Madhouse recipe : Pumpkin & chicken curry

This was the starting point for last night's dinner - our Halloween pumpkin ! This year, I picked up a pumpkin from Lidl a few days before Halloween but we were so busy, we never got round to carving it before the big day. It didn't really matter because it came with a spooky face stuck on and it actually had the huge advantage of reducing food waste because leaving the skin intact it stops it from going off. We're only a fortnight away from Christmas though, so I didn't want anything too Halloweeny, such as pumpkin pie. I turned to google for inspiration and found a Hairy Bikers' recipe for Caribbean chicken and pumpkin curry. I tweaked it quite a lot, making a quick midweek version without marinating the meat, so do go and have a look at the original recipe to see how it should be done with more time on your hands. It was still a perfectly acceptable, tasty and warming meal though, even as a rush job.

Pumpkin & chicken curry

ingredients :

1tbsp coconut oil (or a glug of olive oil)

1 clove garlic

2 onions

1/2 tsp ground ginger

4tsp South African (mild) curry powder

salt, pepper

1/2 - 1 pumpkin

4 chicken breasts

3 tomatoes

chicken stock

Melt the coconut oil in a large pan and gently fry the garlic and onions until they go soft and translucent but don't go brown.

I used South African curry powder that I found in the spice rack, but the Hairy Bikers recipe used Caribbean. Any mild curry powder would do though.

Stir through the salt, pepper, ginger and curry powder.

Chop the chicken into chunks and add to the pot. Cook until the chicken is white all the way through (about 10 minutes).

Chop the tomatoes and add to the pot.

Add the peeled and chopped pumpkin to the pot and cover with chicken stock.

Leave to simmer for 15-20 minutes until the sauce has reduced and thickened. Stir, adjust the seasoning (I added a drizzle of pomegranate molasses to bring out the sweetness of the pumpkin) and serve, with rice or just on its own.

Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky as it used up our Halloween pumpkin, as well as some over ripe tomatoes and a pouch of curry powder that was lurking in the spice rack.