Tuesday 25 October 2011

261: Chicken, butternut squash pathia

Well, I say pathia.... but I made this up completely. *smug face forward*, mighty pleased with it.
I was working from home last week and I was really genuinely trying to work, when my laptop gave out the blue-screen-of-doom. A call to IT Support and that was as much as I could do for the day and it wasn't even time for elevenses. So, I set myself to use the plethora of vegetables I'd over-bought with double curry fun. The first I went for was cauliflower with potato. I've blogged this before, and well, frankly I've blogged quite enough things which look like slop-dosh.

To contrast with this, pretty simple affair, I wanted a pathia. When I buy a pathia from my local take-away, it's rich, hot, sweet and sour. Ingredients:
  • 1 kilo chicken breast diced
  • 1 big butternut squash
  • 3 tins tomatoes
  • 2 big onions
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 1 pepper (random I know, but it was left in the fridge)
  • 5 dried chillies (these are hot, hot, hot)
  • Spices: 1 tea spoon cumin seeds, lots of curry powder, a shake of paprika
  • 1 lemon
Method:
  • Quarter and de-seed the butternut squash and dust with cumin, salt and oil and roast in a medium ~180c oven for about an hour until the skin goes crinkly and the flesh is soft
  • Peel and roughy chop the butternut squash into 1" pieces.
  • Dice the onion and fry in some oil until soft, then add the chopped garlic and chillies
  • Add the curry powder and paprika stir thoroughly
  • Easy this isn't it?
  • Into a big pan along with the tomatoes and bring to a simmer
  • Re-heat and re-use the still spicy pan with some more oil and seal the chicken
  • Into the big pan with the meat and butternut squash
  • Simmer, until cooked
  • Just before serving, squeeze some lemon juice in and stir - for the hot sweat and sour flavour

I think proper pathia recipes might have sugar in but butternut squash is very sweet on its own so I think it didn't need any extra. I also kept the spices pretty simple, deliberately - the curry powder had a pretty good mix of spices already.

So, although the day was a dead loss work-wise my dinner (and for the next night) was really most enjoyable!

3 comments:

  1. Sounds a deal more fun than work. And if you took the chicken out of that, I would be tucking in with relish - sounds delicious.

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  2. Did you mean to write hot sweat and sour flavour? That bit made me laugh, so I hope so. It looks very delicious and I like the instruction 'Easy this isn't it?' too. Working from home indeed!

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  3. Oh, much more fun than working for a living! Choc, I think you're right, the chicken didn't add all that much - but I might have faced a rebellion at home if I'd left it out.

    Kath: if only I were so clever to be putting deliberate mistakes in like that. I'll leave it in now though, if it makes you laugh. Sweaty curry? - yuck.

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