A duo of curries

Curry and fish were two dishes I didn't eat growing up. Therefore it's taken me longer to start trying to cook these as an adult. In recent years I've become a little braver cooking new (to me) recipes.

Both the curries featured in this blog are from Hurry The Food Up. This is purely coincidental but it turns out that site is handy when seeking inspiration for ingredients I need to use up.

The first one is a chickpea curry which I found when looking for a way to use the half a tin of chickpeas I usually have left after making the one of the first recipes I blogged (aubergine, chickpea, and tomatoes). As I've made this one a few times I've started to tweak it a bit more depending on what I have to hand. Start with chopped onions and add garlic, I also added a yellow pepper which needed using. Once softened add curry paste and coconut milk. When these have combined add drained chickpeas. The recipe recommends adding sugar snap peas or similar at this stage. The green veg does add some attractive colour as well as increasing the nutrients but it tends to depend on what I have to hand. This is a using things up recipe for me, rather than a buying things specifically for it. I had spinach, and didn't add that until nearer the end. After adding the chickpeas simmer for around 5 minutes then add chopped cherry tomatoes, lime juice, and soy sauce. Serve with rice.

The second curry was inspired by my love of aubergines, and a desire to do something different to the recipe linked above. Start with cubed aubergines. I chopped mine pretty small as I know from past experience that aubergine can be an unreliable vegetable and does best either cooked slowly or cut small to ensure it cooks well. If I was making it again I'd probably make the cubes slightly larger as they disappeared completely into the curry this time. Add chopped onion and soften. Then add garlic, turmeric, and ground coriander. The recipe has garam masala but I didn't have any to hand so I added some cumin instead. Cook for a few minutes then add tinned chopped tomatoes and coconut milk. Serve with rice. 

I made two portions of the aubergine curry and added some spare spinach to the second portion which also served as a post vaccine dinner earlier this week.

I'm enjoying trying more recipes although I think I need to get a little more confident with my spices - it can be tricky when adjusting quantities and I tend to be over cautious. Another feature of the Hurry The Food Up site is that it gives lots of nutritional information. This can be quite frustrating when you just want to get to the recipe to check what you need to be next (especially when reading on a mobile) but it does also make you feel quite virtuous when enjoying the resulting dish.

Finally - does anyone else decide which plate to use depending on if they are planning to blog? Curries definitely look better on my blue plate than on the yellow one.