Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Traybake (Jamie Oliver)

Source video by Jamie Oliver on YouTube. This recipe was adapted with strict source-fidelity rules and is marked for human review.

This is a slow cooker take on Jamie Oliver's quick chicken tikka traybake. Bone-in chicken thighs are browned for crispy skin, then slow cooked with jalfrezi paste, peppers, garlic, bay and a secret kick of onion marmalade and red wine vinegar. The result is succulent meat with sticky, spiced peppers, served with a quick homemade flatbread and a few dots of yoghurt. Big, bold flavour with minimal effort.

Ingredients

• 4 piecesfree-range bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
• 1 tbspolive oil
• sea salt and black pepper
• 8 clovesgarlic cloves, whole, lightly bashed
• 2 piecesgreen chillies, halved and deseeded
• 3 tbspjalfrezi curry paste
• 8 leavesbay leaves
• 2 piecesmixed peppers, deseeded, torn into quarters
• 2 tbsponion marmalade
• 2 tbspred wine vinegar

• natural yoghurt (add late)
• lemon juice (add late)

• 2 mugsself-raising flour
• 2 tspEnglish mustard
• 2 pinchessea salt
• 150 mlwater
• 2 tbspolive oil or melted butter

Method

1. Pat the chicken thighs dry and season generously with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over a medium-high heat and place the thighs skin-side down. Brown for 5 to 7 minutes to render the fat and crisp the skin, then turn and colour the other side briefly.

   ~10 min

2. Lift the chicken into the slow cooker. Spoon out most of the chicken fat, leaving about a tablespoon, then add the jalfrezi paste to the pan and stir for 30 seconds to wake it up.

   ~2 min

3. Scrape the paste over the chicken. Tuck the bashed garlic cloves, halved green chillies, bay leaves and torn peppers around and over the thighs.

   ~3 min

4. Spoon in the onion marmalade and pour over the red wine vinegar. Gently toss everything so the peppers and chicken are coated.

   ~2 min

5. Cover and cook on Low for 6 hours or High for 3 hours, until the chicken is tender and the peppers are sticky and soft.

   ~360 min

6. Optional: lift the chicken onto a tray and flash under a hot grill for 2 to 3 minutes to re-crisp the skin before serving.

   ~3 min

7. For the flatbread, tip 2 mugs of self-raising flour into a bowl with the English mustard and 2 pinches of sea salt. Add water a splash at a time, mixing with a fork until you have a soft, pliable but not sticky dough. Knead briefly.

   ~3 min

8. Roll the dough out on a floured surface into a thin sheet roughly the size of a tea towel. Rub generously with oil or melted butter, then roll up like a sausage. Oil again, then coil into a snail shape. Press down and roll out to roughly the size of a 26cm frying pan.

   ~5 min

9. Heat a dry non-stick frying pan over a medium to medium-high heat. Cook the bread for 3 to 4 minutes on each side until golden, blistered and cooked through.

   ~8 min

10. Brush the hot bread with a little oil, then scrunch and squeeze it between your hands to break open the layers.

    ~1 min

11. Dot the slow cooker with spoonfuls of yoghurt, give it a gentle shake so it ripples through the sauce, then serve with the torn flatbread and a lemon-dressed salad on the side.

    ~2 min

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