Three curry feast

We were supposed to go out for a curry on Friday night to Arti’s, our local cheap, cheerful (and very tasty) curry house. Unfortunately, I’d been working overnight at the election on Thursday night, had very little sleep, and hit a wall. I ate a massive Chinese takeaway instead, then fell asleep.

We still wanted a curry though, so tonight was a home made curry night.  With this I work on the same basic principles as with a roast: you can make the meaty bit go a lot further if you have a couple of really good veggie dishes.

Joe’s input was needed for this one too. He got the Madhur Jaffrey Curry Easy book for Christmas, and has cooked two meals from it, both of which were absolutely amazing.  I’m not going to retype someone else’s recipe, but Joe’s side dish was South Indian Potato Curry, and it looked like this: (yum)

I made a lentil dahl.  First I toasted some cumin and coriander seeds and the insides of cardamom pods. Then crushed these in the pestle and mortar.  As I’m making two curries I did a couple of teaspoons of each.

I then fried some onion and plenty of garlic, and added half the spices back in, along with some turmeric. It'll go very yellow!

 Add some lentils and some water and let bubble till the lentils are nearly cooked. Then add a couple of tomatoes (from a tin is fine) and some green beans (I keep these in the freezer)

The lentil dahl takes about half an hour to cook, be careful it doesn’t dry out. Add some finely chopped fresh coriander at the end.

I also made chicken and spinach curry. First, brown off some chicken pieces. I prefer to use chicken on the bone, such as thighs and drumsticks, as they’re much tastier. Then put them to one side, and fry sliced onions with blitzed up garlic, ginger and chilli. Then add the remainder of the spices from earlier, and a good pinch of curry powder (bit of a cheat), some turmeric and some garam masala. 

(It is the easiest way to deal with chilli and garlic etc.)

Put the chicken back in, and give it a good stir around. Add the remainder of the tinned tomatoes that you used for the dahl.  I would normally at this point add coconut milk, but I got in a strop with my local supermarket yesterday for only having branded, organic coconut milk which cost more than £1.80 a tin.  Ridiculous, I know, but the non-branded stuff is less than a pound, and I needed a few of them! Instead I bought coconut cream, which is much cheaper.

Add some water (to cover) and let it bubble away. That’s just about done. Five minutes before serving, add at least half a bag of spinach, it’ll wilt quickly, then stir it in.

Just about done. Whilst that’s bubbling away get some rice on, and make some raita. This would normally be made with mint, but I’ve been growing fresh coriander and have a lot of it. Mix natural yoghurt with chopped coriander, chopped cucumber and salt and pepper. 

All done! This is going to last us a couple of nights. Presentation might leave a little to be desired... but it was ace.

I’ve made quite a few changes to the blog: let me know what you think of the redesign. I think everyone should be able to comment on the posts regardless of whether you’re signed up to google or not.

This weeks soup: Mushroom, made with the stock from last week’s chicken. I made some rosemary bread the other day when I was bored too, so going to have some tasty lunches at work this week!