Vegetable Curry - Cooking with kids

It is the third episode of our series The a-z of ingredients cooking with kids today and we are up to C is for carrot.  We decided to make a vegetable curry with carrots as an ingredient.  Both of my boys love curries and have from being small as I weaned them with mild ones! 

The reason I love curry is you can use anything in it once you have got the hang of making the gravy (curry sauce)

Ingredients

The basic curry sauce

2 Onions (sliced)

1 or 2 chillies ( deseeded) or dried chillies if it is all you have

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

1 inch piece of root ginger, peeled and chopped (you can freeze any spare)

half teaspoon of ground turmeric

half teaspoon chilli powder

5 tomatoes or tin of tomato or pasata (I use what ever we have in)

1 teaspoon garam Marsala

Variations

This curry had cauliflower, carrots, frozen peas, quorn pieces and a tin of heinz five beans. However, you really can add anything you want including fish, meat, other vegetables, lentils or beans.  We often do a curry when we have precooked veg and meat leftover from a previous meal and it is delicious. 

Method

We used frozen pre chopped onions.  I am a great believer in cutting corners if you can and kids and chopping onions do not mix unless they are wearing swimming goggles!

Fry the onions until they are golden brown and then add your tomatoes and gently cook.  

Add the chillies, garlic, turmeric, chillies, chilli powder and ginger and stir.

Add the meat and vegetables and continue to slowly simmer for 10 minutes (if your meat and vegetables are precooked) or 30 mins if it is raw, adding any water to make the sauce the consistency you require.

Before serving sprinkle with garam Marsala and coriander leaves.

I always serve the boys with cooling yoghurt, either natural or coconut.