Lemon Chicken with Coriander

Talking about cooking last night’s fish dish with Indian spices led me to Madhur Jaffrey’s ‘Indian Cooking’ when looking for something to cook tonight. This dish seemed reasonably light (we’re trying not to over-indulge too much during the week as we have a lot of food-heavy weekends coming up) and quick, making it a good option after a busy day.

It was indeed quick to cook but I still haven’t got used to the writing style which meant I lost my way a little when trying to follow the method. I should have weighed and measured everything before I started too but I was trying to save time, as usual. Consequently, my coriander isn’t as finely chopped as it should be and some stalks found their way in to the final dish but it didn’t matter too much. For a relatively light dish, this had plenty of flavour with a medium heat.

As we’ve found with everything we’ve cooked so far from this book, none of our dishes have borne any resemblance to the pictures shown in the book. I’m not claiming we’re excellent cooks or fabulous photographers but, if a picture is shown, there is usually a similarity in our finished dish. This looks particularly unappetising so I can understand why the food stylist may have wanted to take some liberties but I find it somewhat sneaky when there’s no resemblance at all.

Lemon Chicken with Coriander
Serves Two

1 inch ginger
2 tablespoons plus 75ml water
Vegetable oil
2 chicken legs and 2 chicken thighs
3 cloves garlic, crushed
100g fresh coriander, chopped
1 small green chilli, finely chopped
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Blend the ginger with two tablespoons water.

Brown the chicken, remove and set aside.

In the same pan the chicken was cooked in, fry the garlic until it just starts to brown. Pour in the ginger water and fry for one minute.

Add the coriander, chilli, cayenne pepper, cumin, ground coriander, turmeric and salt. Stir and cook for one minute.

Return the chicken to the pan, add 75ml of water and the lemon juice, stir and bring to the boil. Cover and cook for 15 minutes.

Turn the chicken and cook for a further 10-15 minutes until tender.