Crunchy Nutty Chicken Casserole

This delicious casserole is quick and easy to prepare, takes only 30 minutes from scratch and its flavours are a cross between a curry and a satay sauce. The crunch comes from using crunchy peanut butter. It can be made with or without dairy and the chicken can be replaced with vegetables and chickpeas on meat free monday.

Crunchy Nutty Chicken Casserole
Serves 4

Paste:
1 chilli
15ml ginger grated
2 cloves garlic, crushed
30g fresh coriander
10ml water

10ml oil for frying
4 chicken breast, cubed
1 onion chopped
5-10ml ground cumin
75 - 100ml crunchy peanut butter
250ml Greek yoghurt or 250ml coconut milk (I used coconut milk)
50 ml chicken stock
salt and pepper
coriander chopped for garnish

Place the paste ingredients into a food processor and blend to a paste.
Brown the chicken pieces in a little oil.
Remove from the pan and fry the onions until soft then add the cumin and the paste, cook for 1 minute.
Return the chicken to the pan and add the yoghurt or coconut milk, peanut butter and stock, cover with a lid and reduce the heat.
Simmer for 7 minutes until the chicken is cooked through, season and garnish with coriander.
Serve with basmati rice.

Optional: Add 30 - 50 ml chopped cashews.

Picture and recipe copyright by Tamsyn Wells

Old School Garlic Snails

It's becoming colder lately and even though its warm outside its still chilly inside so I decided to make a rich, satisfying lunch of garlic snails or Escargot as the French call them with fresh herbs picked from the garden and loads of melted butter.

Not all land snails are edible so don't just grab the first thing you see in the garden. Normally snails are removed from their shells, poached in garlic butter or wine and placed back in the shell to serve. They are very high in protein and low in fat, until you add the butter that is! Before eating snails they must go into a bowl of cereals to remove the impurities .

This is the traditional method of eating them in butter but they go great with wine, cream, beer, pinenuts and tomato based sauces to name a few. Always add lots of parsley to counter the strong garlic taste.

Garlic Snails
Serves 2 - 4

4 garlic cloves crushed
200g butter
1 tin snails / escargot
bunch of parsley chopped
squeeze of lemon
crushed black pepper
salt
bread with crusts cut off and cut into fingers

Melt the butter with the garlic and cook for about 5 minutes slowly to cook the garlic.
Add the snails and cook for another 3 -5 minutes to warm through.
Add the herbs, lemon and seasoning.
Serve in a snail dish like in the picture above with the bread on the side.

Picture and recipe by Tamsyn Wells