Balsamic Chicken Drumette and Nut Spice Curry, made with SN1

A spice curry with a crunch, where toasted nuts meet the savoury depth of chicken on the bone 🍛.

SPICE CURRY SPICE PACK (Spice Curry Spice Pack Symphony No.1 / SN1) — balsamic chicken drumettes with nuts.

The sweetness of the cream and the sharpness of the balsamic sauce make it hard to stop. It is very mild, so children can eat it happily too.

The balsamic sauce takes a little effort to make, but it is superb on a steak as well, so it is worth trying.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• SN1 / starter spices (the whole-spice sachet): 1 sachet
• SN1 / powder spices (the ground-spice sachet): 1 sachet
• Onion: 1
• Unsalted nuts: whichever you like (this recipe uses unsalted mixed nuts)
• Garlic: 2 tsp (about 1–2 cloves)
• Ginger: 2 tsp
• Chicken drumettes: 8 (about 480g)
• Tinned tomatoes (whole): 400g
• Water: 400ml
• Marmalade: 1 tbsp
• Salt: 1 tsp
• Double cream: 3 tbsp
• Vegetable oil: 3 tbsp (use whichever oil you like)
• Plus unsweetened yoghurt, for preparing the drumettes
  
  

Balsamic sauce: ingredients and method Balsamic vinegar: 2 tbsp Soy sauce: 1 tbsp Mirin (sweet rice seasoning): 1 tbsp Wasabi paste: about 5cm squeezed from the tube Salted butter: 10g Method Put everything into a frying pan and reduce over a fairly high medium heat, stirring so that the wasabi dissolves. Reduce it by half, then take it off the heat. As a guide, it is right when it runs thickly as you tilt the pan. Melt in the butter.

Preparation

• Pierce the drumettes in several places with a fork, coat them in 5 tbsp of unsweetened yoghurt and leave them in the fridge for 1 hour.
• Cut the onion into wedges.
• Make the balsamic sauce.
• Toast the unsalted nuts in a frying pan and crush the roasted nuts into rough pieces.

Method

1. Pour the vegetable oil into a pan, add the “starter spices (the whole-spice sachet)”, then turn on a low heat.
   
   
2. When the mustard seeds start to crackle, add the grated “garlic and ginger” and stir them through the spices. Keep stirring for about 30 seconds.
   
   
3. Add the “onion”, stir it in, then turn the heat to medium and cook for about 15 minutes, until deep golden brown.
   
   

   If it looks as though it might catch, add a splash of water and keep cooking gently. (The point is to mind the spices rather than the onion — it matters more that the spices do not burn.)

   
   
   
4. Once the onion is deep golden brown, turn the heat down low and add the yoghurt-marinated drumettes, the salt, the unsalted nuts and water: 200ml (half of the 400ml you set aside), then cook for about 3 minutes over a fairly high medium heat.
   
   

   Yoghurt catches easily, so be sure to add the water and let it loosen into the pan.

   
   
   
5. Add all of the “powder spices” and stir them in.
   
   
6. Add the tinned tomatoes, marmalade: 1 tbsp, balsamic sauce: 1 tbsp and the remaining water: 200ml, stir everything together, then put a lid on the pan and simmer for about 30 minutes over a low to medium heat.
   
   

   A pressure cooker is worth using here — it makes the drumettes fall-apart tender

   
   
   
7. Add the “double cream: 3 tbsp”, adjust the salt, and spoon it onto plates.
   
   
8. To finish, use a little more cream and balsamic sauce to make it look good on the plate.

Inspice spice curry spice sets contain none of the usual sources of heat — chilli, cayenne pepper or chilli powder — so please add heat to your own taste.