Curried Currant, Cashew Nut & Carrot Couscous Salad

All the C’s.  Just realised as I typed it out.

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With an hours notice, my brother-in-law who does not cook, rang yesterday to ask me to knock up a couscous salad with some cashews in.

A quick google, whilst feeding my disabled daughter breakfast, and I turned up an enticingly sounding curried cashew nut and currant salad.  I simply added carrots to give it a little more colour, and possibly would add some thinly sliced fried or raw onion next time to give it a little more kick.

As it is an American recipe, and me being me, I altered the original recipe to suit what I have at home.  The recipe was in US cup measurements.  I do have these, but I’ve just discovered making it that a mug is pretty much the same as a cup if you don’t have cup measures to hand.

Serves 4-6

1 cup couscous
1/2 cup raisins, currants, or sultanas
1/2 cup cashew nuts, roughly chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp curry powder or paste
2 medium carrots, grated

Place the couscous, currants, cashew nuts, curry powder, oil, and salt in a warmed serving dish with a lid. Pour over the same amount of boiling water as couscous i.e. one mug or cup.  Cover and leave to stand for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes fluff the couscous up with a fork and add the grated carrot.  Taste to check  seasoning, adding more salt, oil, or curry powder as required. The original recipe only said one teaspoon of curry powder but I found that I could not taste it a tall in this amount of initially bland couscous!

My brother in law was very impressed and claimed some of the leftovers for a weekday lunch.

Twitter: Leesa@sunhillcurry

Madhur Jaffrey’s Green Bean Curry

A glut of green beans, even though I didn’t manage to grow any of my own this year, together with the decision to have a curry night this week had me googling bean curry.  But in the end the recipe I chose was from my mother’s 1987 edition of Madhur Jaffrey’s ‘An Invitation to Indian Cookery, first published in 1976.

There were several recipes for beans (Green Beans with Ginger and Green Beans with Mustard) in this book, but I settled on ‘Green Beans with Onion Paste’ as I wanted a curry with more of a sauce.

1 1/2 pounds fresh green beans (I used 500g and this was plenty)
1 medium-sized onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
A piece of fresh ginger, about 1 inch square, coarsely chopped
1 medium-sized canned tomato, coarsely chopped (I used a tin of chopped tomatoes)
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
10 tablespoons vegetable oil (Err, used about 2 tbps)
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon whole black mustard seeds (I couldn’t find any so used onion seeds)
Optional – 1 or 2 whole dried red peppers OR 1/2 hot fresh green chili sliced in half OR 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (I used 1/2 tsp hot chilli flakes)
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
2 teaspoons lemon juice (I did not add any, yet the curry had a surprisingly light lemony taste?!)

Slice the beans into 1cm thick slices.

Peel and roughly chop the onion, garlic, ginger, and turmeric and blend together with the tomatoes to a smooth paste.

Here Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe fries the onion paste and beans separately, frying the paste in 6 tbsp of oil for 5 minutes adding 1 tbsp of water at a time if it starts to stick and then adding the ground coriander and cumin.  She then fries the cumin and mustard seeds in the remaining oil until they pop then adds the beans and onion paste from the other pan together with the remaining ingredients to taste.

Having cooked all day, I could not be bothered with two pans and opted for a one pan option, choosing to fry the green beans as above with the cumin and what turned out to be black onion seeds, and then poured over the paste and added the other ingredients.  I also added a can full of recently boiled water to make more sauce.

I simmered the sauce for about 20 minutes.  Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe, however, says 35 minutes, saying “In India we tend to overcook [green beans]…mainly to kill germs and because we love spices.  We like our spices to permeate a vegetable and this cannot happen unless a vegetable is allowed to become fairly tender.  When you finish this recipe, your beans with not look bright green, nor will they be very crisp.  They will be a brownish dark-green, smothered in spices, and utterly delicious.’

Twitter: Leesa@sunhillcurry

Spicy Korean Roast Leftovers Rice Salad

We had quite a lot of lamb left over from our Moroccan Butterflied Leg of Lamb last weekend, so after seeing Korean Stir-Fried Rice on Jamie’s Money Saving Meals I thought I’d try to recreate the distant memory of a spicy Korean rice salad we enjoyed several times in a New Zealand shopping mall over 15 years ago.  And it makes a pleasant change to having simple cold meat, veg, & potatoes midweek.

Based on what we had in the cupboards, this is what I put together

Serves 1

1/4 mug brown or white rice
Large handful of swiss chard or other leafy greens
Handful of leftover roast (lamb, beef, pork, chicken)
1 large clove of garlic
1/2 medium sized onion
1 tsp hot chilli flakes
2tbsp white wine vinegar
1 heaped tsp redcurrant jelly (I used bramble jelly)
1 tbsp sesame seeds

Cook the rice according to the packet’s instructions.  Finely shred the chard and wilt in the pan with pan with the rice for the last couple of minutes of cooking.  Drain and leave to one side.

Finely chop the meat, garlic, and onion and mix with the remaining ingredients.  Mix together with the warm rice, season with salt and pepper to taste, and either eat immediately or leave for the flavours to develop.