BRUCE SOORD, THE PINEAPPLE THIEF

On the menu: Take Yours Hot

(The Brucey Curry)

“This is my ‘easy curry with fluffy rice speciality’ that I regularly cook for the guys whenever we’re rehearsing in town. I like mine pretty spicy to make the band sweat. It’s quite low fat and certainly not authentic!”

Ingredients

(Serves two) olive oil, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 5 garlic cloves (chopped), 1 tsp turmeric, 1 chopped onion, chillies to taste, 1 tin chopped tomatoes, 750g chicken (cut into chunks), 2 chopped peppers, 250g cherry tomatoes (halved), 250g Greek yoghurt, coriander.

Preparation

“First, put some quality prog on the hi-fi (you do have speakers in the kitchen, right?), pour yourself a decent beer and make sure, like me, you have a chopping board with your face on it. The key to cooking this is to enjoy it and use the force. It’s quite difficult to completely screw it up!

Pour a big glug of olive oil into a heavy pan and gently fry the cumin seeds and garlic. Add the turmeric for 30 seconds. Throw in the chopped onion and keep stirring. Next choose your chillies – this is really where a curry’s flavour is defined. I use the komodo Dragon chilli that’s pretty damn hot and has a very distinctive flavour. But it’s up to you what kind (and how many) you use. When it smells like it’s cooking nicely, throw in a tin (or two) of chopped tomatoes, your meat (whatever you like, I usually choose chicken) and whatever veg you fancy. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. let it simmer for at least an hour or until the meat is nice and tender. Towards the end, I throw in some cherry tomatoes and half a pot of Greek yoghurt, and gently bring back up to temperature. Serve with fresh coriander, naans and rice.

Brucey’s dead cert method for fluffy rice: Measure basmati rice in a jug (200ml for two people is plenty), wash and add to a nonstick pan, season with salt. Pour over one-and-a-half times the amount of boiling water. Seal the pan with a tight lid and heat. once it starts to boil, turn the heat down low. leave it to simmer for about 10 minutes and absolutely no peeking. open the lid, fluff up with a fork and that’s it. Perfection.”