How we get five of our ten a day in one lovely curry!

Who knows how many helpings of fruit and vegetables we’re supposed to be eating in a day for a healthy diet? I know it was five and found that target relatively easy to achieve: with an orange juice at breakfast and perhaps an apple and banana as part of my packed lunch, it was a formality to complete the five by including a couple of veg on the menu for the evening meal. When I read that the number of portions for a healthy diet was actually seven , that particular bar was raised slightly higher than my comfort zone allowed and a recent glance at the NHS website informed me we should really be eating ten to optimise the health benefits and reduce the risk of heart disease, strokes and cardio-vascular disease.

https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/five-a-day-of-fruit-and-veg-is-good-but-10-is-better/

Some might say ‘why bother?’ Why go to a lot of trouble just to live a bit longer? I think the comedian Billy Connolly is brilliant and in his ‘Sex Life of Bandages’ show, he describes his fondness for sandwiches made with white bread, ridiculing those who might choose to eat brown bread on the basis that white bread tastes great (we’ll let that one go — it was a comedy show). He goes on to act out, with fantastic hilarity, how eating the brown bread would lead to a much longer life, to the point where the careful dieter becomes their own version of a ‘one of your five a day’ cabbage — needing to be fed their food which they inevitably dribble. Perhaps, though, it’s not the getting older that we brown-bread-and-five-a-day eaters are aiming for but the not-going-gaga bit that we’re hoping to avoid (or, at least, put off for a bit…).

So, how to clear that ten-a-day bar? In this article I will describe how I aim to hit five (or even six) portions in one curry meal — leaving a more-manageable four or five for breakfast and lunch (!). As I’m not a professional chef or nutritionalist, this will not be a researched or tested piece — it’s just the way I go about it and it’s not necessarily completely right but will hopefully provide a little inspiration.

My reputation among friends and family is that of a decent cook — with curry my particular speciality. For many years I have been mystified by my gaining this reputation and my advice for anyone wishing to cook a decent curry is to find a decent recipe and follow it. Over the years I have owned various books by the chef Madhur Jaffrey; for Kashmiri recipes I’ve followed Geeta Samtani and Mridula Baljekar’s ‘Taste of Goa’ has provided a higher level of spice to my dishes. More recently, Meera Sodha’s ‘Made in India’ has been a source of simple methods with high reward in taste and variation.

Result! Chickpea curry and cauli-pea rice, with spinach and onions

We’re aiming for a chickpea curry — drawn from recipes I have tried from Madhur Jaffrey and others — alongside my own cauli-pea rice and spinach with onions (above). This includes portions of chick peas, tomato, onion, cauliflower, peas and spinach. In addition there are bonus bits of veg, including ginger, garlic and lemon juice.The spinach with onions can be considered an optional extra accompaniment as far as hitting the five a day is concerned — leave it out if you want to keep things simpler.

The method below provides enough curry for two people, with possible left-overs. To serve four or five, just double up on the onions and chickpeas.

1. Start by measuring out your basmati rice: one handful per person — thank you for that tip, Meera Sodha (For those who want a slightly more precise measurement, that’s 50ml in a measuring jug or 50g if you’d prefer to weigh it) . Put the rice in a cereal bowl to soak in plenty of water.
2. Then make up some of your favourite vegetable stock so it has 1.5 times the volume of the rice (about 75ml or 75g per person) — thank you Madhur Jaffrey! Keep to one side, with the bowl of rice.
3. Into a large frying pan or medium saucepan, pour a couple of table-spoons of your favourite frying oil (that’s a good lug as Jamie Oliver might say). I use rapeseed or olive oil.

From left: halved and finely sliced onions; sliced chilli — leave seeds in for more heat — and grind your own whole spices if you can (powdered will do!)

4. With the oil on a medium-low heat, peel two medium onions and cut them in half from top to bottom; cut each of the halves into thin slices then fry three of the sliced halves — you should knock the slices about in the pan, to break them into strands and coat them in oil.

5. Meanwhile chop the fourth half-onion more finely, place it into a cereal bowl and leave aside.

6. Next, wash and slice one green chilli — if you want a hot curry, use more chillies or leave the seeds in. Add the chilli to the onion in the pan and fry for a minute or so.

7. Meanwhile, measure two dessert spoons of coriander seeds with one dessert spoon of cumin seeds and grind them — use a grinder or mortar and pestle. Alternatively, use one dessert spoon of ground coriander and half of ground cumin. Mix in half a teaspoon of turmeric — why is it always half a teaspoon?? Also, open a 440g tin of chopped tomatoes (or chop your own)

8. With the onion hopefully a nice golden brown — maybe darker around the edges — add your spice mix and stir-fry for a minute then stir in the tomatoes, a little at a time, and mix thoroughly. After you’ve then mixed in two 400g tins of chickpeas, your curry is made but there’s one final piece of the jigsaw…

9. Chop a lemon in half and squeeze the juice into the cereal bowl that has the finely chopped onion in it.

10. Peel and grate a piece of ginger so that you have a dessert-spoon’s-worth (use a teaspoon of powdered ginger if you really must) and stir that into the lemon juice and onion mix. Just before serving, you will stir this mix into the curry for a top tangy taste.

Lemon, onion and ginger mix — remember to stir it in just before serving — I nearly always forget!! :-D

Now for the cauli-pea rice:

From left: chop five florets of cauliflower per person so they resemble grains of rice; fry them in garlic and a teaspoon of seeds of your choice (I use cardamom) and drain your rice well — basmati is best but use any long grain rice if you have to!

1. Cut about 5 florets of cauliflower per person, (about 80g each) wash thoroughly and chop the flowery bits so they resemble grains of rice.
2. Measure out a fistful of peas per person (about 40g — frozen is fine).
3. Peel and slice a clove of garlic and fry gently in a little butter (or oil) in a small pan with a lid. When the garlic is golden, stir in a teaspoon of any aromatic seed (eg fennel, mustard or cardamom) chuck in the cauli and stir-fry for a minute or so, then add the peas.
4. Allow this to cook while you drain your soaked rice in a sieve; hold it under a gently running tap for a short while, to wash off excess starch and then chuck it in the pan and stir to coat it in oil and veg.
5. Pour in your stock, bring to a gentle boil and put the lid on the pan, reducing the heat as low as it will go. After five minutes, turn off the heat — leaving the lid on. After a further five minutes, the rice should be ready to stir and serve…

Optional extra — spinach and onions — serves 2.

1. Peel and top and tail a large red onion (white will do) and cut in half from top to bottom. Slice each half onion thickly — into three slices max — and then cut across each slice twice so you have nice big chunks (almost cubes)

1. Put two table spoons of oil into a decent sized frying pan on a medium heat. Chuck in the onion chunks and stir gently — trying not to break them up too much.
2. Stir in one teaspoon of garam masala and allow to fry to a deep brown.
3. Meanwhile, open 100g of washed spinach per person and, when the onions are well-cooked, pile as much spinach as you can on top. After a few minutes, the spinach will wilt and you need to stir it in to the onions and pile on more — continue like this until all the spinach is stirred in but try not to let the last lot wilt so much so you’ve got a bit of texture.