Curry can be crammed full of hidden veg, which earns it a massive thumbs up from me when I am meal planning for the family.
You might be concerned about children not like spicy food but in my experience many of them like much stronger food than we would expect.
And even if you are stuck with some family members who like it hot and others who don't, this recipe will keep both hungry hoards happy.
It also provides a really flexible base for a range of different, from-the-freezer, healthy meals that can be easily adapted to meet the demands of both meat eaters and veggies.
I don't put anything in the curry apart from huge quantities of seasonal veg and spices but then serve it with for example, quickly grilled lamb or fish or a can of chick peas or beans.
The meat or fish won't absorb as much of the curry flavour as it would in a meat or fish curry but cooked separately means you can - critically - blend up and hide all the veggies.
It also satisfies younger children who like meat, sauce and rice separate on their plate.
Obviously, you can serve it with rice but we also make super quick pittas from a wodge of bread dough in the freezer and which are yummy dipped in big steaming bowls of curry.
I do always try to serve it with yoghurt as I think it tastes so much better that way but also because the adults can add a little garam masala to it to spice their curry up.
Ingredients
These are the ingredients for a family of four but I always batch cook it in my Le Crueset with 3 cans of tomatoes and as many veg as I can possibly cram in :-)
- Garlic
- Ginger - I keep some frozen as you only ever need small amounts
- Onion
- Dried chilli - too taste
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- Garam masala - too taste
- 400g / 14oz can of tomatoes
- Vegetable stock as needed
- 200g / 7oz of yoghurt (roughly)
- 500g of seasonal veggies
- Additional spinach - not essential but I sneak it into everything I can ;-)
I try to get in at least 3 or 4 different types of veg - we just made some with pumpkin, cauliflower, parsnip and carrot which was great. Personally, I don't like the veg too sweet but if you know your kids will prefer a sweeter taste, carrot and sweet potato are good additions.
It's also great way to get in some super veg like brussels that lots of people don't like as the flavour and texture will be so well hidden.
Recipe
- Lightly fry cumin seeds in a couple of table spoons of olive oil for a few minutes
- Add chopped onion and soften for about 10 minutes
- Stir in minced garlic, chopped ginger, crumbled chilli and turmeric
- Add the can of tomatoes and after bringing to boil simmer for about 15 minutes
- Stir in roughly chopped veg - if you want to keep some of the veg in big chunks, keep back softer veg such as cauliflower and broccoli and add towards the end
- Slow cook for a couple of hours - adding a little stock as needed
- Add in soft veg for 20 to 30 minutes at the end
- Add in roughly chopped spinach for about 10 minutes at the end
- If you're eating some straight away - extract the portions of those who don't like whole veg and blend them to whatever smoothness required by your picky eaters!
- Serve with yoghurt and garam masala
If serving with chick peas or beans add them about 10 minutes from end but if you're batch cooking I wouldn't add to the whole batch as it gives more flexibility without them.
I invariably blacken my le Crueset with this but now I have my mum's super simple trick for getting even the blackest pan clean without scrubbing, that's not a problem.
If you're looking for other family friendly recipes check out these ... and if you're looking for more spicy food check out the brilliant links from other bloggers at the bottom of this post and feel free to add your own spicy recipes ...
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