Monday 30 July 2012

Two more curries


I'm genuinely enjoying the Olympics. I'm not into watching sport as a rule, but it's won me over. The opening ceremony was brilliant, and I've just been to London. Not for any events, I mostly watched bits of it in the pub/on a big screen in Greenwich etc. Not the healthiest approach to an enormous festival of sport, but one that I enjoyed.

Right, now on to the recipes. When I'm craving healthy stuff I will almost always make a curry. In fact, so much so that this blog is full of curry recipes. See here:


and here:


But these are different recipes, and you can never have too many curry recipes up your sleeve. I like to make two at a time, so that at least one of them is veggie. 


A note on spices: I think it pays to invest in a load of them, as you will never be far from a really tasty meal and you will always be able to tart up the cheapest ingredients.

Curry one: Prawn with Spinach and Peas

Ingredients

an onion, sliced
a red chilli, including seeds
three cloves of garlic
an inch of fresh ginger, peeled
a teaspoon of mustard seeds
½ teaspoon of turmeric
4 cardamom pods, smashed a bit with the back of a knife
1 cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
¼ teaspoon chilli flakes (leave out if you don't like spicy food, it had quite a kick)
a tin of coconut milk
a packet of prawns (peeled)
a good few handfuls of spinach or some frozen spinach
a small cup of frozen peas

1. Make a rough paste by blitzing together your chilli, garlic and ginger in a hand blender with a tablespoon of water.


2. In the meantime heat some oil in a large pan, then add all the spices and fry for a couple of minutes. Keep a close eye on them, they're easy to burn!
3. Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add the onion, fry for a minute or two before adding the chilli/garlic/ginger paste. Turn the heat down, and fry for ten minutes before adding the coconut milk. Simmer for five minutes before adding the peas and spinach.
4. Add the prawns towards the end, and give them a few minutes to heat through

Curry two: Chickpea and Peppers


Ingredients

an onion, sliced
a pepper sliced
a tin of chickpeas, drained
a clove of garlic and an inch of fresh ginger, peeled and blitzed together with a little water
½ teaspoon cumin powder
½ teaspoon coriander powder
¼ teaspoon of turmeric
¼ teaspoon of dried chilli flakes
¼ teaspoon of garam masala
half a dozen cherry tomatoes, halved or one whole big tomato

1. Fry the sliced onion and pepper in a little oil for a few minutes in a medium – high heat then add the garlic and ginger paste
2. Add all the spices and fry off for a few minutes, before adding the tomatoes
3. After another few minutes add the chickpeas and half a can of water, then let it bubble away for 15 minutes, squashing a few of the chickpeas as you go along to thicken it up a bit.

Serve with some brown rice, some yoghurt or raita and naan bread if you've got some.


1 comment:

  1. Looks good Cuz! Going to try it this week sometime....:)

    ReplyDelete