Simple store cupboard curry's

Sometimes when I come home and I don't want to spend an hour in the kitchen making dinner, I look in my store cupboard and see what I can curry up!

There is always a can of red kidney beans floating around as well as chick peas and black beans being essentials in our home.

Red kidney bean and sweetcorn curry is one of mine (and the American Vegetarian's) favourite store cupboard curry. The pair go together so well and we love how comforting it feels too. Now as this is is a dinner where I don't want to spend most of the evening cooking, we serve it with whole ice burg lettuce leaves and yoghurt and have a kind of lettuce wrap curry.

So this is my 'done in 30 minutes' dinner. Not quite to Jamies' standard but good enough for me.

Ingredients

1 400g can of Red Kidney beans; drained & rinsed under water

1 200g can of sweetcorn; drained & rinsed under water

1 tblsp of oil (Olive, vegetable or sunflower)

1/2 tsp of mustard seeds

3/4 tsp of cumin seeds

pinch of asafoetida (optional)

1/4 tsp of turmeric

1/2 tsp of chilli powder

2 tsp of ground coriander

3/4 tsp of salt

3/4 tsp of sugar

1 fresh tomato; chopped

some water

handful of fresh coriander

Method

Heat the oil in a pan and once hot add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds. Once they start to pop, add the asafoetida (if using) then add the red kidney beans and sweetcorn. Add all the spices and the tomato, and stir well. Add enough water so it covers the kidney beans and sweetcorn then cover with a lid half on and cook on a medium heat for 20-25 mins. Half way through the cooking time you can give it a stir and taste it to see if you need to adjust the seasoning. Add water if you want the dish to be more saucy. Once done garnish with the fresh coriander.

Serve with whole lettuce leaves, yoghurt and poppadoms, for an Indian lettuce wrap dinner.

(The picture above is not the dinner we had, but an idea of what it looked like!)

Feta & Tomato Rotli

This is what I've just had for lunch. It was so tasty I thought I'd blog about it. Very tasty way to eat leftover rotli (Indian bread) and the odd bits of food that just hang around the fridge waiting to be eaten.

Ingredients

Two rotli (OK If you haven't got these handy, then any 'wrap' type of bread will do)
1 tomato; chopped
Some feta cheese
Handful of fresh coriander; chopped
Some fresh red chilli; chopped
Salt & pepper to season

Method

Place the tomato in the rotli and then crumble the feta on top. Add the coriander and chilli and season to taste. Roll carefully, and eat shamelessly!

Chilli Paneer

Oh I love a bit of chilli paneer. There are loads of recipes for chilli paneer, and my cousin does a fab chilli paneer, but this is one I made on Friday night.

What I liked about this recipe is dry frying and then grinding the whole spices. The taste and smell they gave off was delish.

Ingredients:

1 packet of paneer; (which turned out to be 227grams), cut into cubes

1/2 tbsp of whole coriander seeds

1/2 tsp (or a pinch ) of fenugreek seeds

1 dry red chilli

1/2 tsp of cumin seeds

A few black peppercorns
1 small onion; sliced
1 garlic clove; chopped until paste like
1 or 1/2  green chilli; chopped (see how you go!)
1 green pepper; cut into cubes
2 fresh tomatoes; chopped up
salt to season

Method

Take all the whole spices (coriander, fenugreek seeds, dry red chilli, cumin seeds, and black peppercorn) and dry roast them in a frying pan on a medium heat. Keep shaking the pan around every so often and then once they start giving off a nice aroma, you'll know they are done. Transfer to a pestle and mortar, and let them cool down for a minute or two, before you grind them down so they become a powder. Set aside.

Heat some oil in a pan and add the onion, and cook until translucent, then add the garlic, green chilli, pepper, tomatoes, the grounded whole spices and some salt. Cook for about 5 minutes uncovered then add the paneer. Mix well and cook for a further 8-10 minutes until the paneer has soaked up the moisture. Once done garnish with fresh coriander and serve with roti, salad or just some natural yoghurt.