Curry

Neither Indian or Chinese, this is a tasty cosmopolitan version.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Long Grained Rice (use brown rice if possible)
• 2 medium sized Potatoes
• Peanut Oil for frying
• approximately 4 cubic inches of Tofu
• 1 Apple
• 2 - 6 teaspoons Curry Powder (choose how much you like and whatever you like - I prefer a Madras with this recipe)
• 2 Onions (chopped)
• freshly ground Black Pepper
• 2 cloves Garlic (crushed)
• 1 Red Pepper (chopped)
• 2 Mushrooms (sliced)
• 1 teaspoon Cornflour
• 1 handful Sultanas (yes, its invent your own culinary units time)
• 1 tin Borlotti Beans (if you can't get these, then Cannellini Beans will do or even use a tin of Baked Beans with the sauce drained from it - the latter can be very low cost, around a tenth of the price). If you really want convenience, leave out the cornflour and use Baked Beans with the sauce.
• 1 goop Red Wine

Read through the recipe and prepare all of the vegetables before hand and this will make cooking it a lot easier

Method:

Put the rice on to boil (30 minutes for brown rice, 20 minutes for white rice although it is possible to get quick versions of both).

1. If you are using brown rice, add water 1¼ - 1½ times the volume of rice, bring to the boil, cover, put on a low heat and allow to absorb all of the water.
2. If you are using white rice, cover in water, boil until soft enough for you, drain and then wash in boiling water.

While the rice is cooking, boil the potatoes. Let cool and chop into ½" cubes.

While the potatoes are cooking or cooling, prepare the other ingredients. Chop the tofu into ½" cubes, dry them on kitchen towel and deep fry (heating up the oil and then turning off the heat when the tofu is added so that they do not stick to the bottom), adding them carefully to avoid splattering the oil. When brown, remove from the oil, drain and leave them on kitchen towel.

Cook the apple in the microwave and dice.

Heat the oil in a wok (choosing the best frying pan is more important than sticking to traditional pieces of apparatus just for the sake of it) and fry the curry powder. Add the black pepper, chopped onions, crushed garlic and the red pepper and fry. When almost cooked, add the sliced mushrooms letting some of them cook heavily on the side of the wok. Add ½ cup cold water and the corn flour (omit if using baked beans with their sauce) and stir until thickened. Add the diced potato, apple, sultanas, tofu, red wine.

Serve on a bed of rice.

Variations:

1. Add creamed coconut.
2. Add chilli.
3. Use rice vermicelli instead of long grained rice (this will take you around five minutes instead of 30, a great time saver if you are in a hurry).

Storage:

Keep in the refrigerator for a few days.

Will freeze - divide up into meal sized portions and freeze. Will keep for months.

Serving suggestions:

Serve with a nice wine.