Sunday – Lockdown Day ? (Lost track)

SUPPER
Quick vegetable curry – see recipe below
Basmati rice
Plain yoghurt and pickles

Butternut squash, carrot, and lentil vegetable curry – recipe (serves 4)

This curry base is incredibly versatile as you can add anything – vegetables, meat or fish, lentils, chickpeas etc. It’s great for using up leftovers. I used butternut squash, leftover carrot sticks from lunch, the insides of 4 courgettes leftover from courgette salad, and a tin of green lentils. Don’t worry if you don’t have the right spices, just experiment with using what you do have. It’s even quicker to make if you use a food processor.

Ingredients

fresh ginger (a large piece about 3 cm or more if you have it)
3 cloves garlic
2 onions
2 tbsp veg oil
2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
handful of curry leaves, if you have them (they keep frozen)
2 level tsp turmeric
1 heaped tsp coriander seeds
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin coconut milk

Plus, vegetables/meat/fish enough for 4 people. You can make the sauce stretch to feed more people by adding a little water or more coconut milk.

Method

Chop the ginger roughly. Don’t bother peeling it unless it’s really old and tough.
Peel the garlic cloves.
Peel the onions and cut into four.
If you have a food processor: whizz together the ginger and garlic to a rough paste. Scrape out the paste to a bowl, put in the onions, and whizz up into small pieces (don’t let it go to a mush).
If you don’t have a food processor: chop the ginger and garlic into fine pieces. Chop the onions into small chunks (about 1 cm).
Heat the veg oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over a medium heat.
Add the mustard seeds.
When you can hear them go ‘pop’ add the fenugreek seeds, ginger/garlic paste and curry leaves.
Fry over a high heat for a couple of minutes, stirring.
Add the onions. Fry for a couple of minutes, stirring.
Add the turmeric and coriander seeds. Fry for a couple of minutes, stirring.
Add the tin of tomatoes and the coconut milk. Stir and leave to cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the vegetables/meat/fish. You can either cook the ingredients in advance, or in the curry sauce.
I used
– half a butternut squash, chopped into cubes. I roast them in a hot oven with olive oil and sprinkled with a little soya sauce, for 15 minutes til soft.
– 1 carrot, already in sticks from lunchtime
– the inside of 2 courgettes, leftover from courgette salad, chopped up (equivalent to one whole courgette)
– 1 tin of cooked green lentils

When the curry sauce is ready, add all your vegetables/meat/fish, continue to simmer as necessary, and serve with rice, yoghurt and pickles.

Last episode of Homeland. It seems likely schools will go back on 1st June. Had a zoom with a friend in San Francisco who can’t believe the unfairness as schools there are closed til September.

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