Easy Baked Chicken Sweet Potato Curry Tray Bake!

Dear Reader, please make this baked chicken curry! Am I being too pushy? Sorry! It's just that I loved this easy chicken tray bake so much that I want you to add it to your repertoire. Prep is a cinch-done in 10 minutes (honestly peeling and cutting up the sweet potato takes the most time) and the whole thing is lightly cooked on the stove and then the oven takes care of the rest while you get on doing the things that you like doing. Like listening to murder podcasts...

The recipe idea came from lovely Sherry from Sherry's Pickings. She had put up a picture of a baked chicken curry on Instagram and for the next few weeks I stalked her blog for the recipe. When there wasn't one she just gave me the instructions to make it. It's something that she makes a lot and uses different vegetables according to what she has.

And do you know what? It's SO delicious! You could also make the whole thing in a large skillet as long as it is oven proof, although mine wasn't quite large enough so I transferred it to a larger baking dish. Add whatever vegetables you want. I had two sweet potatoes that were lasting beyond expectations.

Speaking of lasting beyond expectations, I mentioned the murder podcast didn't I? I think I've mentioned my addiction to My Favorite Murder by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. It's basically two stand up comedians who talk about murders. The two met at a Halloween party one year and talked all night about various murders. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but they treat a serious and gruesome subject with just the right touch of humour and pathos.

Each week they pick one murder each and discuss it but much of the hour or so is made up of improv and a lot of housekeeping aka just chatting.

Their fans are called Murderinos and send them in their own "hometown murders" and they pick one hometown murder to read out per episode. I'm only up to Season 1 Episode 24 and there haven't been any Australian ones mentioned although I don't know if that's a bad or good thing!

I also love that there's actually really good advice for people to avoid becoming a victim. My favourite one is "f&^% politeness" (they even made it into a tshirt). That is, you don't need to be polite. If someone gives you the creeps get out of there and if they're not a creep you can apologise to them later. Case in point was my favourite episode Season 1 episode 18 about Mary Vincent. That will chill you to the bone and it's the craziest real life true crime. We were out to dinner the other night at a small bar and Mr NQN encouraged me to tell Nina and Garth about Mary Vincent's story. I could tell that the staff around us were rapt and lingering a bit longer around us to hear more. And afterwards one came up to us asking about the story as they wanted to know more!

So tell me Dear Reader, would My Favorite Murder be your cup of tea? And did you know that most fans of True Crime series or books are women? I had no idea but I just found that out! And do you have any safety precautions to share?

Baked Chicken & Sweet Potato Yellow Curry

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour

Serves 6

• Oil for frying
• 1 onion, peeled and sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
• 3 tablespoons yellow curry paste (or use red or green or your favourite curry paste)
• 1kg/2.2lbs chicken thigh pieces (boneless and skinless)
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 6 cardamom pods, crushed
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed
• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into bite sized pieces
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 100ml/3.5ozs. coconut cream
• small handful curry leaves

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 190C/380F. Heat a frypan on medium high heat and fry the onions for a couple of minutes, then add garlic and fry for 1 minute and then add the curry paste and cook for another minute. Add the chicken thighs and coat in the curry paste.

Step 2 - Place the chicken mixture into a large baking dish and add the cumin seeds, cardamom pods, coriander seeds and sweet potato pieces. Pour over with the chicken stock and then bake for 45 minutes. Scatter with curry leaves, stir in coconut cream and turn the sweet potato if there are pieces that are looking a bit dry and then return to the oven for another 15 minutes. Serve with rice.