Spicey Chicken Casserole
Decided to cook a chicken casserole for dinner. When I was pulling spices out of the cupboard, deciding what to use, I found the bag of juniper berries I'd bought. I recalled there was something interesting in the spice book, Spicery, that Tanya and I bought a while back to do with juniper berries.
I only had ground allspice and instead of a dried bird's eye chilli I used some powdered Kashmiri sweet chilli. Ground it all up (apart from the bay leaf) in my mortar and pestle and it smelled divine.
Game Spice Blend
- 2 teaspoons of juniper berries
- 1 teaspoon whole allspice
- 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
- ½ teaspoon coriander seeds
- 2 cloves
- 1 whole dried bird's eye chilli
- 1 dried bay leaf
Fried some diced onion and 4 cloves of garlic in olive oil for a bit. Then put them in the casserole dish and used the same pan to seal the chicken. Put the sealed chicken on top of the onions and garlic and left it in the oven to stay warm. Deglazed the pan with some red wine and added two cans of tomatos, the spice mix and the bay leaf. Brought the pan to the boil then poured it over the chicken in the casserole dish. Put the casserole dish back in the oven.
Tanya's brother, Thomas, and his wife Juli-anne bought us a rice cooker for Xmas. With much excitement we unpacked it, washed it, perused the manual and set it to work. They really are the single easiest way to make rice, short of having someone else do it for you. Fantastic little gadget.
I think two cans of tomatos was over kill for the amount of chicken but on the flip side it did dilute the slightly large of amount of chilli powder I used.
"Maybe I should look up how much powdered chilli is equal to one whole...nah...shake shake shake"
Luckily it was sweet chilli and not something stronger. The guys at work will love it though.