Masaman curry

I made this last week to have before we went out with a friend to the little bar up the road, where we drank entirely too much wine (and thus spent entirely too much money on food the next few days - I just found a reciept from Mrs Flannery's and on it is $9 worth of vege chips! I obviously can't read price tickets when I am hung over.)

Anyway it's totally delicious and quite mild compared to other curries I make. My mum makes a killer version of this (but with chicken so I don't eat it any more). I think she may even use the same brand of curry paste as I do. The only thing that would have made this better is chopped peanuts or cashew nuts. However since I spent hideous amounts of money this week I'll have to go without nuts for a few more. Haha.

Emma’s version of masaman curry
Serves about 8

Ingredients:

1 med onion, sliced
1 long red chilli, sliced
½ a green, red or yellow capsicum, sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 med-large eggplant, cubed
1 med carrot, diced
about ¼ head of brocolli, chopped
about ¼ head of cauliflower, chopped
1 med zucchini, diced
handful white button mushrooms, diced
1 can chickpeas, drained
1 can baby corn, drained
tin masaman curry paste
1 400mL can lite coconut milk
1 400mL can lite coconut cream
Cooked rice

Method:

1. Have all vegetables chopped and ready in the beginning. It’s easier!

2. Lightly fry onion, capsicum, chilli and garlic until slightly softened. I use a little bit of water usually but you can use oil if you like.

3. Add eggplant. A few minutes later add tin of curry paste. Stir to combine.

4. Let cook for a few minutes (don’t burn it) and then add can of coconut cream, stir.

5. Add in can chickpeas and tin corn.

6. After 5-10 minutes add in the rest of the chopped vegetables minus the zucchini and mushroom. Add the can of coconut milk here. Stir it, and then let it simmer (I usually put my rice on about now). When the rice is almost ready (about 20 minutes later) stir in the zucchini and mushroom. Leave this to simmer until rice is cooked.

7. Serve curry on top of rice and enjoy!

This can of course be frozen, you can add or subtract any vegetables you like. I think a traditional masaman curry uses potato. I only have sweet potato so I opted against it. This is by far not a traditional masaman. When I make curry I like to use as many different coloured vegetables as possible. I also usually put tofu in it but we had omnivorous company for tea and I don’t know how they feel about the magical little white blocks!

I bought some thai red rice a few weeks ago at a Chinatown supermarket. Apparently it has the same sort of nutritional value as brown rice. It tastes similar but has more of a bite to it. I cook it in the same way as I cook brown rice (one part rice, two parts water - bring to boil turn down and simmer for 30 mins) but red rice is supposed to take only 15 minutes. I reckon it takes more like 20. It's nice - but I don't think I'll go out of my way to buy it again. I prefer the brown rice tetxture :) Next type of rice I'll buy from there will be the black/wild rice. There's a black rice pudding I want to make.

We will be eating this curry for days :)