My first food post

Hello friends,

As promised, here is my first food post. I was sat at work today, and I had an enormous craving for curry. I haven't made a decent curry for ages! Sometimes I make curries from scratch, using all the different spices and powders and blending them to my taste, but today I'm afraid I took the lazy route and used a bought-in curry paste. Nothing wrong with that of course! This is so easy, I almost feel daft writing a recipe for it. Nonetheless, here it is:

Very Easy "Chicken" and Vegetable Tikka Masala

The Ingredients

What we have here is:

• Large red pepper
• Large sweet potato
• Medium white onion
• 7 or so mushrooms
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 1 carton passata (500g I think?!?!)
• half a courgette
• A head of broccoli
• Chicken style pieces (any vegan brand will do)
• Tikka masala paste
• Veg oil
• 3 cloves garlic
• Pepper and chilli powder to taste
• Handful of fresh chillies (not pictured!)
• Mango chutney to serve

Serves 4 or thereabouts.

In reality, this isn't a set recipe that I use all the time. Mostly, my curries, soups etc are made of whatever I have in the house on the day, which is good because you can use up your veggies, and no two curries end up tasting the same! I strongly suggest you do the same.

The Method

Incredibly easy. Stupidly easy. Seriously.

1. Peel if necessary and chop up your veggies into small, bitesize pieces.
2. Put about a tablespoon of oil in a large pan and put over a medium heat (I use a wok, which I use for EVERYTHING!)
3. Throw in a handful of the "chicken" and all your veggies except the tomatoes and the broccoli, and give them a stir to coat them in oil. Cover the pan with a lid (or in my case, another pan, because I don't have a big enough lid!). That will keep the heat in and let the veggies steam a little as well as fry. Stir from time to time to avoid sticking.
4. When the sweet potato is soft, everything should be cooked. Drop in the passata and stir it in.
5. Put in as much curry paste as you want - it depends on taste as to how much you put in! For this many veggies, I used about half a jar. Stir it in. Now add the broccoli and tomatoes, and replace the lid. Stir occasionally. If the curry gets too thick, add a bit more passata or some water.
6. When the broccoli is cooked, it's done! Add chilli powder and pepper to taste (I think the paste has enough salt, so I don't add any more).

If you're not into meat substitutes, a really nice alternative is to use chickpeas instead. I prefer chickpeas, but forgot to soak my dried ones, so fell back on the frozen chicken pieces instead! Also, I put the broccoli in later, because if you overcook it, the little green seeds come away and spread throughout the whole curry, and it flavours the entire thing.

The Result

A lovely hot curry to warm the heart

I'm afraid I broke the Golden Rule of Curries here - a curry is best if left overnight to infuse, but I ate it straight away! Still, it was lovely anyway!

Served with a gigantic chapatti!

Yum yum - I found these massive chapattis at a shop near my house, and they are beautiful! They only have 3 ingredients in them (wheat flour, salt, water) so they should be really easy to make yourself - that might just be a future experiment... You could also serve with rice, naan bread (if you made it or can find a vegan one) or whatever you like!

So there you have it! I hope you enjoyed my very first food post. I know I started simple, but what the heck, you need to start somewhere! I hope to continue adding to this over time, so this will eventually become a powerhouse of flavourful and filling vegan recipes. 

Comment and question to your heart's content!

Yours,

Callum

PS. Isn't broccoli a weird word? I think it sounds like a bacteria or something... still it's very good for you, and tasty to boot!