My take on a chicken and lime curry

This healthy chicken & lime curry is easy to make and jam-packed full of flavour from the homemade curry paste. It’s low in calories and more than 3 of your 5-a-day, great if you’re on a diet or the perfect excuse for an extra naan bread and onion bhaji! This is my take on a curry!

The aim of the curry was to be full of flavour and to be healthy (full of veg and low in calories as we’re on a bit of a diet at the moment, although I am not doing so well– someone please, please send me some willpower please!) and this one absolutely fits the bill. I made my own curry paste (which might sound fancy but actually means bashing together a load of stuff in a pestle and mortar – a great stress reliever if you need one!). The paste is mostly made from store cupboard ingredients with the addition of garlic, ginger and chilli. I’ve recently discovered frozen ginger and it’s perfect for things like this. In the past I’ve bought a lump of ginger root, used a little square and then found the rest lurking at the back of the fridge looking worse for wear a bit later. Using frozen ginger root means I have it when I need it, don’t have any waste, and once it’s bashed up into a paste you wouldn’t know it wasn’t fresh

Active Time: 30 minutes, Total Time: 50 minutes

Serves 2 (could easily serve 3 with a little extra rice) but if you want more it is easy doubled

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
2 tsp olive oil
2 onions
1 red pepper
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 lime (zest)
300ml passata
200ml water
Pinch of sal

For the marinade
1 lime (juice)
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp hot chilli powder

For the curry paste
2 cloves of garlic
1 cube of ginger
1 green chilli (add more or less depending on how spicy you like it, 1 makes it a medium heat)
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tsp fenugreek
1 tsp turmeric
1 tbsp tomato purée

Method
Marinate the chicken

Chop the chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces and place into a large bowl.
Add the lime juice (1 lime), hot chilli powder (½ tsp) and paprika (1 tsp).
Cover with cling film and leave to marinate while you prepare the rest of the curry.
Make the curry paste

Place the curry paste ingredients into a pestle and mortar (2 cloves garlic, 1″ cube ginger, 1 green chilli (stalk removed), 1 tbsp ground coriander, 1 tsp fenugreek, 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tbsp tomato purée) and bash until there are no large lumps.

Cook the sauce

Slice the onions and roughly chop the red pepper into bite-sized chunks.
Heat the olive oil (2 tsp) in a large saucepan. Once hot turn the heat down to low-medium and add the onions and cook for 15-20 minutes until soft and starting to brown. Stir them regularly to ensure they don’t burn.
Add the cumin seeds and cook for 1 minute.
Add the red pepper, lime zest (1 lime), curry paste, passata (300ml) and water (200ml) and simmer for 20 minutes while the sauce thickens. Stir occasionally. Season with salt to taste

About 5 minutes before the sauce is cooked, cook the chicken. Heat a frying pan, add the chicken and cook for c. 5 minutes until it is piping hot all the way through. Turn it during cooking to ensure it cooks evenly.

Once the chicken and sauce are cooked, stir the chicken into the sauce and serve. I like mine with rice or chapatis.