Friday night fake-away: This Lo-cal curry is INSANELY good

Sophie White

It’s that time of the week when we lose all will to be healthy. It’s not Friday; it’s “Eat my face off Food-day”. The only thing that can possibly save me from an all-out weekend eat-a-thon is if I come up with something that’s as tasty as a takeaway without the calorie overkill. Enter the fake-away.

This Japanese influenced curry tastes better than anything from the local takeaway and uses vegetables and stock as the basis for a much healthier and totally delicious sauce.

Chicken Katsu Curry

Ingredients:

Serves 2 (generously)

For the crunchy chicken

2 chicken breasts
1/2 cup flour
1 cup milk
About 1 cup cornflakes, roughly bashed up
Sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper to taste

For the sauce

1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 carrots
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon curry powder
600ml (1 pt) chicken stock
2 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon garam masala
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Half a large cauliflower
2 spring onions, thinly sliced

Directions:

1. Preheat oven 180°C and slice the chicken breasts into thin strips.

2. Arrange the flour in one bowl, the milk in another and place the bashed up cornflakes in a third.

3. Line an oven tray with baking paper. Dip each piece of chicken first in the flour, coating evenly, then in the milk and finally into the cornflakes. Repeat with all the chicken pieces, arrange the coated chicken on the tray and bake in the oven for 15-25 minutes until cooked through and golden in colour.

4. Roughly chop the onion and peel the garlic cloves, but leave them whole. Peel and slice the carrots into 1cm rounds. Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat and add in the chopped onion, the garlic cloves and the sliced carrots. Sweat these gently, with the lid on the saucepan, for about 20 minutes until they are soft and caramelised.

5. Add in the flour, the curry powder if using, and gradually mix in the chicken stock to the saucepan. Increase the heat to bring the saucepan to the boil, then add the honey, the soy sauce and the bay leaf, then simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened. Add the garam masala and check the seasoning, adding a little sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, if needed. Then, using a hand-held blender, blend the sauce until it is smooth.

6. Make cauliflower rice for two by grating or blending half a head of cauliflower and then dry frying in a non-stick pan with a pinch of salt until it is warmed through.

7. Serve the chicken on the cauliflower rice with the sauce spooned over the top with thinly sliced spring onion sprinkled over.