Sam’s chicken curry with mango salsa

Sam, our customer service team leader here at Yuppiechef, was one of the key players in our first ever What’s in the box? recipe challenge. Here’s what she cooked up with her 5 ingredients.

Ingredients from the box:

Barrett’s Ridge Beer Bread and beer
Chicken
Tomatoes
Mangoes
Sweet potatoes

Additional ingredients added:

Pineapple
Bananas
Red onions
Cape Malay curry mix
Raisins
Basmati rice
Coconut
Seasoning

Here’s the story of how Sam’s dish came to life:

An eager-to-be-chopped coriander bush, making a nuisance of itself on the balcony, and the warm summer rain, were responsible for inspiring notions of a sweet and tangy curry. The fruit bowl, containing one lonely pineapple and two bananas, formed the accompanying cast of salsa and side serving.

The bird, as a whole, wasn’t going to cook very quickly so we dismembered and skinned the chicken and along with a little butter, set it on its way to cook in a large pot. We diced up the sweet potatoes and some onions and added those to the pot to simmer in the juices.

The bread

All curry needs rice, so our trusty basmati was relied on to pull the dish together. While that started boiling we turned our attention to the beer and Barrett’s Ridge Beer Bread mix. Having made one of these before, and being a glass of wine down, ‘someone’ (we’re in cahoots) haphazardly started pouring from the bottle when a cautionary voice reminded said person that the beer was meant for higher purposes.

The salsa

The remaining mango was finely diced for salsa to which was added 1/2 a diced pineapple and 1/2 a red onion. Chillies are always part of the pantry, so a fine looking green one, without seeds, made its way into the salsa mix. We also added a little more coriander.

The curry

Finally, we tossed in whole vine tomatoes into the chicken and vegetable mix along with a decent sprinkle of Cape Malay spice mix. After some scrounging, raisins appeared out of the cupboard, so we bunged those in too. Out of the 2 mangoes included in our adhoc dinner loot, one was chopped into chunks and introduced to the curry. That pretty much did the trick.

And after 45 minutes, we dined on a splendid spread for a mid-week mash up.

Head this way to see an overview of January’s What’s in the Box? challenge.