Recipe: Mexican red chicken

Pollo rojo (Mexican red chicken)*

Serves: 4

I’ve made this dish twice now. Once in the oven as per the original recipe; the second time, with my modifications and on the stove top. With the original recipe I found that the tomato paste retains its tomato-pastiness and doesn’t taste quite ‘cooked’.  Perhaps it’s because I’ve grown up eating curries… When making an Indian curry, the tomato/paste – the base of the curry/gravy – is always ‘prepared’ first and doesn’t taste uncooked and like the cook was in a hurry! Tomatoes aside, the chargrilled capsicum adds a very nice flavour to the chicken and overall the dish is quite different from anything I've had in a while. It’s definitely going to become one of my go-to recipes in a busy week.

INGREDIENTS

4 red capsicums
Cooking oil spray/ 2 TSP vegetable oil
500 gm chicken thigh fillets, cut into bite size pieces
2 TBS plain flour
Salt and pepper, to season
1 TSP chilli flakes/ crushed red chillies
1 TSP ground cumin
2 TSP hot paprika
2 TSP dried oregano
1 TBS tomato ketchup
1-2 TSP hot chilli sauce
400g can diced tomatoes (I use Ardmona, I find other brands, particularly Italian ones are too acidic and add quite a sour taste)
2 cups chicken stock
Parsley leaves, to garnish

Steamed rice to serve

JB's easy chicken curry

I love a dish that can be whipped up with whatever I have lying around. Well, not literally lying around (what does she feed her family?), but more like what's in the fridge. I love such a dish more so on a day when I'm lazy to go to the supermarket. The stores are pretty close to my house and not much of a walk but packing the baby up etc. takes longer than it would take to shop.

Anyway, I particularly enjoy making something up when the whip-up turns out really tasty and does not require me to prepare a side dish/salad. This chicken curry recipe is a modification of a typical Indian chicken curry.