauce. Make sure that you taste the sauce before you serve – after all, you will be eating it not me! You may decide that it needs some more coriander or cumin (if the latter it’s best to add dried cumin at this stage rather than more seeds). You may decide that it needs some chilli – I would be inclined to put some chilli flakes on the table so that people can have it as spicy or otherwise as they would like.