Bebop Veg Curry

 

Pictured, my latest bit of jazz cookery in progress. As we're on the penultimate day of our fortnight here in Shropshire, and need to make some space in the car for all the bits and bobs we've acquired from book and charity shops various, I decided to use up the bulk of the veg left in the larder. For once, I haven't brought my spice-box and knives, so I've just riffed on what was around. On the left of the piccie are some new potatoes, carrots and red onion; on the right, the curry sauce base of stupidly-slowly-cooked brown onion, spice and tomatoes.

Basically, I par-boiled the carrot and spud, and then fried them slowly with the red onion and set them aside. The sauce base is two large brown onions, sautéed verrry slowly in loads of vegetable oil, first covered on very low heat, then browned with the lid off. I added a very finely chopped large, mild, red chilli, and cooked that out until the onion mix was good and brown and sweet. I'd previously made a wet masala of garlic, grated ginger and M&S Roasted Curry Powder, which was then added to the onions. This was also cooked out for a good while, until the tang of raw garlic had subsided. A dry masala of turmeric, cumin and coriander powders was added, and again cooked well out, very slowly.

Then a tin of good Italian tomatoes went in and the sauce very slowly further reduced, until it started just to catch on the pan. At this point, I let the sauce down with a little water added to the tomato tin, collecting the tomato residue on the way, simmered it for a while, and turned the pan off to cool, whilst I roasted the veg for three-quarters of an hour or so, at Gas 6. When the spuds, etc., had taken a little colour, I added the sauce to the pan, along with half a tin of garden peas, covered it with a lid, and returned it to the oven at Gas 3. It's still in there as I write, so I'll let you know whether it was a success, or whether we ended up having beans on toast for supper. Keep you posted...