Coconut Curry Chicken with extras

Hello. Yes, its been a while, I know. Ive been busy living my life. But now things have stabilised and I'm cooking again. Which is great. As you might remember, I like to do simple but hearty stuff when I cook. I'm not averse to using simmer sauces and pre-made marinades because they are often quite good and will save you a stack of time.

I think it would be a fun experiment to buy things in packets and then to make the recipes on the back of them strictly to the recipe to see how good or bad they are. Hmm... nah. I've already got too many blogs.

A few weeks ago, as part of a promotion for something else, I was sent some Nando's marinades and sauces and other cool stuff. And Ive been dying to try the Coconut Curry Chicken cooking sauce the most. Just so you know, Nando's didnt ask me to cook this and write a blog to promote their stuff, I just wanted to. And just so you know, the rest of their product has been really good, so I have high hopes for the curry.

So the directions sound easy enough. Brown 500g chicken, add capsicum (recipe says to use Red but I've only got green) and green beans. But as I like to "enhance" a recipe, I am also adding some pumpkin because it goes brilliantly in curry and I've also got a little leftover broccoli, so that's going in too. First off, I cubed the pumpkin into dice-sized bits and fried it in some oil (and salt) until it was brown and a little softer.

Yes, its awesome to eat like this.

Then after browning off the chook (which I cut into strips instead of cubes like the menu says) I put everything in a deepish frypan (deeper than a frypan, not quite a wok. I should work in advertising) and turned down the temp (not the Tempo, that's different) to allow the whole lot to simmer for the required 12 minutes. Good timing because microwave rice takes 11 minutes. Considering the prep took about 10 minutes, this is a quick and easy dinner.

End result - BOOYA!

I've cooked with all the different sauces and marinades from Nando's (that I was given) and this was the best result so far. This was delicious! In terms of curry-typing, this was closer to a sweet Thai style curry than an Indian curry, and the chili was only Medium. For a pre-made "jar of sauce" product this was an excellent dish. Nando's Perinaise is also awesome and not just on chips. I used it in a salad instead of caesar sauce and it was fantastic.