Tuesday Night Vego- Pumpkin and Nut Curry

I’ve been pretty loose with the rules for this Tuesday Night Vego challenge, and this week is no exception. Last Tuesday I cooked a pumpkin and nut curry, and it took well in excess of the 30 allowable minutes. In my defense, most of the time is in simmering and letting the flavours develop. The actual time spent doing anything was less than the 30 minutes.

This recipe is based on Jamie Oliver’s Meat Free Mondays recipe here, and I stuck fairly closely to the seasonings etc but changed proportions, added sugar and changed the chickpeas to cashews and macadamias. The result was good, and even better the next day. The kids ate it willingly 2 nights in a row.

Pumpkin and Nut Curry

• 900g pumpkin, chopped into 3cm cubes
• 4cm piece of peeled ginger
• 1 bunch coriander
• Vegetable oil (I use rice bran)
• 4 cloves of garlic, sliced
• Small shake of chilli powder
• 1 large onion, finely sliced
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 20 curry leaves
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 x 400ml tins coconut cream + 200mls water.
• 1 1/2 cups mixed toasted nuts (I used cashews and macadamias)

Finely julienne the ginger. Finely chop the stalks of the coriander. Reserve the leaves for later use.

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large saucepan over high heat. Add the ginger, garlic, chilli and onions, then reduce to a medium heat.

Cook until coloured, stirring occasionally. Next add the mustard seeds, curry leaves, and coriander stalks – Jamie Oliver said to fry until the curry leaves go crispy, but my onions were threatening to burn by that stage.  Add the turmeric, tomatoes, coconut cream, water and sugar.

Bring to the boil, then add the pumpkin. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes.

While the curry is simmering, toast the nuts in a separate pan over high heat. Be careful to keep them moving constantly, because they’ll burn if you blink. Take half of the toasted nuts and blend to a fine powder in the blender or food processor. Add  ground nuts to the curry – it will add a thickness to the sauce.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Just before serving, add the whole nuts. Serve over rice, scattered with the coriander leaves.

The mixture of cashews and macadamias is great because cashews will go slightly soft in a curry, while macadamias will remain crunchy. The ground nuts add a nuttiness to the sauce too.