Curry - a closer look

The other week I posted pictures from our last curry night, leading a certain person to suggest that we had another one soon. I thought that actually sounded like quite a good idea. So, here are the closeups that I didn't do last time!

Yellow rice, with cardamom seeds and cashew nuts. The yellow comes from turmeric - sometimes I use a bit of saffron, but this is more expensive and less strongly coloured.

Carrots, cauliflower and pepper in coconut sauce. I can't remember what spices went in this one.

Chickpeas with tomato, onion, fresh mint and garam masala

Daal. Sorry about the mankiness of this picture, I swear it tasted better! This was the faffiest of the four things I made that night. I made it nice and thick by boiling the lentils with minimal quantities of water, stirring constantly and adding more water as needed (read: as needed to stop it sticking to the bottom of the pan and ripping the non-stick off...) I 'fried' some cumin seeds and coriander in very hot margarine to get the flavour out: this took three attempts as I kept burning the seeds, they really only need to be on the heat a couple of seconds!

All the pans on the stove. The 'veg only' on the green saucepan dates back to when I lived in a shared house with people who needed reminding not to cook meat in my pans. The blue ones don't have this on because I lived alone when I bought them.

Of course, any single one of these can be made on its own or with plain rice! Sometimes having a few things can make it more fun though. Also, we had enough leftovers to make up the next day's lunch with minimal faff.