Curry for one (or two) - it's quick!

Curry from scratch does not need to take ages.  It tastes fabulous, you don't need jars of paste or sauce and you know exactly what you've put in it...

First, make sure you have cooked base protein.  In this case some Abel and Cole cubed buffalo, onion, tomato and courgette:-

Mr TOTKat cooked this in a batch a while ago.  Sweat a chopped onion, add 500g cubed buffalo (or beef or lamb), once browned, add the chopped tomato (a couple of large ones) and (a couple of medium) courgette and cook the meat through.  Divide up into (4) portions and chill/freeze.

You could use pretty much any meat or poultry, fish won't work so well but you could try some chunky white fish.  Big, meaty Portobello mushrooms, chick peas, butter beans or tofu can be used in place of the meat.  As it's not a creamy curry, nuts would probably not be very nice.  Veg could be lots of different things; courgettes, peppers, onion, cauliflower, tomatoes, aubergine, squashes, sweet potato, carrot... probably not cabbage or any softish leafy vegetables though pak choi or chard may work, it's worth a try. I can't imagine swede or parsnip would work so well though.

Then you need to make your paste (this makes enough for 2 people and you can keep it in the fridge for a day or three in a sealed container.

• 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
• 3 tbsp tomato puree
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 red onion
• 1 red chilli
• a chunk of ginger to taste
• 2 tsps light oil

Roughly chop the onion.

Toast the seeds in a dry frying pan, then crush in a pestle and mortar with some salt crystals until you have a fineish powder.

Roughly chop the chilli and put all the paste ingredients into a container and blend into a paste with a hand blender.

Heat the paste in a non-stick pan.

I decided to add some extra tomato; chopped up a couple and blended them to a smoothish paste.  Then added that to the curry paste.  Cook for a little while and add slugs of water if it starts to get too thick or stick.

Add the pre-cooked meat and veg, add a little water if needed and make sure the whole thing is heated thorougly.

Serve and eat with rice, toasted pitta, curried potato or just by itself.  (By itself, 455kcals, 62g protein, 28.5g carbs, 11.5g fat, 7g fibre and 6.2 portions of fruit and veg - 600kcals with a toasted wholemeal pitta bread).

Start to finish, that took about 35 minutes including 10 minutes preparation time.