Jamie Cooks Spring
By Jamie Oliver
45 mins plus marinating
Not Too Tricky
serves 4
About the recipe
Sweet, salty, sour and fragrant, this springtime feast heroes the humble spring onion. We’re utilising it in three different ways here – the bases are browned off until tender and celebrated as a veg in their own right; the middle part adds punch to our curry paste, and the green tops add crunch and freshness to serve. Inspired by the brilliant Thai green curry, I’m using both chicken thighs and breasts here to keep my kids happy, and I just know you’re going to love this one.
Recipe From
Ingredients
4 skinless boneless free-range chicken thighs
2 skinless free-range chicken breasts
vegetable oil
1 x 400ml tin of light coconut milk
320g purple sprouting broccoli
a few radishes
2 sprigs of fresh soft herbs, such as mint, basil, Thai basil
1 tablespoon low-salt soy sauce
1 teaspoon fish sauce
prawn crackers, to serve
CURRY PASTE
6 cloves of garlic
6 fresh green chillies
2 lemongrass stalks
6cm fresh ginger
1 bunch of spring onions
1 heaped tablespoon coriander seeds
1 big bunch of fresh coriander (60g)
1 bunch of basil (30g)
½ a handful of lime leaves
3 limes
olive oil
RICE
1 mug of basmati rice (300g)
75g desiccated coconut
Top Tip
I’ve used olive oil in my curry paste, which is far from traditional, so feel free to swap in vegetable oil, if you prefer.
Method
- To make the paste, peel the garlic cloves. Halve and deseed the chillies. Trim the lemongrass and remove the tough outer layer, bash it a few times with the back of your knife, then roughly chop. Peel and roughly chop the ginger, then place it all in a blender.
- Trim the spring onions, chop off the bottom few centimetres and put aside, then chop off the top few centimetres of the green part and put those aside too, adding the middle parts to the blender.
- Add the coriander seeds, the fresh coriander (stalks and all), and the basil and lime leaves. Finely grate in the lime zest, squeeze in the juice, add a good drizzle of olive oil and blitz to a smooth green paste, then pour into a bowl.
- Cut the chicken thighs in half and the breasts into big chunks, and toss into the bowl of paste. You can cook straight away if you’re short on time, or cover and pop the chicken in the fridge to marinate for however long you’ve got, or even overnight.
- To cook, put a large shallow casserole pan on a medium-high heat and, once hot, go in with 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Add the bottom parts of the spring onions, then use tongs to add the chicken thighs (working in batches, if needed). Fry for a few minutes, until the chicken is golden on the underside, then flip over.
- Add the chicken breast pieces and remaining marinade to the pan – it may sizzle and spit – then stir in the coconut milk. Simmer gently for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked, adding the delicate broccoli heads for the last couple of minutes (save the spears for soup or stir-fry another day).
- Alongside, pour the rice and desiccated coconut into a pan, add 2 mugs’ worth of boiling kettle water (600ml) and a pinch of salt, cover, and cook on a medium heat for 12 minutes, then turn the heat off.
- Finely slice the reserved green spring onion tops lengthways, finely slice the radishes and add to a bowl of iced water with the fresh herb leaves and any nice radish leaves.
- When the time’s up, season the curry to perfection with the soy and fish sauce, then plate up with the fluffy coconut rice. Drain and sprinkle over the crunchy spring onion tops, herbs and radishes, and serve with prawn crackers, for scooping and dunking.
- For a gift that keeps on giving, wash the discarded chilli seeds, drain them off in a sieve lined with kitchen paper and leave to dry. You want to plant them out in the spring, so store them in an envelope until you’re ready.
- Keep the lemongrass and ginger trimmings to make herbal tea, or chuck them into the water when you boil rice for bonus flavour.
- Chuck the squeezed lime wedges into a jug with some fresh mint and lots of ice, to jazz up your water.
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