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Monday 14 January 2013

Some favourite vegan recipes - curry

As promised here are a small selection of vegan recipes. Apologies for the delay; this was caused by being accidentally brutally stabbed in the eye by a blade of hay which rendered me utterly unable to do anything significant with a computer screen or make any real progress with the book which arrived on Friday and which I have been awaiting with great anticipation for some 12 months. Anyway.

Vegan Curry
This is quite time-consuming but worthwhile.

Ingredients
Tomato base
8-12 plum tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped,
2 sticks celery, finely chopped

Curry base
1 tsp each of black mustard seeds, black onion seeds and cumin seeds
1 clove garlic
thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, chopped
1-2 tbsp madras curry paste and/or home made curry powder
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 medium potatoes, preferably parboiled in skin, left to cool and chopped
1 sweet potato
1/2 cauliflower/broccoli
selection of green beans, courgette, whatever to hand
small cup of red lentils
handful of cardamom pods
1 large tin of chick peas
fresh coriander

Tomato base
This is not essential but it's a really good base for a curry as well as a pasta base ragu. I find with vegan food you have to work a bit harder to get that depth of flavour and that it is well worth doing so.

1. Skin the tomatoes by scoring the skins and placing them in a bowl of water for 30s.
2. Chop the tomatoes and season with salt, black pepper and a good glug of olive oil.
3. Saute the garlic in olive oil then fry the onions very slowly until translucent.
4. Add the celery and cook for a further 5mins or so until soft.
5. Add some water, enough to cover the onions and celery, a vegan stock cube and raise the heat to reduce the volume by at least half. Add seasoning. This will intensify the flavour. You can use white or red wine if you have some handy.
6. When the stock is reduced, add the chopped tomatoes and another lug of olive, then cook for ages over a low heat. Ideally a good hour - the longer the better. If the tomatoes are not good quality you could add a bit of brown sugar to round the flavour.

Meanwhile, get started on curry base.

1. Heat some vegetable oil to a high heat, then add the seeds and cook until they start to pop.
2. Take off the heat and let it cool.
3. Add the garlic and ginger, cook for 30s.
4. Add the onions and cook for a minute or two.
5. Add the curry paste or powder and stir to mix thoroughly.
6. Add the veg in the order of which takes longest to cook, stir.
7. Add enough water to cover, the lentils and the cardamom pods, and simmer for ages.

When the tomatoes are nicely reduced, sweet and tasty, add to the curry base. Cook the whole on a low heat - long and slow is best. Finally, add the chopped coriander chick peas and serve with boiled rice, quinoa or cous cous.

Remember to taste at every stage and adjust seasoning.

NB make sure your stock is vegan. I love the Swiss Vegetable Bouillon but this is not vegan - they doa vegan version but it is not as good. Kallo do a great vegan stock cube.

Enjoy!