Jamie's Thai Green Curry with Crispy Chicken

By Chris

Main Ingredients:

• 6x chicken thighs
• Coconut milk
• Rice noodles
• Lemongrass, chilli and coriander
• Sesame seeds and honey

So far I've avoided many Jamie recipes due to the over-reliance on food processors and blenders, but with my mum's old Kenwood adopted, I thought I'd give this a go.

This turned out to be one of the slowest 30-minute meals I've done yet, clocking in at 1hr10mins, but there were so many parts to it that it wasn't hard to see why. First six chicken thighs were fried in some oil, salt and pepper for about 20 minutes. The recipe said to use eight, but six was plenty for four people.

While these were going I made a Kimchee Slaw by shoving a handful of radishes, a quarter of a white cabbage, half a red onion, two chillis, some ginger and coriander into a blender. So far, so simple. Then came the tricky part - making my own Thai green curry paste.

Jamie uses so many cheats in the 30-minute meals book and I can't see why this shouldn't be another one of them. Blending together coriander, lemongrass, chilli, lime leaves, ginger, garlic, oil and spring onions is quite a faff, and probably more expensive than just buying a jar. What's more, the mixture wasn't really thick enough to make a paste, more a garnish.

There were some redeeming factors, for example the way the chicken thighs were finished, with honey and sesame seeds, was a delicious touch. Furthermore, the rice noodles added a really light feel to the overall dish and I'll be buying those again. If I was to do this again, I'd keep the kimchee slaw (delicious and easy), but go for the cop out option and buy a jar of paste.

Best for... An exotic option when you're not too pressed for time
Taken from... Jamie Oliver - 30 Minute Meals
Helen says... I usually avoid radishes but the slaw was hot, crunchy and sweet and went perfectly with the creamy sauce. Plus most of the chilli was in the slaw so it was easy for people to vary the heat levels according to their preference.