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
- 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!
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.
ReplyDeleteDid 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!
ReplyDeleteOh, 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.
ReplyDeleteKath: 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.