To be honest I'm not sure whether my cooking has really improved over the course of this year but I have certainly learned a few things. One is to cook the "Jamie Oliver way": multitasking, battling the clock, showing a little flamboyance but complete disregard for whoever will be doing the washing up. I have also become very well acquainted with my local supermarket - things like tikka paste, lentils, cashew nuts - I can find them with my eyes closed. If only Supermarket Sweep hadn't ended back in 2007 - I'd have been nailed on for the jackpot. Although that would have meant interacting with Dale Winton.
Anyway, having done a few "book exclusives" lately, this was a return to safer ground with a nice straightforward (hopefully) chicken salad type recipe. Glancing through the instructions, I couldn't really see anything that could go drastically wrong. I'd even invested in a spatter guard recently which would hopefully stop those mustard seeds from jumping out of the pan when the oil gets a bit hot. There's basically three parts to the cooking - the chicken is coated in the tikka paste and griddled. The lentils are warmed through in a frying pan with various flavourings, and the dressing is blitzed in the liquidizer. It's plated up onto a bed of spinach leaves with shavings of carrot and cucumber.
The end result is aesthetically quite pleasing as it is bright and colourful with chunky bits of gnarly chicken and clanked up (Jamie's description) naan and a nice sprinkling of lentils. And it tasted great too. The chicken was juicy with a kick of spicy tikka (although not so much as if it had marinated for longer) which went nicely with the crunch of the salad. The dressing was a hit as well - it's like a creamy mango chutney with a bit of a kick - honestly it's better than it sounds.
My only (slight) criticism is the balance of quantities. I was making this for two and I halved the amount of spinach but kept everything else the same (I don't think one chicken breast per person is greedy?). We still ended up with too much spinach but just about the right amount of chicken and lentils etc. If you followed the recipe exactly and split it between four you'd end up with a very spinach-heavy plate of food.
Lolz gave the dish 9/10. Difficulty rating 2/10.
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