I don’t know what I was searching for when I happened upon this recipe but I stopped and mentally took note. In the past I have cooked a whole roast chicken with Indian spices, that dish being named Everest Chicken from an old cookery book I have. It’s not authentic because there is soy sauce in the paste but it is well worth the addition.
With this in mind, stumbling across another whole roast chicken — this time massaman roast chicken, piqued my interest, and I remembered that I had a couple of sachets of massaman curry paste in the cupboard so it was a go for the following Friday night dinner.
As usual, I didn’t follow the recipe completely as I didn’t have lemon grass or peanuts, and subbed lime juice for fresh lime, and comparing the amount of paste asked for with the amount of paste I use for the Everest chicken lead to me using two 60g sachets by the time the dish was finished. I used a full sachet on and in the chicken, then the other in the sauce.
After omitting the oil and coating the chicken in a full sachet of massaman curry paste I foiled it and shoved it in the oven. I left the lime juice and ginger for the sauce. After 35 minutes I removed the foil and added the potatoes, leaving them in the oven until tender, which was longer than the recipe stated. Once cooked I transferred the chicken to the carving plate, leaving the potatoes in the tin, and started on the sauce. I put the roasting tin on the heat of the hob and added the second sachet of curry paste along with the ginger. I was leaving the lime and fish sauce for the end at this point. After adding the coconut milk and stirring to combine I added the beans, cooking and reducing until I liked the thickness of the sauce. I kept popping back to the resting chicken to add any juices to the pan, which was only going to add flavour. When I was happy with the sauce I added a spritz of lime juice and fish sauce, serving with brown basmati rice.
The verdict? Dee-licious! Absolutely. The use of the extra paste was certainly to my taste, and the day after the leftovers were even better! If you can get your paws on the ingredients, please try this recipe, you won’t be sorry.
The More You Think... 