Pumpkin chutney chicken with carrotty rice

A while ago my mum gave me one of her currently favourite recipes, mango chutney chicken. She had successfully served with rice, but also with roasted baby potatoes and every time her guests practically licked their plates. If it is good enough for them, it is certainly good enough for me.

However, there is a big however. The original dish is based on full fat cream, something my stomach nowadays finds hard to cope with. Lately I have played a lot with full fat Greek yogurt and found it normally works really well to cook warm meals with, while natural yogurt is better for cold food. Would it work to simply swap the cream for Greek yogurt?

As it turned out, the sauce split and this is very obvious in the final photo. It didn't look very nice, but it had no impact what so ever on the flavour. If a split sauce bothers you, either use cream or eat with closed eyes. A third option is not to cook this meal at all, of course, but you would be missing out. It was so tasty that I ate far too much. In hindsight I was very glad I used yogurt instead of cream, considering the meal's button-busting qualities.

The original recipe was possibly one of the simplest I have used in a while. It basically said to soften as much chopped onion as you want until it is glossy and to brown the chicken fillets in a frying pan before transferring them to an oven tray. Pour as much cream as you want into a sauce pan and warm up with as much mango chutney as you fancy along with some chilli paste and curry powder. Mix well, pour it over the chicken and bake in the oven until the chicken is done, approximately 20 minutes at 200 degrees. That's the kind of recipe that I like. No measurement, make it up as you go. Perfect!

Because it was so simple, I changed it, according to a lifelong habit of doing so. No, not only because of habit, but also because I thought my amendment may help enhance the flavour. I browned the chicken fillets in the curry powder rather than adding it to the sauce, but since I used the same frying pan to mix the sauce in, the remnant seasoning ended up in the sauce anyway. A pepper was added to increase the vegetable content of the meal and I used a red onion because it looked sad and lonely in the basket. Finally I used homemade pumpkin chutney instead of shop-bought mango chutney. Why? Because I could and because the taste is quite similar.

My original plan was to serve the chicken with broccoli florets, but that meant heading to the shop, which I didn't fancy. Instead I opted for rice with the addition of tiny carrot sticks. Carrotty rice must be healthier than plain rice, especially if the added root sticks result in reducing the amount of rice on the plate. My plan didn't work. I ate too much anyway.

1. Get all ingredients out. 

I forgot the curry powder at this stage.

2. Mix the rice with a mandolined carrot, add water and cook as usual.

3. Chop the pepper and onion.

Curry powder! I opted for medium strength.

4. Heat a little oil in a frying pan and add curry powder. When it is sizzling, add the chicken fillets and brown them on both sides.

5. Once browned, transfer the fillets to an oven tray.

6. In the pan with curry and chicken juice remnants, soften the onion and pepper.

7. Add chilli paste and chutney. 

I started with 3 tbsp chutney, but later added another 2 tbsp.

8. Once the paste and chutney have been thoroughly mixed with the vegetables, add yogurt and stir well until it comes together as a sauce.

9. Pour the sauce over the chicken and make sure the fillets are covered.

10. Cook in the oven at 200 degrees for approximately 20 minutes, until the chicken is cooked. Flip the fillets over halfway through.

After a test cut, I gave the fillets another 5 minutes to be on the safe side. Chicken isn't to be messed with. Either it is white all the way through, or you don't eat it. Simple rule.

11. By now the rice should be ready.

12. Dish up and try not to eat too much. 

Here you can clearly see the sauce having split quite badly. I have had Greek yogurt it in the oven before and the result has never been as bad as this time. Perhaps it reacted to something in the chutney. Of course could claim that as an excuse, but the truth is that I don't know. Considering how tasty it was, I don't really care, to be perfectly honest. I will be making this again, that's for sure. Next time I will serve with broccoli though, to save a few calories and keep the button secure on my jeans.