Adam Byatt’s chicken curry
- Published: 2 Jan 25
- Updated: 1 Jul 25
Chef Adam Byatt shares his perfect chicken curry recipe, using key culinary skills like jointing the bird and making stock to make a satisfying curry with bags of flavour.
Adam says: “Here I’ve made an aromatic curry, a comforting dish for a cold day. Homemade chicken stock provides the perfect platform for building layers of flavour.”
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Serves 6 -
Prep time 15 min. Cook time 1 hour 15 min
Before you start
Cutting up a chicken: The 13-piece method
- This sounds complicated but you’ll get better with practice. Using this method, you’ll end up with 13 pieces of chicken from one bird. Thighs, breast meat and drumsticks cook at different speeds but with this method you don’t have to worry – all the pieces cook in the same time.
- To do this well you need a sharp, solid cook’s knife – a 20cm blade will do you well here. If you can locate the natural seams on the chicken at the muscles and joints, you’ll be able to cut through them with ease. Watch Adam cut a chicken into 13 perfect pieces on our YouTube channel.
Making great stock
- Homemade stock is the basis of all my cooking. Yes, a stock cube is so convenient, but I promise you if you make your own stock you’ll never look back. So clean, so healthy and so tasty – and so full of flavour. It’s proper cooking!
- When I’m at home I don’t buy meat specifically to make stocks – I generally make them from the cooked bones left over from roasting chicken, lamb or beef. I’ll take the bones and put them in a pan with a few vegetables (carrot, onion, celery, leek, a couple of garlic cloves, a bay leaf and some thyme). I then add a few peppercorns and cover with water. Make sure you adapt the veg depending on the meat: more onions and some star anise if you’re making beef stock; less carrot in a chicken stock.
- I simmer my stocks for around 4-5 hours. After that, the liquid needs passing through a fine sieve, then chilling as quickly as possible to retain flavour and give it a longer shelf life. Standing the stock in a bowl sitting in another bowl of ice will do this well. You can then chill the stock or freeze in large ice cube trays.
- Michelin-level tip There’s a knack to knowing when your stock is ready. Taste the stock after an hour. You’ll taste water first, vegetable second and the meat protein last. After a few hours this will move to vegetable first, then protein, followed by water. What you want is for the stock to taste first and foremost of the protein, followed by the vegetable– at this point you’re done. Don’t go any further – nothing good happens beyond this point!
See ‘tips’ below for Adam’s homemade stock recipes.
Nutrition
- Calories
- 480kcals
- Fat
- 32g (11g saturated)
- Protein
- 37g
- Carbohydrates
- 9.7g (7.4g sugars)
- Fibre
- 2.6g
- Salt
- 3g
delicious. tips
For 2-3l white chicken stock
Put 1 whole chicken carcass, 2-3 smaller carcasses or 1.5kg chicken wings in a large pan with 1 peeled and roughly chopped carrot, 1 sliced onion, 1 roughly chopped celery stick, the roughly chopped white part of half a leek, 1 halved garlic bulb and 6 litres water. Add 10g thyme, 2 bay leaves, 10g rosemary and 1 tsp black peppercorns. Bring to the boil, then simmer, uncovered, for 4 hours, using a ladle to remove any impurities from the surface every now and then. Taste and simmer for longer if needed. Strain, cover and cool – it’ll keep in the fridge for up to 5 days.For 2-3l brown chicken stock
Follow the method above but first roast the carcass or wings at 220°C/200°C fan/gas 7 for 1 hour 20 minutes and the veg, garlic, herbs and peppercorns for 30 minutes. Drain any excess fat/oil, then put in a pan with the water. You’ll need to skim away more excess fat and impurities during the simmer.
The curry will keep in the fridge, covered, for up to 3 days.