Mild Chicken and Vegetable Curry for kids

My son has been off curries recently.  Nursery have tried but he'd been really reluctant.  Stupidly I then started to avoid cooking curries.  I always say the only way to ensure your child is fussy is to stop offering certain foods and there I was doing it myself!

As a child who grew up in the UK midlands, not liking curry is not an option!

So faced with some chicken and chicken stock which needed using up from Sunday lunch one week, I made this.  Nothing authentic about it but it was very tasty.

Mild Chicken Curry - serves 1 adult and 1 toddler

Ingredients

1/2 onion, fined chopped
1 Garlic clove, chopped
1 tsp Oil
1 rounded tsp Korma curry paste
400-600ml, approx 1 pint chicken stock or water (I used 200ml home made chicken stock made from the bones of the Sunday joint and 300ml water, see method below)
30g, 1 oz Red lentils
30g, 1 oz Frozen chopped spinach
2-3 small leftover waxy potatoes
A large handful of leftover chicken
1/4 tsp Garam masala

To serve; basmati rice; frozen peas.

Method

Fry the onion in the oil for a few seconds until starting to brown.  Add in the garlic followed by the curry paste.  Stir then add the stock and / or water.  Make sure you're using low salt or home made salt free stock if you are using it.

Add the lentils and boil, covered for 10 minutes.  Check and stir adding in more boiling water if it's starting to reduce too much.  Once boiled, simmer until the lentils are cooked.  This can take 5-20 minutes depending on the age of the lentils.

Once cooked you can leave the sauce until later when you're ready to eat.  Refrigerate if it's going to be more than an hour or so.

When ready to eat, cook some basmati rice on a hob adding in a large handful of frozen peas in the last 2-3 minutes.

While the rice is cooking, reheat the sauce and add the spinach.  When it's melted into the sauce add in the chicken and potatoes and heat through.

Last minute stir the garam masala into the curry and serve with the rice and pea mixture.  A great source of hidden vegetables (peas in the rice, spinach and lentils in the curry) and a great source of protein (chicken and lentils) but the best thing was, even though it was mild for me, it was still flavoursome and my son LOVED it!  Everything went!  Yay Mummy!

Then we followed this up with banana and custard.  Well I am from the midlands... :-)

Make it Thrifty

This is a darned thrifty recipe anyway because it uses up leftovers (chicken, stock, potatoes) but you could use whatever you have left.  Cooked cauliflower warmed through might be particularly good.  I've been vague on the quantities of chicken but it really doesn't matter.  Use what you have!