Here the goose is cooked: Quick and easy chicken curry

Apologies for the state of the bowl, I only noticed after I had finished eating. That's what a meetings tastic Monday will do to you readers. Avoid!

Goose? Chicken? It's all poultry, and I was really struggling with lyrics involving chicken. Well no one writes a musical about roast dinners do they?

So, another episode of my series 101 ways with chicken. Leftover chicken curry. Much like most of these recipes this can be done with fresh chicken, but these days I just find the cost of that prohibitive, so chicken dishes only come around when there is leftover to be used up.

This is another dish with fond memories, my Dad introduced me to it years back (I'm sure somewhere along the line it came from a recipe book, but it could be entirely invented) and I must say everytime I cook it I think back to his love of cooking. Very much a seasoned cook, prone to just chucking things in, it was his confidence that rubbed off on me after university and encouraged me to be more creative.

So, quick and easy chicken curry

Splash of flavourless oil
Garlic, chilli and ginger to taste
2 onions, finely diced
4 or 5 tomatoes chopped
1 tsp garam massala
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp ground coriander
Shredded or chopped leftover roast chicken - about 200g
Bag of spinach or a good head of spring greens - shred the greens
100ml of double cream
150ml of water

Naan/ rice to serve

First off, shred your greens (if you're using bagged spinach skip this step) and put them in a colander. Pour a kettleful of water over them to start the wilting process.
Using a big pan, heat the oil with garlic chilli and ginger, I use a couple of red chillis, about a thumb sized piece of ginger, grated and 2 or 3 cloves of crushed garlic - but that's just to suit our taste buds, if you like spicy curry - go for it.
When this is sizzling add your onions and cook slowly until they're really soft (at least 10 minutes)
Add the chopped tomatoes and continue to cook down until they go pulpy
Add your spices and cook out their rawness for at least a couple of minutes
Put the chicken in the pan and continue to cook until it's heated through(if you're using raw chicken, cook this for about 8 minutes or until it's cooked through)
Add the cream and allow the heat to let this down and make a creamy sauce. Add the water to let it down further, and stir in your (wilted) greens
Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper as necessary

All in all if using leftover cooked chicken this takes about half an hour to forty minutes. This quantity serves four, but you could bulk it out by adding extra onions and greens.

This works brilliantly with Greek Yoghurt - the regular one, not the 0% fat, as it needs the stability the fat gives to it - instead of cream. Equally if I'm being really abstemious I just add a couple of tablespoons of cream and use vegetable stock to make up the rest of the liquid

I serve this with plain supermarket naan, wrapped up in baking parchment I've run briefly under the tap and scrunched up. It goes into a 180 degree oven for the time it takes the curry to cook - this makes lovely fluffy soft naan, as otherwise I find supermarket naan bread to be a little leathery.

Again if you want it to serve more, serve with rice as well.