Cooking with Cosgrave — Vegan Curry & Salad

Xander Cosgrave

Vegan Curry

4–6 servings, for ‘Normal people’ I don’t judge, I can eat a lot of curry.

Prep time, 30 min. Cooking time 45 min +

What you need
A knife and board.
A pot.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon of Turmeric
1 tablespoon of coriander seeds
1 tablespoon of cumin seeds
1 teaspoon of chilli powder
1 tablespoon of paprika (Or you can just use a few tablespoons of curry powder or paste.)
2 tablespoons of olive oil.
4 medium onions.
5 cloves of garlic.
3 bell peppers.
One thumb sized piece of ginger, or a tablespoon of powdered ginger.
2 400 gram cans of chopped tomatoes
Salt & Pepper
1 400 gram can of chickpeas.
Lentils

Optional extras
Fresh coriander
Apples
Fresh chillies

Recipe
Finely chop your onion, garlic and ginger. If you want to add fresh chillies, chop them up now as well. If you don’t want too much spice, take the seeds out, otherwise, leave them in. Roughly chop your bell peppers.

If you’re not using the curry powder or paste, heat up the oil in the pan until it’s almost smoking and toss in your spices, toasting them for a minute, then turn off the heat and add your onions, garlic, ginger and peppers. If you are using curry paste or powder, heat up the oil in the pan and add your veg first, then mix in the curry powder once they’ve started to brown. Keep stirring the veg around to make sure that they get properly coated in the spices.

Next add your two cans of tomatoes. Drain the chickpeas off and add them now as well. Stir it occasionally to make sure it doesn’t stick and leave it to simmer. If you want to add some sweetness to your curry, you can grate in an apple or two for flavour now. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over it and taste the curry, seasoning it more to your own taste.

Your curry should be ready to eat in about 45 minutes, but the longer you can leave it, the better it will be, an hour and a half to two hours is great. If it’s sticking a lot or getting a bit dry, you can just add some water or, if you have some, a little coconut milk.

Serve your curry with some rice or naan bread, and sprinkle some fresh coriander over it to make it look a little cooler and taste Legit Fresh.

Tips.
You can substitute the lentils for some split peas if you want.

Once you’ve added everything, the hard work is done, you can just check it occasionally so it doesn’t stick, but if you’ve got a pot with a lid that can go in the oven, you can stick it in there for two hours at a hundred and fifty degrees and forget about it.

Literally, to make half this amount of curry, just add the same amount of spice and half the other ingredients.

This is kind-of like a Madras, but not as spicy, because Madras’ are HELLA Spicy.

A Nice Salad

Salads: the last great hill to conquer on being able to eat like an actual person, and not someone who gets their carbs in the form of fermented barley.

I’m going to give you the vegan version here, but if you don’t want this to be vegan, just eat a block of cheese while you go (though that may not be in keeping with the ‘healthy’ vibe of a salad).

The recipe will be split into the basic salad I use and a couple of dressings. If you like croutons that’s cool, but I’m not a big fan.

Italian-ish salad. Or Insalata ‘Not Actually at all’ Caprese

Italy is just the culinary gift that keeps on giving.

Serves; If you eat an entire bowl of salad no one can judge you because it’s healthy. Even if it’s dripping with dressing.

What you need.
A knife and Board.
Three forks. (Two of these are for using as tongs)
A big mug/Jug
A big bowl.

Salad

Ingredients
50g Of rocket.
50g Of Baby Spinach
50g Of Baby Tomatoes.
A half dozen sundried tomatoes.
Four/Six Leaves of fresh basil.

Optional extras
Mozzarella! Fresh stuff is the way to go here (though obviously this isn’t really vegan…)

Recipe

Wash everything that needs washing.

Quarter your tomatoes. You want them in cute little wedges.

Finely chop your basil and sundried tomatoes. (As fine as you can, sundried tomatoes can be a bugger to cut)

Look at your spinach and rocket. Do the individual pieces look a bit big to you? Well give em a rough tear with your hands. I don’t like eating giant pieces of green, and while some people might start complaining about the structure of the salad being damaged, well… fuck ‘em.

Toss your rocket and spinach together. Then sort of sprinkle the tomato and basil (and Mozzarella, if you’re using it) over the top. Add your dressing.

Vegan dressing

Ingredients
4 tablespoons of olive oil.
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon of mustard, (Grainy is best, but that’s usually got honey in it, so the Lidl Dijon is a good shout instead)
Juice of half a Lemon
Salt & Pepper.

Recipe
Juice your lemon.

Add all your ingredients together in a cup or something. Mix. Taste it and add a little salt and pepper to your liking.

Drown that salad in it. Or elegantly toss it in it. Whatevs.

‘Super Awesome’ (non-vegan) Creamy Dressing.

Ingredients
4 Tablespoons of yogurt.
1 Tablespoon of decent mayo
2 teaspoons of Pesto.
Juice of half a lemon.
A big sprig of fresh parsley.
Parmesan.
Black Pepper.
Maybe a dash of Tabasco, if you like your dressing to pop.

Recipe
Juice that lemon. Finely chop your parsley.

Toss everything except the parmesan into a jug like object you can mix in. Proceed to mix ingredients in said jug.

Taste it. It’s pretty good? If it’s a bit too thick, add some more lemon, or a dash of olive oil. If you think it could be zingier, add some tabasco here.

Drench the salad in it. Just pour it everywhere. Then proceed to grate shitloads of parmesan over the top. If you look at it and aren’t 100% convinced that you have enough parmesan, if you have one shred of doubt about the parmesan quantity, just keep grating those doubts away.

High Five yourself because you’re eating a salad.