Dinner Tonight: Baked Chicken With Yogurt and Chile Paste
Donna Hay’s Off the Shelf looked like exactly what I needed. It is all about using ingredients found in the pantry, which is pretty novel. It’s a beautiful book, too, with enormous color-filled pages. But when I thought about it more carefully, God knows what I’ll find in my pantry at any one time. It’s usually a rag-tag team of various cuisines and never enough of anything to make much of a difference. That’s my fault.
Luckily, this recipe was so simple that the usual pantry items needed to complete the picture were few and not very expensive. I had to invest in some chile paste, mint, and some yogurt. Everything else was, sure enough, in the pantry somewhere. And good thing, too. These simple ingredients work their magic quickly on the chicken, leaving it spicy, creamy, and delicious. Now if I could only find another use for that chile paste.
Baked Chicken with Yogurt and Chile Paste
- serves 4 -
Ingredients
1 chicken, quartered
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 cup thick plain yoghurt
1 tablespoon chili paste
1/3 cup shredded mint
2 teaspoons ground cumin
Salt and pepper
Procedure
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
2. Cut 1/2 inch thick slights in the chicken pieces.
3. Mix the cornflour, yoghurt, chili paste, mint, cumin, pepper and salt in a very large bowl.
4. Toss the chicken pieces in the bowl until completely covered with the sauce.
5. Place on a roasting rack in a pan. Bake for 30 minutes or until done.
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8 Comments:
I find the chili paste to be a good substitute for the "Bushwa Brown's" (or whatever the brand is) jerk paste that I use in making Michael Symon's "slash-and-burn" grouper (which I accompany with his crab "tater tots").
I also use the chili paste when I make the spiced-up deviled eggs from the Silver Palate Cookbook (I forget the actual recipe name, but the recipte requires crushed, toasted pink Schezuan peppercorns in it). More flavorful than the usual deviled eggs and prettier, too!
Mizbee at 4:39PM on 11/30/07
Ah, but Mizbee... There is no substitute for the grassy herb and bright, smoky heat flavors of true Jamaican jerk paste! I heartily recommend making a batch from scratch with a fresh Scotch Bonnet pepper.
johnjgoddard at 4:24AM on 12/01/07
Please - What is cornflour? Or better yet, what is an alternative?
Thank you
BT
burnt toast at 10:09AM on 12/02/07
also, what kind of chili paste are you talking about? i have some thai stuff, but i get the feeling that is not what you are talking about.
carriebwc at 9:37AM on 12/03/07
Corn flour is what you use to make tortillas and enchiladas. It's typically sold under the Maseca brand, but others are available. It's also known as masa harina.
I used Lan Chi chili paste with Garlic. It tasted great.
I'm not crazy about the recipe though. It was messy to eat. Try as I might, I couldn't get the coating to be anything but a sloppy mess without overcooking the chicken. It may have been something I did wrong. I used greek style yogurt because that's what I had. Maybe it was too high in fat. I believe that it might be better with deboned chicken that you can eat with a knife and fork. The taste was great though.
Egaeus at 11:57PM on 12/03/07
cornflour is how the British refer to cornstarch, not Mexican masa harina
gala2 at 8:35PM on 01/21/08
Hi there, I am so inspired by Donna Hay, i am organising a Donna Hay Tag, and I was wondering if you would be keen to take part too….
Here’s the link http://vanessafrida.livejournal.com/202333.html
vanessafrida at 1:45AM on 03/19/08
I love this cookbook, and I recently wrote about using it on my blog http://barredowl.wordpress.com/
check it out!
barredowl at 3:32PM on 04/25/08