I was speaking to a friend recently who cooked a curry for dinner and commented on the thousand and one ingredients. While she enjoyed the curry she was lamenting the fact that cooking curry from scratch is time consuming and requires a multitude of often expensive ingredients that will go off in a cupboard before you decide to cook curry again. It’s for this reason that we rarely cook rice and curry during the week. We often eat pasta, meat and veg or simple stirfrys. When the need for curry hits, I like to have  a few fail safe and easy curries that satisfy one of two requirements

1.use very few ingredients

2. take very little time to cook

If a curry fits into either (or both) of the above categories it becomes infinitely more likely that I’ll cook and enjoy it without spending half my day slaving over a hot stove.

Ingredients

• 150 g carrots chopped
• 1/2 small red onion chopped
• 1 clove garlic chopped
• curry leaves
• 1 tsp. turmeric
• 1.5 tsp. unroasted curry powder
• 1/2 small tomato chopped
• 1 tsp.seeded mustard
• 150 ml coconut milk
• salt to taste

Preparation

In small saucepan add the carrots, onions, garlic, curry leaves, turmeric, curry powder and tomato. Add enough water to cover the carrots and place on the heat.

Cook until the carrots are soft and almost cooked. Now add the coconut milk and bring back to the boil.

Simmer for a few minutes until the curry has thickened and finally add the mustard and salt to taste.