Remember the chickpea dip from a recent Meatless Monday entry? A canny cook would have soaked a full 250g bag of dried chickpeas overnight, boiled them up in the early morning, made the dip and frozen half the chickpeas to use later.  If you did that, you’re ready to make a curry!
What I am suggesting is that you make this dish the night before. In summer, it’s really too hot to cook when you get home from work. It’s best just to gently reheat food that was prepared earlier.
Curry comes from a hot country. The advantage of cooking this curry the night before is that the spices will gently infuse overnight in the fridge. This curry is more spicy than hot so children should find it acceptable. This recipe is extremely forgiving. I will give you several options for preparation below.
Prep Your Curry
Defrost chickpeas
Choose a vegetable: fresh or frozen spinach, broccoli or califlower.
Thaw and drain frozen veggie of choice. Gently steam raw vegetables until crisp-tender. Make certain your raw veggies are bite-sized, with broccoli or califlower cut into florets. You need a compact broccoli head or one-half a head of califlower.
*If you have any boiled potato on hand, chop into a one-inch dice. It will go well in this curry!
Spices
You need either some curry powder and a ground spice mix: garam masala (a mix of cinnamon, cardomon, cumin and fenugreek) OR these whole spices – cayenne powder, turmeric, cinnamon, fresh ginger, cumin seed.
Chop
2 medium onions
Mince
2 cloves garlic
Cook Your Curry
Heat up 2 TBSP vegetable oil with a dab of butter in a deep pot. Â When the oil is hot, toss in the onions and fry until brown.
Put in 1 TBSP curry powder and 1/2 TBSP garam masala
OR
grate in 1 inch of peeled fresh ginger, 1 tsp of cinnamon and cumin seed, 1/2 TBSP turmeric and 1/4 tsp of cayenne powder.  Fry the onions, garlic and spices to combine.
Add your thawed chickpeas and any leftover boiled potatoes that have been cut up in bite sized pieces. Stir.
Curry with frozen spinach variation: add it and let any extra liquid cook down before adding any more liquid. Add a TBSP of desiccated coconut OR a can of coconut milk once the spinach liquid has evaporated. If you need to thicken the sauce, use 1 tsp. cornstarch mixed with 2 tsp. water. Leave the lid off the pot to help the mixture reduce.
Curry with steamed brocolli or cauliflower variation: make sure the vegetables are broken into small florets and add the steamed veg to your pot. Add about 2 oz of water. Stir. You want to add enough liquid to have a little sauce but not to have it swimming! To thicken it put a tsp of cornstarch in a glass. Add 2 tsp water to dissolve and add to the pot. This will thicken it up to your desired consistency.
Once you’re satisfied with the sauce let it all cool down and put in the fridge for tomorrow night.
Serve with white or brown steamed rice and a cucumber yoghurt raita.
Cucumber Raita
Chop up a half of a cucumber in a small dice. Pour yoghurt over the diced cucumber and stir well so that the diced cucumbers are completely covered. Garnish with some chopped cilantro or parsley or mint.
As you can see you’ve had a balance of vegetable protein – nuts, seed, dairy and bean – throughout the day.
