Encourage your children's kitchen confidence by letting them try their hand at this customised chicken curry recipe.
I’ve been cooking with my children since they were toddlers. We started out with gingerbread and basic dough recipes but now my eldest is nearly eight years old she wants to cook things which she calls ‘grown up food’.
I’m really keen to get her involved in cooking family meals as she’s learning lots of practical skills and I find it stops her being a fussy eater, as she’s always willing to try things if she’s had a hand in preparing them. One of our favourite recipes is this chicken curry.
I think it’s a great meal to cook with children as it’s quite forgiving. You don’t have to time things to the precise minute and there are just a few easy stages, so children can do most of it by themselves with just a little adult help. My daughter loves it because she gets to customise the recipe by deciding which spices and in which amounts to use, which lets her be creative and really helps to build her confidence in the kitchen.
Here, I’ve included a few guidelines about the spices and I’ve found that so long as my daughter sticks within these boundaries with her choices we always end up with a delicious curry all the family enjoys.
Kitchen tips
This recipe uses raw chicken, so take sensible precautions by using a chopping board and making sure your hands and the equipment are thoroughly washed after you’ve handled the chicken. Make sure the curry is cooked long enough so the chicken cooks right through.
Our rule when my daughter is chopping the onion and chicken is that she has to sit down on her bottom all the time she’s chopping, taking care to keep her fingers out of the way. She finds it much easier to use the kitchen scissors rather than the knife to cut the chicken breasts.
Kids’ customised chicken curry
This makes enough for four people.
- Get yourself ready: wash your hands and put on an apron
- Prepare your equipment: a chopping board, a sharp knife, a pair of clean kitchen scissors, a large frying pan, a tin opener, a teaspoon, a tablespoon, a wooden spoon
- Sort your ingredients: vegetable oil, an onion, 4 chicken breasts chopped into small pieces or 500g diced chicken pieces, mild chilli powder, ground cinnamon, ground cumin, ground coriander, ground ginger, garam masala, a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes, a 400ml tin of coconut milk
- Start cooking
Method
- Peel the onion, cut it in half and cut the halves into thin slices. Chop the slices into small pieces
- Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in the frying pan over a low heat. Add the onions and cook them gently for about 10 minutes until they soften.
- Add your blend of spices to the onions and stir them in. Use a half or one teaspoon of the mild chilli powder. You can pick and mix which of the other spices you use and add up to 2 level teaspoons of each one.
- Add the chicken pieces and stir into the onion mixture. Let this cook for about 5 minutes until the chicken begins to brown.
- Pour in the chopped tomatoes and coconut milk and stir carefully. Let this all cook for at least 20 minutes so the chicken cooks properly and the sauce thickens.
- Serve with your choice of rice, naan or poppadums.
For some more child-friendly recipes you could try Jen’s pizza, Nick’s sausage and bean stew or Maggie’s bread.
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mum
11 January, 2011
Perfect! That's tonight's tea sorted. I wonder if I can persuade my eight-year-old to cook it? (I'll show her the picture for inspiration.)
Incidentally I make a similar recipe but use a mild curry paste instead of individual spices. I find my chilli-phobic daughter can cope with that but not the actual chilli powder.
admin
12 January, 2011
Yum! Nothing else to add :-)
Leigh
Ready for Ten Team
admin
21 February, 2012
Fantastic, Cathy - thank you!
Oooh I'll try this one.. my kids both love a chicken korma recipe that I do (Jamie Oliver's!) but I love the idea, in your curry, of adding tomatoes.
My 3 year old is good at cutting out gingerbread men / women (!) and spreading (and licking) the icing onto / off from fairy cakes. I think I'll leave it a bit longer before letting him handle raw chicken and scissors but this recipe seems like a great one for kids to help with, so I'll definitely cook this for them.. and in a few years' time, if they like it - they can cook it for me.. hooray!!
Sue
Ready For Ten Team