Cold-busting curries

I had a busy week – after a busy few weeks. Between a lot of travel, late nights, early mornings, gallivanting, eating too much, eating too little and general running, I could feel a dose of the sniffles coming on.

My favourite cure for feeling run down, which doubles up as my first-sign-of-a-cold dish, is curry. A good, spicy, hot curry seems to purge the cold virus from your system.

It’s worth making curries from scratch. I find they are more satisfying, more comforting, and as you’re in charge of adding the spice, you can make them as hot or mild as you like.

On my travels, I picked up a copy of Jamie Oliver’s magazine. I’m not really a fan of his, although I cannot fault his simplicity and his drive to make meals healthier. The Sept/Oct 2012 edition is dedicated to curry. Yay!

I made two curries from it, adapting the recipes for two people each (so I’d feed four people). The original recipes are below, with my modifications in brackets. Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients – once you have these in your spice cupboard, you will use them time and again. You can buy some of them in your local large supermarket, but for the rest, head to your local Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi-owned shop where you will get them for half nothing.

Das’s chickpea curry

Olive oil (one tablespoon)

½ a cinnamon stick

3 cardamom pods (½ a teaspoon of ground cardamom)

2 cloves

A pinch of fennel seeds

4 crushed garlic cloves

A thumb sized piece of ginger, grated (½ a thumb)

2 fresh green chillis (one dried red chilli)

3 onions (one onion)

½ teaspoon of ground turmeric

1 headed teaspoon of ground coriander (½ a teaspoon)

1 teaspoon of ground chilli

1 teaspoon of garam masala

1 heaped teaspoon of tomato puree (a good handful of cherry tomatoes)

4 ripe tomatoes (another two good handfuls of cherry tomatoes)

2xtins of chickpeas (one tin)

200ml of coconut milk (I only had coconut cream, so about 80ml)

100g of baby spinach (I was adding spinach to the other curry I made, so I left this out)

Coriander (I’d none)

Heat a pot. Once hot, add the oil, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, fennel seeds, garlic, ginger and the whole chilli. Stir and cook them for a few minutes, then add the chopped onion and cook all of this for about 15-20 minutes over a medium heat. Keep an eye on it as you don’t want it to burn.

Stir in the turmeric, chilli powder, ground coriander and a bit of salt and pepper. Add the tomatoes and about 450ml (200ml) water. Bring all of this to the boil and add the chickpeas and simmer for around 15 minutes.

Reduce the heat and stir in the coconut milk and simmer. If you boil it again at this point, you risk splitting the coconut milk. If you are using spinach, stir this in just before the end of the cooking so that it wilts. Check for seasoning and serve with a bit of fresh coriander sprinkled on top if you have some.

Das's chickpea curry

While I was making this vegetarian curry, I also made a fish curry.

Keralan seafood curry

Again, I’m putting the whole recipe here with my modifications on brackets next to it.

Vegetable oil (a tablespoon of olive oil)

2 teaspoons of mustard seeds (1 teaspoon)

1 teaspoon of fenugreek seeds

I fresh, green chilli (one dried, red chilli)

A handful of fresh or dried curry leaves (a good tablespoonful)

2 thumb sized pieces of ginger, grated (1 thumb sized piece)

3 onions (one onion)

12 large prawns (I had none, so I didn’t use any!)

1 teaspoon of chilli powder

1 teaspoon of turmeric

1 handful of ripe, yellow cherry tomatoes (a good dose of red cherry tomatoes)

400ml light coconut milk (the rest of the 165ml tin of coconut cream from the chickpea curry, above)

400g monkfish fillets (I had 270g ‘cabillaud’ or cod in the freezer, and I wasn’t leaving the house)

1 heaped teaspoon of tamarind paste (I’d none)

75g baby spinach (I only had frozen, so a few blocks of that)

coriander and lime to serve (I'd none)

Fish curry

Heat the oil in a pot and add the mustard seeds until they pop. This will take a few minutes. Once they start popping, add the fenugreek, chilli, curry leaves and ginger. Cook all of this for a few minutes and add the chopped onion.

Cook for about 10 minutes, until the onion is soft. At this stage you should add the prawns if you have them. Add the chilli powder, turmeric and tomatoes, cook for a few minutes and add 200ml (100ml) of water and the coconut milk/cream.  Simmer for a few minutes until it thickens a bit, and add the fish. I added the frozen spinach at this stage but if you’re using fresh, wait for a couple of minutes. Your fish should only take about 5 minutes to cook. Once it is, your curry is done – check for seasoning and add a little salt and pepper if you need it. Serve with coriander and lime wedges.

We ate these two curries with 150g white rice and a few naan breads I took from the freezer. 

Pork bhuna – easy weekend Indian food

Long before I moved to Belgium, I loved spicy food, which often meant Indian. Nothing’s changed, except nowadays it’s a lot easier to find Asian/Indian food here. However, finding something sufficiently spicy hot can be a challenge. I have used jars of sauce and added a bit of chilli. Unfortunately, these are usually very high in calories and fat, so I started making my own curries a few years ago.

Pork bhuna with spicy rice

Many people think that making curries from scratch is difficult. In fact, the most difficult part is finding the spices you need. You can find many of these in supermarkets and for the more ‘exotic’ ones, check out the Asian supermarkets at St. Gery in Brussels city centre (near St Catherine and de Bourse) or the many ‘ethnic’ ones dotted around the city (such as the Chaussee d’Ixelles, etc…).

The list of ingredients in the bhuna here can appear daunting, but once you have the basics, you’ll find you can make a lot of other curries. A huge plus is that you can make your curry as weak or as strong as you like. Also, with this curry, you put everything in the pot and leave it to cook, making it low-maintenance.

I served this with spiced rice and homemade naan bread. The recipe is from Madhur Jaffrey’s 100 essential curries. A * marks the spices I’ve found in supermarkets.

2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds*

4 teaspoons whole coriander seeds

2 teaspoons whole mustard seeds (I used black mustard seeds)

2-4 whole chillies* (you can used fresh or dried, the quantity depends on how hot you like it)

2 teaspoons whole fennel seeds*

2 teaspoons fenugreek seeds

Oil (the recipe says peanut or corn oil, I used olive)

3 large shallots (I used a large onion)

4 cm grated fresh ginger (tip: use the side of a teaspoon to peel it; also, if you’ve no fresh ginger, a good teaspoon of ground ginger is fine)

5-6 garlic cloves

10-15 curry leaves (you’ll get these in an Asian supermarket)

2 medium tomatoes (I used 200ml passata as I had some in the fridge to use up)

900g shoulder of pork (for 4 people – I used 400g filet pork (for 2 people), chopped into bite-sized chunks (you can use chicken, lamb or beef either)

Unorthodox ingredient: about 150g mushrooms (upping the veggie count, cutting the calories of the dish, and they had to be used up)

In a dry, heavy casserole or pot (ie: don’t add any oil) and over a medium-high heat, toast the seeds and chillies for about 2-3 minutes, until they start releasing their smells. Keep a close eye on them so that they don’t burn. When they are done, either grind them in a pestle and mortar, a coffee grinder or a small food processor until they are powdery.

In the same pot, heat a teaspoon of oil and cook the chopped shallots, garlic and ginger for about 5 minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes and the curry leaves. Cook until the tomatoes have broken down and are a bit gloopy.

Add the ground spices, 250ml water and the meat. Season, stir and reduce the heat to simmering. Cover and cook for at least 20 minutes if you’re using a filet. If you’re using shoulder, the meat will need longer cooking, so around an hour and a half. Check the sauce. If it needs thickening (it should cling to the meat), remove the lid and cook until thicker. If you need to adjust the chilli heat, do it now too. If it’s too hot, add some (low-fat) yogurt to cool if down.

For the spicy rice

100g long grain rice (recommended guidelines state 125g for 2 people, but as I was serving the naan bread too, I didn’t need a whole lot of rice)

One onion

Oil

A couple of cardamom seeds

A stick of cinnamon

One teaspoon turmeric (‘curcuma’ in French)

Peel and chop the onion into rings. Fry this on a low heat, in a little oil, for about 10 minutes, until soft and golden. From experience, don’t think that upping the heat will cut the cooking time; it doesn’t and the onions burn. Long n slow is the name of the game here.

Meanwhile, pop the rice and everything else into a pot with some salt and loads of water and cook according to the instructions. The rice will go a lovely radio-active yellow colour.

Once cooked, drain the rice and stir the cooked onions through.