Recipe: Chicken, Baby Turnip and Pea Curry

They say necessity is the mother of all invention and while I’m not sure who ‘they’ are, I’d have to agree. With just a lonely chicken breast in the fridge and some leftover over curry sauce from the night before, I turned to my garden for a little inspiration.

My wife’s reaction when I announced with great fanfare we were having Chicken Curry with Baby Turnips and Peas was, muted, shall I say. There was a sound reasoning, at least in my mind, of pairing turnips with curry. Cauliflower is a classic vegetable in curries. Turnip kinda, sorta, almost, if you squint, tastes like cauliflower. Hence, turnips and curry.

And I’m glad I did because it was blooming gorgeous. My wife agreed.

The curry sauce was something I made up the night before to satisfy a craving for chips and curry sauce like they do at the local chinese. It was basically some onion, garlic and chilli, fried with a load of indian-style spices such as cumin, turmeric and some other spicy stuff. I can’t quite remember, sorry. I added a bit of chicken stock, a splash of coconut milk and lo, a curry sauce was born.

The rest was easy. Very thin strips of chicken, fried with (more) garlic and chilli, dumped a load (more) spices, added the iccle baby turnips, poured the sauce over. Done. Peas went in last with a bit more coconut milk. It ended up like a Khorma with attitude.

The veggie fritters were just something to pad it all out. Grated potatoes, carrots and onion, flour and yet more of those spices. Fried in oil then served with lettuce to wrap around and a splash of sweet chilli sauce.

Curries need bread and I didn’t have any except for some bake-at-home Ciabatta’s languishing at the back of the cupboard. I baked them off then in a screaming hot griddle pan, pressed them down hard with the back of a pan to flatten them out and give them those nice charred marks. I got that tip from a kebab shop in Mallorca and they were lovely.