Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Experiments With Curry

Experimental Curry

Not wanting to go shopping and having a fridge filled with odds and ends make for a good excuse to experiment...

What follows turned out to be quite tasty.

You will need:

A large handful of poor quality frozen lamb
As much coriander as remains in the fridge
A thumb's worth of ginger
Six cloves of garlic
An onion stripped of its brown overcoat
A shriveled aubergine
Two wizened hot green chilies
A handful of peeled cherry tomatoes
Two green peppers
Spinach
Two teaspoons of garam masala powder
One teaspoon of cumin powder
One teaspoon of coriander powder
A quarter teaspoon of turmeric powder
A teaspoon of red pepper powder (if you fancy it)
The skin scrapings of a lemon and its juices
A modicum of salt
Just enough black pepper
Two teaspoons of mustard seeds
A glass of water
A can of coconut milk
A cup of tea
Some oil of your choosing

Carry on as instructed:

Defrost the poor quality lamb in a receptacle of your choosing, cut off any unappetizing scraggly bits and wash off any excess blood clots.
Finely chop the ginger and garlic and leave in a heap.
Hack at the onion until broken into pieces of your liking.
Dice the aubergine (removing any nasty bits), the green peppers and halve the cherry tomatoes.
If you are adventurous finely chop the hot green chilies, if not leave them whole.
Wash and tear up the spinach.
Finely chop the coriander, but leave a few leaves whole.

Shove the lamb, ginger, garlic, cumin, coriander, turmeric, finely chopped coriander, lemon scrapings and juice into a bowl. Abuse gently.

Place some oil in a heated pan, chuck in the mustard seeds and after fifteen to twenty seconds shove in the onion. Add the garam masala, stir it around as if you know what you're doing, adding a little water if it looks like it's going to go black and horrid.

Dump the dirty lamb into the pan and wave your spatula ineffectually around the place.

Add the other vegetables and tomatoes. Toss them around a bit and when you get bored add in a glass of water, salt and red pepper powder.

Let this horrible concoction simmer for forty five minutes or so and then open the can of coconut milk. Discover that the milk seems to have completely solidified, then surprise yourself by digging a spoon down to the bottom and splashing coconut juices all over your best shirt and trousers.

Curse wildly.

Add the coconut milk to the rather unappealing mess in the pan and pray to Richard Dawkins for divine intervention.

Wait.

Make yourself a cup of tea.

Stir occasionally.

Discover that the curry keeps sticking to the bottom of the pan. Curse wildly a second time, turn down the heat and remain poised over the pan with your spatula.

The curry should have had a total of ninety minutes to contemplate. Half-heartedly throw the spinach in and stir sporadically until it looks vaguely edible.

Garnish with black pepper, lemon juice and the leftover coriander leaves. Serve with rice, chapattis or any other carbohydrate that takes your fancy.

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