Spiced Chicken with Lentils

45 minutes - 1 hour

Serves 6

This recipe is from Delia's Frugal Food.

For this recipe try to buy the whole brown or green lentils, and don’t worry if you haven’t got all the relevant spices, you can use curry powder instead – about 2 teaspoons of the hot Madras kind.

The Delia Online Cookery School: Make sure your spices are at their best, watch our video showing how to buy and store spices, just click the recipe image to play.

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Method

Start by heating the oil in a flameproof casserole and fry the chicken portions to a nice golden colour on all sides.

Then set them on one side and add the onions and garlic to the pan. Soften them for about 5 minutes, then stir in the spices and cook for another 5 minutes. Now return the chicken pieces to the casserole and spoon the spicy onion and oil mixture over them.

Next add the drained lentils, then mix the tomato puree with the hot chicken stock and pour that in. Now add a little salt and bring everything up to simmering point – and make sure all the lentils are pushed down so that they are almost covered by the liquid. Put a lid on and transfer the casserole to the oven, where it will take about 45 minutes to an hour to cook. Serve with rice and mango chutney. You can also watch how to make Perfect Rice in our Cookery School Video, just click the image to play.