something from the past

 written some time ago by "no-one"  You all remember "no-One" is NOT me, right? She's funnier.

Cooking With No-One: Vegetable Curry  

A few weeks ago I was watching a movie called Nina's Heavenly Delights and it inspired me to try making my own curry, without using any store bought curry pastes, or curry powders. It turned out really well, so I made it again, and this time I took pictures. **

First I pre-cut a mountain of vegetables. I used potato, sweet potato, carrot, cauliflower and green beans. Of course, these can be swapped out for other veggies depending on personal taste. (I've heard there's some degenerates out there that actually like to have peas in their curry. Horrifying, I know.)

Cut up 2 onions. Then go and sit somewhere else for a while, cursing the fact that scientists keep developing new treatments for erectile dysfunction, but haven't yet genetically engineered an onion that won't make my eyeballs feel raw. Damn onions.

Once the onion-induced tears stopped streaming, I started making my home-made curry paste. I began with an entire small jar of minced garlic. Woolworths brand, nothing fancy.

Add a big dollop of minced chilli.

A smaller dollop of minced ginger.

A bunch of chili powder.

Some ground cumin.

Garam Masala.

And finally a bunch of tumeric, (apologies for not having actual amounts here. When I cook with spices, I generally just keep adding stuff until it smells the way I think it should. It's worked for me so far.)

Mix thoroughly until you get a fairly unappetizing looking paste, that smells great.

Heat oil in a large pot. Add paste to hot oil and stir around for a while releasing all the flavours.

Throw in the onion. mix through paste and saute for a few minutes, stirring all the while.

Add the mountain of vegetables.

Mix them around until they are completely coated in curry paste. 

Add two cans of diced tomatoes. I like the diced Italian with basil, garlic and onion. I use it every time I have something that requires diced tomatoes. (Unless I'm using fresh ones.)

Mix well. It was at this point I remembered that last time I used my much larger stockpot, and had to swap everything from the pot I was using to the stockpot, as I was having trouble stirring and there wasn't going to be room for the yoghurt.

Add a large container of natural yoghurt. If you want to go vegan, or know someone who's vegan, you can use some kind of soy yoghurt or whatever vegans might use as a yoghurt substitute. I'm a firm believer in the magical powers of bacon, so I'm not sure what that substitute may be.

More mixing. I also added coriander, but I forgot to take a photo. Oops.

Simmer over a low heat for several hours, stirring occasionally so you don't end up with gross burned bits on the bottom of the pot. They're a bitch to clean off later. 

Served with Roti bread. Yum.

** There are no pictures, they were on her blog and all I found was this paper copy of the recipe.