Last Saturday I went again to my weekly cooking class at Jamie Oliver’s workshop in Leeds. When I got there I started by washing my hands with special hygienic soap. I know how important this is and it’s become part of my cooking routine. Then we were ready to make this week’s recipe which was a traditional Indian-style chicken tikka masala. I got started by finding my chopping board. This time I used the red chopping board because it’s the right one to use for meat and then I carefully cut my chicken into strips ready to cook.
I washed my hands again because it’s important not to contaminate other food when you’ve been preparing raw chicken. Then I got my white chopping board which is the one we use for vegetables and peeled and finely chopped my onion.
I was ready to get started so I put a little bit of vegetable oil into my pan, let it get hot and then added the chopped onion. I let it fry for a bit until the onion was nice and soft just starting to get a little bit brown. When the onion was ready I added my chicken strips. I cooked them gently stirring and turning them so that I was sure that they had properly cooked through.
Next I chopped my red chili. You have to be really careful when you do this because it can really hurt if you get it on your fingers and then rub your eyes. Be careful! Then I put my chili in the pan with my chicken and onion. I spiced it up with some fresh coriander and then half a teaspoon of chicken tikka paste.
Finally I added tin of chopped tomatoes. I let everything simmer gently together for half hour. It smelt absolutely delicious, I was really looking forward to eating it later. When the class was over, I put my curried chicken into my food box and I took it home for my tea. I didn’t fancy it, but if you wanted to you could add some cooked rice or have some poppadum’s with it.
I was pleased with what I made this week. It was actually very tasty. The best part was that I had made my own meal and it was definitely much nicer than having a takeaway! This week I learned a lot about how to keep things clean and hygenic in my own kitchen and it was so good to have another easy recipe to add to those I’ve learnt to make over the last few weeks.
