Bunny chow

Before you start

• an unsliced white loaf with a firm crust
• about an hour and a quarter, most of it the pot on its own

Ingredients

Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 300gwhite bread loaf — half a loaf, cut into two quarters
• 300gchicken thighs, boneless
• 150gpotatoes
• 2onions
• 3tomatoes
• 1½ tbspoil
• 2 tbspcurry powder — a hot Durban masala if you can get one
• 1 tspgaram masala
• 4garlic cloves
• 1 tspcurry leaves and cinnamon
• 1 handfulcoriander

Method

7 steps

1. chop · 12m

   Onions sliced, garlic crushed, tomatoes grated or chopped fine, potatoes into large chunks, chicken into big pieces.

2. fry · 15m

   Cinnamon and curry leaves into the hot oil for a few seconds, then the onions cooked slowly to deep gold.

3. fry · 5m

   Garlic and the curry powder in with a splash of water so the spice cooks rather than burns, until the oil comes back out around it.

4. simmer · 15m

   Tomatoes in and cooked down to a thick dark base, then the chicken and potatoes with just enough water to come halfway up.

5. simmer · 35m walk away

   Lid on, low, until the potatoes are soft and the chicken is cooked right through with no pink in the thickest piece. The sauce wants to be thick enough to sit on a spoon — thin, it will run straight out of the bread.

6. finish · 8m

   Loaf cut in half and each half hollowed out with a knife and fingers, leaving a good centimetre of wall all round, and the pulled-out bread kept as a lid.

7. finish · 4m

   Curry ladled into the hollows, garam masala and coriander over, the bread lid set on top, and eaten with hands by tearing the walls off as you go.