Vegetable Curry with Poppadums and Raita
Serves: 4
Time: 40 minutes
A veggie curry is a great way to pack in a lot of vegetables with your dinner and you could add to this any stray old bits that have been hanging around in your veggie drawer. While this is a pretty substantial meal for me as it has the potatoes and chickpeas, my husband and little boy do love rice, so I whipped some up for them as an afterthought. If you want some more carbs, plain or jasmine rice would be perfect.
Leftovers
A curry always taste better to me the next day. Fortunately, we have plenty, so lunch tomorrow is exactly the same.
What you'll need
1 small brown onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 heaped teaspoon of curry powder
1 tin of whole peeled tomatoes
400ml water
4 medium sized potatoes (dutch creams best)
1/2 cauliflower
1 tin of chickpeas
1 large eggplant
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
2 handfuls of baby spinach
1/2 packet of frozen peas
1 packet of pappadums
1/2 cup of greek yoghurt
1/4 bunch of mint
1/2 cucumber
1/2 lemon
From The Pantry
1/2 cup of light olive oil or grapeseed oil
coconut oil
salt and pepper
Are you having rice?
If you are having rice you will want to get it going firs, wash off the excess starch and drop into a seasoned pot of boiling water, mcook till soft then strain and return to the pot and cover with a lid, keep it somewhere out of the way till you are ready.
Prep and Cook
Preheat oven to 180c
Cook Eggplant
Slice your eggplant into large chunks approx the size of half your palm.
Mix together in a large bowl the eggplant, drained can of chickpeas, a considerable sprinkling of curry powder, the cumin seeds, salt and pepper and enough oil to generously coat the eggplant.
Toss together really well.
Spread out on a baking tray lined with paper and bake for 20 minutes until the eggplant is soft and golden. The chickpeas go a little crunchy which I like.
Prep Curry
Peel and cut the onion into a fine dice, and finely chop garlic.
Cut cauliflower into florets.
Peel and cut potatoes into large chunks ( I did 6 pieces to a half).
In a large fry pan that has a lid, or a large pot that has a lid, sauté your onions in coconut oil till they are soft and beginning to caramelize.
Add the garlic and curry powder and cook for a further 30 seconds.
Add the whole peeled tomatoes, crushing them with your hands as you go. Swill out the can with 400ml of water and add this to your mixture, bring up to the boil and season well.
Turn down to a simmer and add your potatoes, cook for 8 minutes with the lid on.
After that time, add your cauliflower and peas and return the lid to cook for a further 5 minutes.
While the Potatoes Cook
Cook Poppadums
In a medium sized fry pan heat your oil. Then follow the instructions as per the packet (but generally each poppadum will only need to cook for 2-3 seconds each side).
Make Raita
Roughly chop the washed mint leaves.
Cut cucumber into small dice.
Combine yogurt, mint, cucumber and freshly squeezed lemon juice with some salt and pepper and mix well to combine.
Finish Curry
By now your eggplant should be cooked, so check that your potatoes are also cooked through and check the seasoning, then combine your eggplant and chickpeas with the rest of your curry. Mix well.
Plate it Pretty
Mix a couple of handfuls of baby spinach through your curry.
Spoon some curry into a bowl. Top with a good couple of spoonfuls of raita and serve the poppadums on the side.
Lunch Tomorrow
I had my lunch leftovers cold cause that’s just how I want things some days but they would also be perfect heated up in the microwave. I wouldn’t recommend keeping any leftover poppadums though as they went a bit soggy. You might as well eat them all when they are fresh and crispy.