Coronation Crumpets

God save our gracious crumpets!

Food truly fit for a king!    

Preparation: 30 minutes Serves: 8 crumpets
Cooking: 45 minutes Unbuttered crumpets
Ingredients Quantity (metric) Quantity (imperial)
Poached chicken
Free-range chicken breasts 4 4
Chicken stock 500 ml 17.5 floz
White wine 250 ml 9 floz
Carrots (peeled and roughly chopped) 2 2
Celery stalks (roughly chopped) 2 2
Shallots (halved) 3 3
Thyme 1 tbsp 1 tbsp
Bay leaves 2 2
Salt and pepper Plenty Plenty
Curry sauce
Shallots (finely chopped) 2 2
Large red chilli (de-seeded and finely chopped) 1 1
Curry powder 4 tsp 4 tsp
Tomato puree 1 tbsp 1 tbsp
Apricot jam 3 tsp 3 tsp
Butter A knob A knob
The rest
Mayonnaise 125 ml 4.4 floz
Creme fraiche 125 ml 4.4 floz
Coriander leaves (finely chopped) 2 tbsp 2 tbsp
Spring onions (finely chopped) 4 4
Flaked almonds 50 g 1.75 oz
Cucumber (sliced) 1/2 1/2
Rocket 30g 1 oz

METHOD

      The poached chicken

      • Put all the ingredients apart from the chicken into a large pan and bring to the boil.
      • Reduce to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes.
      • Cut each chicken breast into three, trimming the fat and stringy bits, and simmer in the stock for about 10 minutes.
      • Remove the chicken to cool.
      • Continue simmering the stock for another 15 minutes, during which time, check that the chicken is cooked through. Obviously put it back into the stock if it's not.
      • During this time, the volume of liquid should have reduced by about a half. Don't get too stressed about exact measurements on this.

      The curry sauce

      • Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the shallots and chilli, and fry gently for 5 to 10 minutes, until the shallots are soft.
      • Mix in the curry powder, tomato puree and apricot jam and gently cook for a further 5 minutes.
      • Add the stock, through a sieve, and cook for a further 15 minutes, by which time the liquid should have reduced further to about 300 ml (10.5 oz)
      • Remove to cool.

      The combination

      • Mix the mayonnaise, creme fraiche, coriander, spring onions and almonds together in a large bowl.
      • Mix in the curry sauce.
      • Cut up the chicken into perfect bite-sized pieces and mix them into the sauce.

      The crumpets

      • Serve on unbuttered crumpets, layering sliced cucumber and rocket on the crumpets first, together with any other salad that you fancy.
      • Radishes are always nice, for example.

       

OTHER NOTES

Please use free-range chicken. It’s not only egg-laying hens that dislike being cooped up in tiny filthy cages 24 hours a day.