Recipe: Coconut Chicken Curry

On Saturday morning I woke up at 7.30am thinking of food. And I’m not talking pancakes or bacon or any of the other usual suspects; I mean full on okro soup, grilled chicken, efo (spinach soup) and coconut chicken curry. What else was there to do but get up and make it? 😁

I made all of the above but today will share the recipe for the curry because so many people on my Snapchat messaged about it while I was cooking that I figured I just had to share!

So here we go, super-quick super easy coconut chicken curry…

• Prep time: 25 mins
• Cooking time: 20 mins
• Serves: 5 people
• Calories per serving: 340

What you’ll need

• Chicken – 500g or about 10 drumsticks
• Olive oil (or preferred cooking oil) – 1/4 cup
• Red onions – 1/2 an onion, chopped
• Coconut milk – 1/2 cup
• Peanut butter – 1 tablespoon
• Scotch bonnets – 1, chopped
• Curry powder – 1 tablespoon
• Garlic – 1/2 teaspoon, chopped
• Tomato puree – 1 teaspoon
• Salt – 1/4 teaspoon
• Ginger – 1/2 teaspoon, chopped

Instructions

1. First things first you need to clean and boil your chicken. I’ve counted this as prep time because if like a lot of people (or Africans, I should say) you tend to boil you chicken in bulk then this step won’t apply. You’ll need the chicken and resulting stock for this dish. Boil it for about 15-20 mins and check occasionally to make sure it doesn’t burn
2. Heat up some oil in a deep pan/wok and lightly fry your chopped onions
3. Add the chicken first to brown the outsides. Be sure to turn over regularly to avoid it burning. Once brown, remove from the pan and set aside
4. Add the coconut milk to the onions and oil, then add peanut butter and stir till it’s a smooth consistency. The peanut butter might seem like a strange addition but it gives the sauce a delicious nuttiness
5. Add in curry powder, scotch bonnet, chicken stock and tomato puree
6. Bring to the boil, stirring consistently and then add the chicken back in
7. Finally depending on how much chicken stock you use, you may want to thicken it with some flour [Lazy chef tip – I was lazy and just poured the flour straight in but ideally you should mix it with warm water before adding in to avoid lumps]

 In fact here’s a quick clip from my Snapchat showing you exactly how I did it…

Try it out and let me know what you think. How do you make your coconut curry?