Recipes
Mushroom and Eggplant/Aubergine Curry
Introduction
This is a recipe its very hard to get wrong, if you can add gravy powder to water, you can make this dish as the rest is just adding ingredients and heating them up. Everytime I make it, people have enjoyed it and asked me how I made it, so I've put the recipe here. The beauty of it is that it is flexible, I've never measured the ingredients but have guessed here to be helpful. After you make it the first time, you can add more eggplant, change the peas to beans, more mushrooms (I did), more gravy, its up to you. The main trick is the brown gravy for the sauce, it gives it a lovely texture and look, and really makes the dish appetising and hard to get wrong. This will make a lot, probably enough for six people, though I live on my own so I freeze it in containers and have a weeks dinners all ready : )
Ingredients
| 1. | 1 large lovely purple eggplant (also called an aubergine) |
| 2. | 2 cups of chopped mushrooms (don't cut too finely or they lose their flavour) |
| 3. | 1 cup red lentils |
| 4. | 2 cans of diced tomatoes (or dice really ripe ones yourself) |
| 5. | 2 medium carrots, sliced |
| 6. | 1 large onion, diced finely to become part of sauce |
| 7. | 1/3 cup peas |
| 8. | 1/2 jar of curry paste (Balti, Roghan Josh, whatever you like) or equivalent herbs and spices |
| 9. | 2 tabs oil |
| 10. | 3 cloves garlic (or 3 tablespoons of pre crushed garlic) |
| 11. | Optional - 2 tablespoons chopped ginger (pre chopped in jar or tube is fine) |
| 12. | Optional - 2 tablespoons chopped coriander |
| 13. | Optional - Cous Cous (5 minutes to cook) or Brown Rice (up to an hour) depending on what you feel like. |
| 14. | 2 cups water |
| 15. | 1/4 cup brown gravy powder |
Instructions
| 1. | Heat a saucepan, and add the oil when its hot |
| 2. | Add the onions and saute till soft |
| 3. | Add the eggplant, saute until quite soft |
| 4. | Add the garlic, we want the onion and eggplant to have a lovely garlic flavour |
| 5. | Add the mushrooms, saute until just soft |
| 6. | Add the carrots, saute a little bit more |
| 7. | Add the ginger, coriander and curry paste, stir through so it is mixed nicely with everything |
| 8. | Add the 2 cans of tomatoes, stir through |
| 9. | Add 1/2 cup of water, or enough so mixture is quite moist (see explanation just below) |
| 10. | Add the lentils and cover for 15/20 minutes, until lentils are soft |
| 11. | Add the peas |
| 12. | Add the gravy powder, stir through, cook for 5 minutes more adding water as necessary to get desired consistency |
| 13. | Serve with cous cous (or brown rice which takes longer) and bread (I've used Roti, Naan and even sliced turkish bread, but any nice bread will do) |
Tips
I like a curry to be nice and moist so I can scoop it up with bread, hence the two cans of tomatoes and the 2 cups of water. We want the mixture to have a decent amount of moisture when we put the red lentils in. This is what the water is for, we add that to the mixture so that there is enough liquid for the lentils to soak and cook in. Whilst we aren't making a thick soup it's not too far off that (but no so much that its runny of course). Whilst its cooking, keep checking that the lentils are in enough moisture to cook, if it looks a little thick and dry, add more water. Its OK if its a little runny whilst the lentils are cooking, because when you add the gravy powder it is going to thicken a bit.
by Cameron Green
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