It’s been a little while, but man have I been busy. I’ve been to Glasgow for a birthday weekend, Florida to visit Universal Studios and finally attend the grandaddy of them all, Wrestlemania and after all that I’ve been to Scotland for my dad’s 60th birthday, Yorkshire to see my girlfriend’s family and finally Newcastle to see an old uni friend get married. It’s been incredibly hectic, and as such I’ve not had much of a chance to write anything, but I’ve got a fair few things lined up, including a bunch of words about the trips above, but I’m starting with a recipe for a curry I’ve been making almost weekly since the start of the year; Squash, Black Eyed Bean and Coconut Curry.

The recipe is from Meera Sodha’s Fresh India, a book I got my girlfriend for Christmas. It centres on vegetarian Indian recipes and is probably the best recipe book I’ve bought in a number of years. Few of the recipes are particularly complex and most don’t rely on you having anything unusual in or particularly ridiculous equipment or pans. This curry we made fairly early on and it’s now firmly in our circulation for meal prep. We substituted the pumpkin with squash just because of the time of year. You start by roasting the squash/pumpkin in garam masala and it takes every fibre of my being to not eat it all at that point. You can actually do this bit ahead of time and do everything else the next day.

For the 60th birthday I mentioned above we actually made a giant vat of this very curry to sit alongside a host of other things as we catered for about 50 people. The curry went faster than anything else and we’ve been asked to send the recipe round, so here it is.

Squash, Black Eyed Bean and Coconut Curry

 

Print

Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

1 hour

Total time

1 hour 20 mins

 

Author: The Bearded Baker

Recipe type: Curry

Cuisine: Indian

Serves: Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1.2kg pumpkin or squash, cut into large chunks
• 1 tbsp garam masala
• Salt & ground pepper
• Cooking oil (I use vegetable)
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 2 green finger chillies, slit lengthways
• 1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 x 400g tin of black eyed beans, drained
• 150g ripe tomatoes, cut into wedges
• ½ tsp ground turmeric
• 1 x 400ml tin of coconut milk

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 200°C(180°C fan assisted).
2. Prepare the squash, scooping out the seeds and discarding them, cutting the rest of the squash into 2cm thick strips, halving down the middle lengthways.
3. Transfer to a bowl, coat well with oil and mix through the garam masala, salt and ground black pepper. Spread out on a couple of baking sheets and place in the centre of the pre-heated oven.
4. Bake for 30-40 minutes until the squash is cooked. Resist eating a whole tray and move on to making the rest of the curry.
5. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large lidded frying pan, over a medium heat.
6. When the oil is hot add the mustard seeds and fry until they start to pop, add the chillies and onion.
7. Fry for around 12 minutes, the onion will be soft and golden, then add the garlic. Fry for a couple of minutes.
8. Add the beans, stirring to mix, followed by the tomatoes. Cook for a few minutes until the tomatoes have gone jammy around the edges.
9. Add the turmeric, ⅓ teaspoon of black pepper, ½ teaspoon of salt and the coconut milk.
10. Tip the squash into the mixture and stir it all to combine.
11. Cover and leave to heat for about 5 minutes, then check for seasoning and chilli heat.

3.5.3217