Sri Lankan Vegetable Coconut Curry

The most requested dinner asked for by my family and friends is my vegetable curry with coconut milk.

Now, I am not one of these cooks that follows a recipe book so if you ask me about how many cups, tablespoon or teaspoon of my ingredients I could not tell you.

My recipes come out of my head and I am a total experiment cook. My cooking comes from my imagination and just a sense of what spices and ingredients to use. But that does not help you, so here is a recipe with all you need to know.

A side point. If you want to save time, you can use a pre-made curry paste instead of making the curry mix yourself. There are 3 types of curry paste. There is green, yellow, and red.

I would recommend a good yellow curry if you are starting out, unless you love spicy then red is the way to go.

Ingredients

• oil for frying you can also use the water sautéing method to cut on oil

• onions 2, halved and sliced

• garlic 2 cloves, sliced

• green chilies 3, sliced

• Sri Lankan curry powder 2 tbsp (see below)

• turmeric 1 tsp

• coconut milk 400g can

• vegetable stock 200ml

• butternut squash 200g, cubed

• cauliflower 1 small, broken into small florets

• runner beans 100g, trimmed and sliced

  curry leaves 10

• black mustard seeds 1 tsp

Sri Lankan curry powder

• coriander seeds 2 tsp

• cumin seeds 1 tsp

• star anise 1/2

• cinnamon ½ stick broken

• cloves 6

• cardamom 2 pods

• black peppercorns ½ tsp

• fennel seeds 1 tsp

• fenugreek ½ tsp

• small dried red chillis 3-5 (depending on how hot you like it)

• basmati or jasmine rice 1 tbsp

• steamed rice to serve

Instructions

1- To make the curry powder, dry-fry the spices and chili in a non-stick frying pan until fragrant and darkened a little. Tip out of the pan and cool. Add the rice to the pan and dry-fry until pale golden. Cool. Tip everything into a spice or coffee grinder and grind to a powder.

2- Heat 3 tbsp oil in a large pan. Add the onions and cook until soft and golden, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and chili and cook for 3 minutes, then stir in 2 tbsp of the curry powder and turmeric and keep stirring until you start to smell the spices.

3- Add the coconut milk and stock and bring to a simmer. Drop in the squash, cook for 4-5 minutes, then add the cauliflower and cook for 3-4 minutes. Add the beans and cook until just tender.

4- To serve, heat another 2 tbsp of oil in a pan and fry the curry leaves and mustard seeds until they frazzle and begin to pop. Pour over the curry and serve with steamed rice.

Nutritional Information

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