Boring vegetable curry(i.e. Curry with boring vegetables)
Servings: 2 to 3
Time: 40 mins
- 10 oz tedious vegetables (carrots, celeriac, turnip) chopped into small bits
- 1 tin chick peas
- curry powder or unmingled Indian spices (cumin, cinnamon, fenugreek, cardamom, cloves, turmeric...)
- 4 tbsp desiccated coconut
- 1 onion, sliced thinly
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed
- 1 small pot of natural yoghurt
- butter
- Fresh coriander, chopped (optional, but it helps a lot)
- Fry the onion in some butter with the curry powder or other spices and one clove of garlic until thoroughly soft. Remove it to a plate.
- Add a little water to the coconut and set it aside to reconstitute.
- Add the boring vegetables to the now empty onion pan with enough water to cover. Pour in more curry powder, the other garlic clove, Worcestershire sauce and a stock cube (those dull vegetables need all the help they can get). Cover and cook until tender (10 to 15 mins).
- Add the chick peas and coconut and cook a few more minutes.
- Just before serving, stir in that spicy onion you left congealing on a plate. Let it warm up a little, then stir in the yoghurt and the coriander, if you're lucky enough to have some.
Often it's quite late by the time I get to the supermarket. The shop is usually about to close, and the more interesting flora have invariably been borne off by keensters and other assorted early-comers. I'm left with a choice of carrots, cabbage, turnips or potatoes. These are undoubtedly very worthy vegetables, but they somehow lack that spark of divinity. This curry was an act of desperation. It benefits greatly from association with the green and spicy rice.
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