Is This The Best Indian Recipe in the Country?

Are you a whizz in the kitchen with a flair for Indian flavours and cooking up outstanding curries?

Patak’s, official sponsor of National Curry Week, is searching the UK for perfect culinary candidates to take part in this year’s Signature Dish awards. The awards, judged by a panel of experts including Patak’s brand ambassador Anjali Pathak, will be split into two categories – traditional and innovative – to search the country for perfect Indian inspired recipes.

This is my recipe entry, I don't know if I'll win, probably not, but it was fun making the curry and Misteright, K, M and some of their friends had some too, Misteright dubbed it the Junior Curry Night In!  I was honoured!  So this is what you have been waiting for...

Miss Mamo's Fruity Coconut Tikka Chicken

Ingredients

1/2 jar pataks tikka paste

250ml coconut yogurt

500g diced chicken

2 x limes - juiced and zested

1/2 bulb garlic - crushed

1 x red chilli - halved and remove seeds from one half then chop finely

1 x green chilli halved and remove seeds from one half then chop finely

2 x cooking onions (large) - chopped

2 x red onions (large) - chopped

1 x carrot - diced

1/2 green pepper - diced

1/2 red pepper or orange pepper - diced

2 x golden delicious apples - cored and chopped

50g coriander

2 x potatoes - peeled and diced

1 x handful of raisins

6 x dates - remove stone and dice

2 tbsp garam masala

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tbsp curry powder - madras

2 tbsp masala powder
olive oil

And this is what you do...

mix tikka paste and yogurt in a large bowl and add the chicken, cover with cling film and leave in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours but preferably over night to marinade 

fry onions in a little oil until translucent and remove from the pan and set aside

shallow fry the potato cubes until golden and then set aside with the onions

cook the garlic and ginger in a little olive oil on a low heat for about 5 minutes and then add the carrots and cook for a further 5 minutes then return the onion and potato to the pan then add the garam masala, ground cumin and the masala powder along with the zest and juice from the limes stirring continusously. then turn off the heat.

Grill the chicken saving the yogurt paste to go into the pan later.

When the chicken is cooked completely, add it to the pan along with the left over yogurt paste, peppers, raisins, and apple and cook on a low heat for 10 minutes stirring occasionally.

Add 3/4 of the coriander tearing it over the pan and cook for a further 5 minutes

Serve with rice, chips, naan breads and poppadoms and garnish with the remaining coriander.

Too spicy for you then why not try my coconut raita recipe, it's simple and uses up some left overs from the recipe above!

Simply peel, deseed and dice 1/2 a cucumber and grate a 1/4 of a salad onion into a bowl, add the rest of the tub of coconut yogurt you just used making the curry recipe above along with a handful of finely chopped mint and a shake of cracked black pepper.  Give it a good stir and then it's done!

Whether your Indian speciality is a brilliant balti, terrific tikka or something altogether more unexpected...
get cooking and enter now!

So now you want to know how to enter this competition?

Entries (full working recipe with a photo of the finished dish) to: National Curry Week, 33 Beresford Avenue, Surbiton, Surrey, KT5 9LH or by email to groveint@aol.com no later than 23 September.  

I recieved some jars of Pataks Curry Pastes in exchange for spreading the word about this cooking competition