This was the dish that I was busy cutting up a cauliflower for! And then got side tracked photographing the cauliflower dissection part which delayed things somewhat but oh well, there generally isn't too much pressing in the life of a housewife!?
I decided on vegetable curry because I needed something to do with the left over lentils from my soup the other day. I also had a cauliflower in the fridge which I hadn't allocated to anything yet and a few odd ends of sour cream and cream to clear out of the fridge. I text my husband at work and the fact that we were having vegetable curry for dinner came up, what was his immediate reply? 'Where's the meat?'! See! Predictable. Anyway, luckily, there was some left over chicken in the fridge from the beer can chicken the night before, so that was his side of meat to go with dinner.
I was going to cook this curry in 2 parts. I made the curry sauce in a pot and then cooked the vegetables in a wok ( that has a lid) and combined them at the end. The first thing I did was cut up onions. I cut one and half very, very finely and started it cooking in the pot with oil and then the lid went on it. Then I cut the other half onion along with another large onion, into large chunks, maybe 6-8 pieces per half onion. After that I got cutting up the cauliflower, and taking pictures of that. I like to have all my ingredients ready to use before I start cooking if possible (i.e when I have time to do so), it makes it a smoother process. So I then peeled and cut into discs 3 carrots, sliced 2 sticks of celery and quartered about 10 button mushrooms. And got the lentils ( already cooked ones ) out of the fridge.
In the wok I started off frying the onion chunks with some fennel seeds, maybe 2-3tsps, after about 5minutes roughly I added the carrots and then after maybe another 5minutes the cauliflower and celery and gave it some time to cook with the lid on. In the meantime the onions in the pot were soft and translucent, so I added a tbsp roughly of minced garlic and the same of fresh ginger paste, along with 5 cloves. I let this fry for a few seconds then added some water, covered it and let it cook the water out. I then added about 1 cup of crushed tomatoes ( I actually used a can of pasta tomato sauce, which is basically the same but what I had in the cupboards that needed using ) and a vegetable stock cube, about 2 tsp of curry powder, a few shakes of cinnamon and some more water. I also used some chilli flakes but it is up to you if you like heat or not. I let this all come to the boil and then simmered it very slowly.
Attention then returns to the vegetables, which smell amazing, or rather the fennel smells amazing. Add the mushrooms when the other vegetables are close to being ready. You want them to all be slightly undercooked, because we are then going to add the sauce to it and let it come to the boil again, at which point you won't want your vegetables to be mushy. You would normally use yoghurt in a curry, but I had none, and I had sour cream to finish, so I used about 3 or 4 tbps of sour cream which you add very slowly to the sauce, in one spot, and carefully mix it in gently so as not to curdle anything. I only really had about 1tbsp of cream, not much, but it got rid of it from the fridge. You also add some garam masala at this point, about 1tsp. You need to taste the sauce, I can't express how important it is to constantly taste when you are cooking. In fact, I do this so often that sometimes I don't even want to eat a meal when it is done because I am sick of it from a day of tasting! You should never be surprised with how something tastes once it gets to the table as you should have familiarised yourself with it in the cooking or prepping process. Taste the sauce. It will probably need some salt, especially if you use a can of crushed tomatoes over a can of tomato pasta sauce which may have some seasoning in it. If the spices aren't right add more, or dilute it with water if you put too much in. If your sauce isn't thick enough then you need to use a paste of corn flour or regular flour and water to help thicken it along. Mine needed thickening, so I used about 4 tbsps of corn flour made into a paste with water which I stirred in and let cook. The sauce turns from red to brown with the addition of curry powders and then yoghurt and/or cream.
You should now have some slightly under cooked vegetables and a wonderful curry sauce. Add the lentils ( which are already cooked so just need warming through ) to the vegetables in the wok then pour the sauce over it, stir it and let it heat through.
I made this a couple of hours ahead of dinner ( because I needed to make some granola too, and because curry only gets better with age) so I had to heat it up again when we came to eat it. The vegetables were still a good consistency and I ate it again today for lunch and it heated up without the veg. going soggy. Do pay attention to not overcook it in the first place, it will give your curry substance rather than 'mush'. I served it with quinoa, and left over beer can chicken for them man of the house! I loved it! It was so thick and rich and full of amazing curry flavours and vegetable goodness. I was about to look up and watch my husbands expression with the first mouthful but he beat me to it with a loud 'Mmmm, this is really good!'. Yay!
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