Wednesday, 13 January 2010

Yummy easy curry

After sharing the broth dinner with you the other day, and seeing the positive comments I got back (thanks so much to those who tried it out and liked it!!) I thought I should let you in on another closely guarded recipe of mine. Boyfriend wasn't too sure about it (the sharing bit), but I reckon you deserve it, your a lovely bunch of people. So there. If you hate anything curry-related, then look away now. Otherwise, welcome to the easiest and most versatile curry dish ever.
This dish is similar to the broth one in the sense that you can use whatever veg you have lying around. It's a good one to use up stray carrots. Trust me.
So start by chopping up whatever veg you'd like in your curry. We usually make this vegetarian, but you could add some chicken too, it's up to you really. But here, we're going pretty much vegetarian, so don't skimp on the veg. I'm using onion, carrot and mushroom.




Heat up a little oil in a frying pan. When hot, add a teaspoon of cumin seeds.



The seeds will start popping within a few seconds. Add the chopped onion and finely sliced carrots. The thinner your carrot slices are, the quicker this dish will take to cook. If they're quite chunky, you'll need to up the cooking time (details to follow).



Leave to cook for a couple of minutes. Now it's time to add the curry spices. I'm fairly generous when it comes to spices. And not always consistent. I just rummage around in my spices cupboard and select all those which can be used in curries. So this time, I used a generous pinch of each of these: ground garlic, ground cayenne, ground paprika, ground cumin, ground turmeric, ground ginger, garam masala, asafoetida and freshly ground black pepper. If you're missing one of these, it's really not the end of the world. I was out of fresh garlic, hence the ground garlic. If you have a curry powder mix, that'll do the trick too. I just get spice happy ;-)



Mix everything together to coat all the veg in the lovely spices.


Add a tin of tomatoes. Bog standard chopped tomatoes are perfect.


Add a little water (wash out your tin!) and leave to boil gently for 15 minutes. This is where the cooking time needs to be altered depending on the veg you're using. If you have large chunky bits of carrots or cubed potatoes for example, you might want to up this to 45 minutes on a low to medium heat. Make sure it doesn't dry out, add more water if necessary.

 

Serve up with some basmati rice. Or naan. Whatever you fancy!! (I added some leftover prawns I had in the fridge too).



Recap ingredients list used here for two:
  • a medium sized onion, sliced
  • about ten buttercup white mushrooms, sliced
  • one carrot, sliced thinly
  • a tin of chopped tomatoes
  • selection of spices: garlic, cayenne, paprika, cumin (ground and seeds), turmeric, ginger, garam masala, asafoetida, black pepper
  • some basmati rice
Hope you like this recipe too!! x

5 comments:

The Girl said...

Very glad you ignored the boyfriend - it's good to share!! This one's definitely a keeper too, but I'll be good and not take credit for it. I promise.

And you young lady have been given an award. By this young lady. You're a winner!!

Jennifer said...

I love curry, I think it might be my favourite meal ever. The scent of all the spices, yum, I'm drooling already.

Anonymous said...

asafoetida

1. What is this?

2. How do you say it?

(i feel a fool for asking...)

Anonymous said...

hello - I checked the wiki page - and was put off that it is so unpleasant smelling when uncooked, but heartened that it is an antiflatulant!! Anything that dampens the boyfriends wind round our house is actively encouraged!!

Petit Filoux said...

really the smell is not that bad at all (i don't even notice it at all) so don't be put off by what you read on wikipedia!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asafoetida