So, I splurged last night and spent £20 on takeaway. I shall now repent by sharing a cheap recipe of mine.

The costs should be similar to this. It will take a lot longer to prep, but it's just as quick to cook.

What it is: My mum's Chilli Chicken

(Skip down for the ingredients/recipe)

Chilli chicken's a Bengali dish (Indo-Chinese origins) that's spread far and wide. It's popular as a main in streetside food stalls in Calcutta (might be the case in other cities as well, but I wouldn't know) and has become a special in many homes. Everyone makes their own kind, so the appearance varies from person to person. That said, whatever's pictured on the Wikipedia entry is certainly not in the area. That looks more fancy than it should be.

In any case, this is my mum's version, so let's get to it.

What you'll need (extra super secret ingredient listed at the end!)

• Chicken breasts (skinless, I'd also go with boneless)
• Garlic, ginger, onions (red, preferably)
• An egg
• A capsicum/bell pepper (green, preferably)
• Cornflour/flour
• Chillies (green, bird's eye; you can leave them out, but I'd recommend keeping at least two around)
• Oil (just go with vegetable oil)
• Salt, pepper, MSG, water
• Coriander, rice
• Chilli sauce (optional)

And now... for the extra super special secret ingredient. Drumroll, plearice/please

The thing about most Chilli chicken dishes is that the name's a lie. While ideally there should be chillies in a Chilli chicken, the star of the show is...
Soy sauce!
^(didn't see that one coming, did you?)

Some people end up making red-coloured chilli chicken at home, and will swear by it. This just means there's a lot of tomato/red chilli sauce dumped into it. That's really not my thing. Tomatoes should not be in the same area as this meal, in my opinion.

Here's a terrible photo of my last batch (soy sauce overdose ftw!) plus extras (sweated and boiled spinach and chillies in vinegar and lime).

So, what do you do?

Prep

• Chop up your chicken into small-ish pieces (no more than 1" on any side) and stab it all over with a fork. Really go at it.
• Chop up a few cloves of garlic, and some of your green chillies into bitty bits and mix together (4:1), mash them as best you can.
• Add a generous amount of soy sauce to a large bowl and drop your onionsgarlic/chilli in. Add some salt, a small pinch of pepper, and MSG to this. Mix it all well together and leave it out for 20-30 minutes.
• Drop your chicken in (the soy sauce should be just enough to cover the chicken.
• Crack an egg, whisk it, and pour it into the marinade, stirring as you do. Repeat with a small amount of cornflour (pour + stir).
• Stick the lot in the fridge for at least an hour. Take it out 20 minutes prior to cooking.

Here's a halfway-photo of my last marinade from a year ago.

Cook

• Take out your marinade, and chop up a red onion half into bitty bits, and half into chunks. Slice some chillies, and cut up your capsicum. Crush some garlic, chop them up, and mash them with your blade. Shred some ginger (do two types: grated, and in long shreds).
• Add oil to a pan, put it on medium heat. When hot, slide in your onion bits and shake them evenly out on the pan. You can slice open a chilli and leave it in the pan for a while with the onions if you want. Just remove it before continuing.
• When your onions have softened, add a pinch of salt and your garlic (you can drop some grated ginger in as well). Stir it all together.
• The minute you smell the flavours releasing, carefully add your chicken (without too much of the marinade liquid) to the pan. Stir it all together and crank up the heat.
• Note Depending on how you want your capsicum and onion chunks cooked, they can go in any point between here and finishing. If adding whole garlic cloves (no skin) or shredded garlic, do so now.
• When your chicken's beginning to firm up on all sides (you'll have to keep stirring), add enough water (straight from a kettle or such) to just cover your chicken mix, wait for it to come to a boil, put a lid on the pan, and turn the heat down to medium.
• Put your rice on.
• In about five minutes, uncover (careful of the steam/dripping water!), and check your chicken. If it's come to almost done, add salt to taste, a pinch of MSG, some grated ginger (if you will), and stir as much soy sauce as you want in for a final bit of flair. I like it thin, so I add quite a bit of soy and stir in a bit more water at this stage. Some people add chilli sauce here.
• Garnish with sliced chillies and let it sit.
• When your rice is done, garnish it with coriander.

Now what?

Pour the sauce onto a plate, put your rice on it, and serve the chicken on the side. I like letting the sauce drip through the rice, but I like the rice itself to stay nice and dry, so when putting your chicken on your rice, eat those bits quickly. Put some chillies on the side, and nom away. My mum usually serves this after a starter of lightly salted boiled spinach and potato/paneer. But really, how many people have starters, anyway?

Wait, but how much?

Per unit, it comes upto something about just under £4 for me per chicken breast used. This is the absolute barebones version of the recipe, and it's delicious.

Goodness, I had a lot of time on my hands...

Edit: minor corrections.