Curry Night

Hello everyone!

                

My whole family loves spicy food, apart from my older sister, so when she was out one night, mum, dad and I decided to have a curry night, we went a little crazy. I was set the task of choosing the different dishes to cook. It’s fair to say it took me a while as there were so many delicious sounding recipes.

When I finally made my mind up I had settled on Saag Aloo, from the recipe book ‘Gaia’s Kitchen’ written by Julia Ponsonby and friends, Spicy green beans and Whole lentils with garlic and onion, both were from the recipe book ‘ Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery’ written by Madhur Jaffrey.  Since I had chosen three completely new recipes I decided to cook a rice I had already made, I choose ‘Cumin-infused Rice’ from the recipe book ‘Prashad’ written by Kaushy Patel. This rice was in my very first blog post.

The thing I hadn't realised before starting to prep the vegetables and spices was that all these dishes needed cooking within 20 minutes of cooking, and needed things added to them every few minutes. It was quite hectic managing to prepare it all in time.

Saag Aloo is one of my favourite types of curry as it is not to spicy so still taste everything after you eat it unlike some other types of curry.  

The Sagg Aloo only really took 10-15 minutes to cook as you just had to par boil the potatoes and then add  them to a pan with the different spices along with the spinach. This was relatively easy to cook and definitely worth it at the end.

The thing I really like about ‘Gaia’s Kitchen’ recipe book is that it gives you the amount of ingredients you would need for 4-6 people and for 40 people, so if you are holding a party or something like that you don’t have to faf about working out the different quantities.

The spicy green beans were extremely hot, but still delicious. Like the Saag Aloo  they were easy enough to make, you just had make sure you kept track of when and what you added. I would definitely recommend making these if you love spicy food, just be wary of how much chilli you add.

The whole green lentils with garlic and onion were lovely. They didn't really have a spicy kick as you added ¼ tsp of cayenne pepper to spice it up a little. It was kind of like a dhal but then not. The cumin seeds give the dish a delicious flavour and after taste overall. This would go really nicely along with a spicy curry as it is cooler and can cleanse your pallet.

Finally, the rice was, as before, delicious. I forgot how ‘easy’ it was to make, you just had to toast cumin seeds and caramelise onion, and then add the rice. Simple yet tasty.

I recommend trying these recipes as they are simple, you just need to plan ahead.