Chicken rogan josh and pilau rice. #EatHappyProject

The Eat Happy Project is a project Tesco have put together to help children learn to cook and get them involved in cooking! My children love helping me cook dinner and I think it's great to get the kids involved. When I was contacted and asked if me and my children would like to take part, I of course said we would love to! I find that when the children help me to cook, they're more than likely to try new foods and eat more of a variety because they have helped.

We choose the Chicken Rogan Josh and Pilau rice recipe to make. This recipe serves four and takes around thirty minutes to prepare and cook.
We followed along with the video on youtube, which the kids thought was great fun! I think following a video, encouraged them even more. The video also tells us when to pause it, giving us time to complete the method. There is also a printable recipe card for the Rogan Josh and Pilau Rice recipe.


The ingredients you will need are:

4 chicken breasts or
boned thighs (skin
removed)
1 tablespoon
vegetable oil
1 medium onion
1 red pepper
1 clove garlic
3cm piece root ginger
2 teaspoons curry
powder
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons ground
cinnamon
Pinch chilli powder
100ml cold water
400g tin chopped
tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato
puree
150ml natural yoghurt
(optional)
For pilau rice
25g polyunsaturated
margarine or butter
1 cup basmati rice
1 teaspoon ground
turmeric
1 dried bay leaf
4 green cardamom
pods
4 cloves
½ tsp fennel seeds1½ cups of boiling water.

Method:
First of all we washed our hands and then washed the peppers.



We then cut the peppers and peeled the onions and garlic using our hands. Peeling the ginder was easy as we used the back of the spoon. The peel on the ginger is really soft and the children had no problem peeling this themselves.

Charlie peeled the onion.

Now it was time to chop the garlic. We did this by securing the garlic with a folk as it made it easier to chop and stopped the garlic slipping. "This is a really good way to do it" Charlie told me. I supervised him while he chopped. And a very good job he did, too.

While Charlie was chopping the garlic, Ellie grated the ginger. Which she really enjoyed and chatted away to me, telling me how much she was enjoying helping prepare the meal.

Ellie grating the ginger.

In the mean time, I chopped the chicken breast into strips. Don't forget to wash hands after handling raw meat.
We then measured out a tablespoon of oil using our measuring spoons. We poured the oil into the frying pan on a low heat, before adding in the onion. We left the onion to cook on a low heat for a couple of minutes before adding the pepper, garlic and ginger. We fried the vegetables for another 2-3 minutes until they were soft.

Adding the onions, garlic, peppers and ginger to the frying pan.

Next up we measured our spices using the measuring the spoons. Two tea spoons on curry powder and two teaspoons of paprika and ground cinnamon, we then added that to the pan. Using a teaspoon we added a pinch of mild chill powder to the pan, too. We fried that for another two minutes.

Adding spices to the veggies.

"I can really smell the spices now" Ellie told me. Charlie said it smelled delicious!


It was time to add the chicken. The kids then took it in turns to stir the chicken (with my supervision), making sure the spices covered the chicken. We turned the heat up to a medium heat and left to cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally.

We added one tablespoon of tomato puree to the chicken and spices. We also added the tin of chopped tomatoes and gave it a good stir.

We then turned up the heat on the hob to medium, to bring the mixture to a boil, when it was bubbling we turned down the heat to low and left it to simmer.

Time to get started on the rice.

We then measure out 25g of butter and added that to a clean saucepan on a low heat and stirred until it was melted.
We measured one cup of rice and then Ellie added that to the saucepan.


Charlie and Harry then measured out the spices 1 teaspoon of turmeric and half a teaspoon of fennel seeds. Charlie added those to the rice while Harry added 1 dried bay leaf, 4 green cardamom pods and 4 cloves. We took it in turns to give that a stir.
"The smell of the spices really hits me now, it smells yummy" Charlie said.

I then boiled the kettle, measured out 1 cup of boiling hot water which I then added to the rice. I feel this part of best for an adult to complete. I gave it a good stir and left to simmer for 15 minutes.
The kids were amazed how the rice changed from white in colour, to yellow! "It looks and smells amazing" Harry said.

After 15 minutes the rice was cooked. I then drained that using a colander. The rogan josh is also ready now. I did add a tablespoon of natural yogurt to make it a little creamier. I let that simmer for another 2 minutes or so.


 We then gently fluffed the rice using a folk and it was ready to serve. The kids helped me dish the meal up onto plates. First we put the rice on and then the rogan josh on top.

"I can't wait to tuck in" Charlie told me and Harry was excited to taste the rogan josh and pilau rice, too! Ellie tried a little bit but wasn't keen because she's not a fan of spicy food. She did like the rice though! Which I was surprised about. That's one new food Ellie can now enjoy! Charlie's opinion was "I can't wait to have this again, it's really yummy" And Harry told me that he enjoyed it very much, he would eat it again and it's perfect for winter evening because "It warmed me up" Is what Harry said! 


Personally I thought it tasted amazing. I think next time I'll add a little more natural yogurt. The spices blended and complimented each other perfectly and wasn't too garlicy. I would deffently recommend this recipe and will be making it again very soon.

The Eat Happy Project has certainly inspired me to cook with the kids more often and get them involved. It was great fun and I feel that the kids learned a lot. I think there favourite part was cooking the rice, they were amazed at how the rice changed colour and how tasty it turned out.
We will certainly, without a doubt, be making rogan josh and pilau rice again in the very near future. It's a really quick and easy recipe to make with kids, too.

You can also follow the Eat Happy Project over on twitter.

What have you cooked with your children recently?

Sarah xXx

I was sent the ingredients for the above recipe for the purpose of this post. All opinions are my own, honest, personal opinions.