Lilja Briet my daughter said: Mum, will you be putting this dish on our website? It is amazing! She is a little 11 year old foodie, likes good food, is not afraid to try new food and quite easy to please. She is just 11 years old, and of course she doesn’t like everything I make but on the whole she is a good eater, and her favorite food is sushi.
But back to this recipce :) I quite often like cooking quick and easy food but sometimes I like to put a bit more effort into it and this time i did just that. What I love to do is use seasonal food, buy asparagus in the spring, berries in the summer and so on. I love asparagus and when it is in season I use it in a lot of different ways. Asparagus goes well with a variety of food, for example, great with trout or other good fish.
Also, I made homemade pickled cucumber. I never buy jarred pickles, or a lot of other jarred vegetable for that matter. It is so much nicer to use the fresh stuff and is so much better to make this your self. It is also easy to use other vegetables like courgettes. My kids would never eat store bought pickled cucumber but they both love these! I call them sugar cucumbers and that’s enough to make them super exciting.
Overall, this was not a very complicated dish, took about an hour from start to finish, some days I’m ok with making a bit more effort if the end result is as nice as it was this time.
The chicken
4-6 skinless chicken breast (depending on size)
salt and pepper
1/2-1 tablespoon medium curry powder
olive oil
Sweet potato fries
1 large sweet potato
salt and pepper
olive oil (or rapeseed oil)
Buttery potatoes
8 average size potatoes
salt
30 gr butter
1 tablespoon chopped chives
Pickled cucumber
1 cucumber
50 ml. white wine vinegar
1-2 teaspoons caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
Mushroom/curry sauce
100 gr. chestnut or button mushrooms
1 tablespoon medium curry powder
500 ml. double cream
1 cube chicken stock
2 tablespoons butter
olive oil
Garlic asparagus
10-12 large asparagus
1 garlic clove
2 tablespoons butter
olive oil
Cut the sweet potato into fries shape and arrange on a baking tray Put oil, salt and pepper on them and bake in the oven on 200° fan for around 30 minutes or until nice and golden.
Season the chicken with curry powder, salt and pepper and brown in a bit of oil in a pan. Put them in an overproof dish and finish them of in the oven for around 20 minutes or until cooked through.
Cut the potatoes into wedges and cook in lightly salted water until they are cooked through. Remove them from the water and let the butter melt on top of them. Sprinkle with a bit more salt and the chopped chives. If you don’t have chives, parsley, mint, dill or any other nice herb will work just as well.
Slice the cucumber in thin slices using a vegetable peeler or a mandolin. Put the in a bowl with the vinegar, sugar and salt and let it sit for 30 minutes or longer if you can.
Melt some butter and oil in a pan and fry the chopped mushrooms until they have browned a bit. Pour in the cream, sprinkle with curry powder and put the chicken stock cube into it as well. Let this bubble away until the sauce starts to thicken up. Season with curry powder and salt and pepper if needed. One the chicken is cooked and rested it is a very good idea to use the cooking juices for the sauce.
Melt some butter and oil in a pan, put in the finely chopped garlic and asparagus. Let this cook on a medium heat for about 10 minutes or until the asparagus is nice and soft but make sure not to over cook it.
This is a real luxury dinner, not the most slimming one but well worth it!