Oh, how we've grown

When I was younger, I had a real aversion to sauces.  Not condiments, I’ve always had great affection for mint sauce, and I could, and still can, eat good bread sauce with absolutely anything.  It was the thick sauces, the ones that mixed with things.  Thinking back, I can’t quite remember whether it was the sauce or the things that required sauce that I hated, but I just couldn’t do it.  I hated rice, hated it with a passion, so many saucy foods where just not part of my diet.  Stroganoff, ratatouille, chilli, and, to the disappointment of my family, I used to hate curry.  Every Friday, there was a curry takeout.  My dad is a big curry eater, and my mum’s mum grew up in Burma, so my mum too grew up with a lot of curry around.  And every Friday I’d sulk, because it was one of the meals that I just refused to eat.  All I can say is that I have, wholeheartedly, realised the error of my ways, and I can only apologise to my parents for being so precious about my eating habits back then.

In my older, wiser existence, sometimes only a curry will do.  If I’m at home on a Friday night and there isn’t a curry takeout, I think I’d probably sulk.  But, I do also really enjoy cooking curry, or in fact, anything sauce-based.  That’s my favourite part of cooking, because it’s up to the cook to make it taste just how they like it.

The one thing I do not like about cooking curry, is shopping to cook a curry.  Mr. Slater wisely says that, although the ingredients list is long, once you’ve bought all those spices once, you’ll have them in the cupboard for the next time you want a curry.  This is, of course, true, and I’d never doubt his wisdom, but sometimes you want to change things up a little bit, and it’s always that one ingredient that you’re missing which is impossible to find.

So when, quite late in the afternoon, I decided I wanted to cook a curry for my brother and me, I should have anticipated the hour of wandering I had to do before I could find what I was after.  And even then, I came home missing some of the ingredients I’d wanted, but I’d compensated by bringing home some more.  A little improvisation was needed, and even though I was sure that it wasn’t going to taste good, it did.  I had intended to make more of a spicy stew than a curry, with lots of harissa and preserved lemons.  Having been thwarted by the shops, however, I was going to use a base of harissa, and then add, well, coconut milk.  I don’t know if it’s just me that feels like this is not a good combination.  I was a little bit frightened, to be honest.  Sweet and tangy harissa and smooth coconut milk?  If we’d had some yoghurt, I would’ve been more comfortable with that, but I’d got home with coconut milk, and there was no way I was going out again.  All in all, we enjoyed it.  It kind of tasted like a curry, but we ate it like a stew.  There was no rice on the table, just a few flatbreads.  One step at a time, I guess.

Harissa Spiced Coconut Stew

For four

Two onions, chopped

Two cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Three carrots, chopped

One teaspoon cumin seeds

One teaspoon coriander seeds

300ml vegetable stock

Two teaspoons Harissa

Two chopped, deseeded, red chillies

Four tomatoes, chopped

One teaspoon tomato puree

400g can of chickpeas

200g spinach

250g coconut milk

a big handful of coriander, chopped

In a big pan, over a low to medium heat, dry-fry the cumin and coriander seeds until they smell nice.

Add the onions and let them sweat for a little bit, making sure they don’t colour.

After about five minutes, add the garlic, chilli and carrot, and leave to cook, gently, until the onions are very soft.

Turn up the heat a bit, add the harissa and the chopped tomatoes and leave to bubble around a bit, perhaps a minute.

Stir the tomato puree through, add the stock and the chickpeas, bring to the boil and leave to simmer for half an hour or so.

When everything is more or less cooked, add the coconut milk and simmer for another five minutes.

Add the spinach when you are almost ready to serve, and let it wilt in the sauce.

Serve with chopped coriander on top and flat breads for mopping up.