Sunday 2 June 2013

Ready, steady, chook!

Firstly, sorry about the title.  A prize of a postcard from Wellington goes to the person who comes up with a better chicken pun - thanks. [editor's note: I now don't apologise for the title, which is the winning pun from the aforementioned competition - thank you Amy, a wet wellington postcard is winging it's way to you]  Very few of these posts have been about Pinteresting food, for two reasons - 1. several of my friends have real food blogs, like GOOD ones, and why would I set myself up for that kind of comparison, and 2. because my cooking skills are 31 years behind everyone else's (due to my chef father not letting me near the kitchen, and then not cooking for anyone until I got married, and then the year after that marriage when I actually lived with my husband. Long story.) But, I have been trying hard to grow my repertoire from avocado on cruskits to at least ten actual dishes, so I have been using Pinterest to suggest meals and give them a go.  Yesterday, I had the craziest hankering for oranges right around 3pm, shopping for dinner time. I can't really explain why that was, but I Pinterested it and found a recipe I liked the look of:

PINTEREST
















http://www.food.com/recipe/moms-orange-curry-chicken-65056

REALITY

















OVERALL - 9/10

'Mom's Orange Curry Chicken"? Firstly, its "Mum's".  Secondly, what's that first ingredient, "2 1/2 lbs of  broiler-fryer chickens"? I don't understand the question and I won't respond.  That's where you lost me, recipe, and where I started to freestyle.  And you know how dangerous that is. But still, based on the photograph, I'm going to guess mine was a whole heap better - so good, in fact, I'm going to post the recipe below, and that is definitely a world first - me suggesting that other people try make food I made. This is a whole new world.

MEL'S ORANGE CHICKEN CURRY

1. Heat oven to 3/4 of the way the knob will turn. That always seems like a good amount - not too greedy.

2. Cut 500g discount chicken thighs from New World into thumb sized pieces, do not mistake for your thumb.

3. Sprinkle chicken with curry powder to cover and a little salt on both sides and rub into meat.  Also sprinkle with mysterious "orange petal powder" your husband has in his Mexican shelf. Sounds legit.

4.  Arrange in your greased cooking dish or tagine bottom half.

5. Combine 2 cup orange juice, 3/4 cup honey, 5 tbs sweet marmalade (genius!), 3 tbs mustard and 1 tbs cinnamon (that's my patented secret ingredient!) in saucepan; simmer for 5 minutes.

6. Pour over chicken and bake for 30 minutes.

7. Turn chicken, add orange slices cut as cartwheels and continue baking another 20-30 minutes or until richly browned. If sauce is reducing too much, add 1/2 cup water to pan and stir.

8. Whoops! By now your rice should be ready. Go back to step 6 and turn on rice cooker and start cooking enough rice for 2 people.



4 comments:

  1. This is such a great post, so worth waiting for. It made me laugh out loud on a rainy Sunday night! xo

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, and I totally almost always turn my oven to 3/4 of the way. everything gets cooked at 220 degrees!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Can't believe it took me this long to read this! Made me totally LOL... I'll get back you when I think of some chicken puns.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Belatedly catching up on your exploits and cackling - like a chicken, one might say.

    Some punny titles for you:
    Hatching a plan for dinner
    Ready Steady Chook
    Orange you glad I made this?
    Cheep Eats
    Teaching an old bird new tricks
    Curry On Cooking
    Shell we dine?

    You'll note I went a little beyond the brief and included other elements of your meal (which looks so much better than the original that I wondered whether you'd swapped the photos). I will accept a hand-delivered postcard.

    ReplyDelete