Under the Choko Tree By Nevin Sweeney

Linda's Veggie Curry

This is not an authentic Indian, Thai or Malay style curry, it is more an anglicised version which uses a commercial curry powder for flavouring, but it is easy and quick to prepare. It uses lots of veggies and is very versatile. We like it.

The amount we make is really enough for 4 people but we refrigerate half to reheat (and therefore reduce cooking) within the next day or two or freeze it for consumption at a later time. I have also thought of using it as a filling for curry pies, but haven’t got around to doing that yet.

Ingredients

1 medium sized onion
2-3 cloves of garlic
50gms of butter
100g plain flour
2 vegetarian stock cubes + 1 litre of water, or
1 litre of stock
1 teaspoon of sugar
3 heaped teaspoons of curry powder
3-4 cups of hard veggies which may be – potato, sweet potato, carrot, pumpkin, choko, Jerusalem artichoke etc.
2 cups of firm veggies which may be – Fresh (not frozen!) peas, beans, capsicum or celery
2 cups of leafy veg including silver beet, spinach, kale, broccoli, cauliflower

Instructions

Cut the onion up into 8 wedges
Place a 350mm (or so) frypan onto medium heat,
Throw in the butter and melt, then toss in the onion and garlic and cook until the onion softens.
Add in the flour, stock cubes (if used), the curry powder and sugar
Stir to cook for a minute or two then add in the water or stock.
Put the lid on and allow to come to the boil and thicken while stirring regularly, add a bit more water if it appears too thick.
Add in the hard veggies and cook for 10 minutes, stirring regularly.
Add in the firm veggies and cook for a further 10 minutes, stirring regularly
If the hard veggies are fully cooked, add in the leafy veg and cook for 2-3 minutes.
Turn off the heat, place the lid on the pan and allow things to cook in stored heat for 5 minutes.
Add salt to taste and serve (we usually have fresh bread with it)

Variations.

Thai style (sort of)
Cut back on the water and add in 375ml of coconut milk,
Add in 2 heaped dessertspoons of Thai spice at the end of the cooking time then the heat is turned off, stir around.

Pasta

Add in ¾ cup short pasta (we like curly pasta but macaroni etc. would do) when adding in the firm veggies. The pasta will consume some liquid so be ready to add some more water if required.

The pasta works well with either the standard curry or the Thai variation.

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