Curry Cook Up

Delicious Summer Curry

The beginning of January was more like Winter; cold, wet and nothing like Summer. It wasn't uncommon to see people getting around with beanies and Ugg boots on. Yes, some Aussie bogans will wear such attire regardless of the weather or their location, but society as a whole was dressed for Winter, and those poor people who left the house without looking out the window and just assuming it was Summer were seen covered in goosebumps and looking like they were about to cry.

In the spirit of warming up from the inside out Mark and I cooked up a curry and made extra to freeze for lunches and quick dinners for nights when we finish work late...only we didn't think about the fact that we would now be back to our carbohydrate free dinners, so I need to drag some of these meals out of the freezer for delicious lunches.

We made everything from scratch, and ground up a bunch of herbs and spices that we have in the pantry. There were cardamon pods, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, star anise, cayenne pepper and all sorts of things in there.

Herbs and spices-note, if you have a Labrador you should not leave such things on the bench unattended. 

The kitchen smelt amazing as we cooked off the herbs and spices in the pan before throwing the meat in the aromatic mixture.

Coating the onions with the herbs and spices, including cinnamon sticks.

Once the meat was browned we threw in zucchini and eggplant slices (from the garden of course), a tin of peeled tomatoes and the all important Bay leaves before covering it all with water and putting the lid on to let the flavours mingle for about an hour and a half. When everything was smelling great we threw in some broccolini for a few minutes so it still had a bit of a bite to it, and then served the curry over rice.

The first mouthful was a little unusual as we had never had such a summery, healthy curry. However it was delicious and took very little effort, you just need to cook lots of it on a weekend when you can start early and allow the flavours to develop for long enough. If you aren't trying to be super healthy you can use stock, coconut milk and or wine to cook the meat and vegetables in. Regardless if you make the healthy or the indulgent version, make sure you cook enough to have left overs the next day as the flavour just gets better and better.

*We prefer not to cook by a recipe all the time, that is why there are no measurements listed for the herbs and spices. Have a sniff of the herbs and put in the amount that you feel is right, you can always add a little bit of something to balance it out.*