Tuesday 2 September 2008

Credit crunch cooking no. 3: home made curry

About 2 months ago I have some vegetables that were in danger of going off and being put in the compost bin. Not being a person who likes to see food wasted, I decided to turn them into a hot spicey pickle. Then, sitting in the office yesterday, my mind drifted to what to have for dinner. I was in the office in London but had brought down from Gateshead a large bag of produce from the allotment to keep me going in the flat here in London for a few days.

In the past I have bought jars of curry mix from Sainsburys and added them to pans of veg to make vegetable curries. I thought I would try one of the jars of hot pickle to make a veg curry. It worked!

So here's my recipe for using up old vegetables to make a curry mix which can then be added to veg freshly picked from the allotment. It's very simple.

Chop up some old veg such as mushrooms, spring onions, onions, cauliflower etc and put into pan.

Add various hot spices to taste, mustard seeds, dills seeds etc.

Add a fair quantity of raisins and then about 200ml of red wine vinegar.

Heat and bring to boil. Simmer for about three quarters of an hour til most of the liquid has evaporated.

Put into jars. You can start to use them about 2 months later. They can be used as a dip for popadoms or as a curry mix.

For the latter, I chopped some freshly picked potatoes, a cauliflower and boiled them for s couple of minutes to soften them. I then poured of half the liquid and added a chopped courgette and the curry mix and brought to the boil. I left it simmering for a few minute til the potatoes were cooked through.

Then serve with rice (alas, we can't grow our own rice).

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