Roar Recipes

Serves 6

 

Total Prep & Cook Time: 1.5hours

 

Ideally you will need a:

- Pestle and Mortar

- Potato Masher, a blender (or some good mashing skills with a fork)

- Large Saucepan

 

 

Ingredients

 

1 Butternut Squash (about 1.5kg whole weight)

Coconut Oil

400g Chicken

150g Mushrooms (preferably an Asian type)

1 Red Pepper

1 Large Onion

2 Cloves of Garlic

1tsp Turmeric

300ml Vegetable Stock

2tbsp Soy Sauce

2tbsp Fish Sauce

Juice of 1 Lime

400ml can of Coconut Milk

Himalayan Rock Salt

 

For the Malaysian Base:

2 Cloves of Garlic

2 Whole Chillies (Seeds and all, just not the stems!)

1tsp Palm Sugar

4 Kaffir Lime Leaves

18g Stem Ginger (skin removed)

Small Handful of Thai Bail or 1tsp Thai Basil Paste

½ tsp Tamarind Paste

½ tsp Lemongrass Paste

 

Method

 

First of all you’ll need to preheat your oven to 180°c and find yourself a large baking tray. Then thoroughly wash the butternut squash and chop up it up into large chunks for roasting. Lay the chunks out evenly on the baking tray and smother the pieces with a light layer of coconut oil. You might want to melt the coconut oil first.

 

Roast the butternut squash for approximately 40-50mins, rotating or flipping the chunks half way through. Then, while the butternut squash cooks away, you can start preparing the Malaysian Base for the curry, the source of its rich and vibrant flavour.

 

Bring out your pestle and mortar, throwing in it your garlic cloves, chillies, thai basil and ginger, all coarsely chopper up beforehand. Start bashing the ingredients together into a pulp. Next crush up the kaffir Lime Leaves in your fingers adding these into the pulp, followed by the remaining ingredients for the base. Carry on bashing and grinding the ingredients down into a chunky paste.

 

Set the base aside and bring your onion, remaining garlic, pepper and mushrooms to the table. Finely chop the onion and garlic, and then set these aside together. Chop the pepper and mushrooms next, I prefer these cut into reasonably sized chunks to add substance to the curry. Finally slice the chicken up into strips as well and set aside.

 

By this time the butternut squash ought to be beautifully cooked and filling your kitchen with a sweet and slightly coconutty aroma. I absolutely adore this smell, almost as much as I enjoy the Laksa itself! Allow the butternut squash to cool, enough that you can comfortably hold it in your hands. Peel the skin away from the soft fleshy centre. Discard the skin but place the flesh into a pan/blender where you can mash/blend it up until smooth. Again set this aside.

 

Now bring out a deep saucepan. On a medium-high heat throw in 1½ tbsp of coconut oil and fry the chicken strips just until they are sealed. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside. Turn up the heat to high and add the onion and garlic. Season them with salt and fry for three minutes before adding the peppers and mushrooms. Frying these for a further 5 minutes while continually tossing the veg around. Now add 1/2 - 2/3 of the Malaysian base and stir this into the veg for a minute, releasing all of the vibrant smells and flavours. The rest of your base can be frozen for another time.

 

Add the puréed butternut squash in to the pan, along with the turmeric, veg stock, coconut milk, soy sauce, fish sauce and lime. Thoroughly stir the curry on a high heat for a few minutes on high until it begins to bubble, then set to a medium-low heat, re-introduce the chicken and pop on the pan lid. Leave the curry slowly bubbling for about 10 to 15 minutes.

 

Make sure the chicken is fully cooked then have a cheeky spoonful to test the flavours. You may want to season with a little more salt or even add in a little more lime to intensify the flavours.

 

Serve up straight away, either on its own or with a side of rice. Even if you don’t have a table of six to serve tonight, this curry freezes so nicely. I promise you, with this in the freezer you’ll actually be glad the next evening you don’t have time to cook!