India’s bold spices take a trip through Thailand’s coconut groves with this blended traybake of fresh flavours. Layered with warming ginger and garlic, add in the heat of fresh chilli, all mellowed with creamy coconut. The mix of colourful vegetables in this spicy coconut chicken, lentil, and vegetable traybake, add to the visual vibrancy of the dish, which is all brought together and balanced with the earthy notes of the gut-friendly lentils.
Indian or Thai curry – why not both?
I could be causing the biggest divide in the culinary world by combining both Indian and Thai cuisines – but trust me on this! Whilst on one hand, Indian curry flavours are built on layers of dry spices – think cumin, coriander, turmeric, and garam masala – and are simmered for a long time to develop the rich flavours. On the other hand you have Thai curries, in contrast, usually hitting that fresh and aromatic note, using fresh chillies for heat and blended with flavours such as lemongrass and of course the all important coconut milk
With this Thai-Indo traybake fusion we’re looking to take the best of both and bring them together in a warming and zingy bowl that ignites all your senses.
Health benefits
This dish is protein rich with the chicken, high in fibre due to the gut-friendly lentils, and when eaten with brown basmati rice you’ll be hitting around half your daily fibre target. Added to this you’re consuming 4 of your 5 a day vegetable count, spinach really ratcheting up your iron intake. And not only that, but this dish contributes overall to the ’30 per week’ with the long list of spices, ginger, chilli, etc.
Other lentil recipes
They might not be the hero of the dish, but using lentils in cooking such as this really is a great way to increase overall fibre intake with minimal effort but great flavour. Here are some other gut-friendly lentil recipes to try:
- Creamy carrot and lentil soup
- Salad of warm vegetables, lentils and halloumi
- Cod, chorizo and lentil summer stew
- Roasted cumin carrot and lentil salad
- Carrot and lentil Bolognese
Growing spinach and aubergines (eggplant)
Spinach is great for succession planting – you can plant every few weeks to ensure you have a continuous supply. Whether you’re growing the larger varieties or the tender baby spinach leaves, both will thrive in slightly cooler and moist soil.
Whilst not a true spinach, I have had great success growing perpetual spinach. It is hardy, provides a long crop, and barring the hardest of winters its therefore great for almost year-round use.
Other green vegetables that would work well instead of spinach would be tenderstem broccoli or green beans.
Spicy Coconut Chicken, Lentil and Vegetable Traybake
Equipment
- 1 ovenproof dish – ideally oven to table
Ingredients
- 8 chicken thighs bone-in and skin-on
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 1/4 tsp chilli powder
- 1 red chilli deseeded and finely chopped
- 12 cardamon pods crushed
- 1 tbsp fresh ginger finely grated
- 2-3 garlic cloves finely grated
- 1 lemon
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 large onion
- 1 tbsp oil
- 1 red/orange/yellow pepper
- 1 aubergine
- 1 can of light/reduced fat coconut milk
- 1 tin green lentils
- 100 g baby spinach leaves/spinach roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander to serve
Instructions
- In a suitable sealable container, place the chicken thighs together with the cumin, coriander, turmeric, chilli powder, chopped chilli, crushed cardamon pods (in a pestle and mortar is easiest to bruise them and release the seeds from the pods), grated ginger, crushed garlic, juice of 1 lemon, and the salt. Toss the chicken thighs in the spicy mix to coat them thoroughly. Leave in the fridge to marinate for at least 2 hours, or preferably overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 180 °C.
- Slice the onion finely and place in the bottom of an ovenproof dish (ideally one you can take to the table) and toss in the oil. Remove the chicken pieces from the container and places them on top of the onion, skin side up, and pour over any remaining marinade.
- Roast in the oven for 25 minutes.
- Whilst the chicken is roasting, halve and slice the pepper and cut the aubergine into 1 cm cubes. When the chicken has had 25 minutes, remove the dish from the oven, set aside the chicken thighs briefly. Add to the dish the sliced pepper and diced aubergine, pour the can of coconut milk on top of the vegetables and sit the chicken back on top, nestling them into the sauce. Return the oven for another 25 minutes.
- Remove the dish and sprinkle in the drained can of lentils and add the spinach, pushing them down into the sauce around the chicken, and place the dish back in the oven for a final 5 minutes until the spinach is wilted.
- Finally, sprinkle over the chopped coriander and serve with your sides of choice. Either some freshly steam brown basmati rice and or some poppadoms, with chutney as options.
Notes
- Feel free to spice things up further by adding freshly chopped chillis and/or more chilli powder
- Other green vegetables that would work well instead of spinach would be tenderstem broccoli or green beans.
