Serves 4
This is a summer kind of curry. It’s bright in flavour, with sourness from tamarind offsetting the sweet tomatoes and corn, all levelled off with the calming creaminess of coconut milk.
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons fennel seeds
- 2 teaspoons coriander seeds
- 2 teaspoons black mustard seeds coconut or groundnut oil
- 2 leeks, washed and roughly shredded
- 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
- 1 green chilli, roughly chopped
- 1 x 400ml tin coconut milk
- 2 tablespoons tamarind paste
- 1kg tomatoes, small ones halved, big ones quartered, or 2 x 400g tins cherry tomatoes
- the kernels from 1 large corn on the cob or 175g tinned/frozen kernels
- 2 large handfuls of chard or spinach, washed, leaves roughly shredded, stems sliced
Seasonal Vegetables
To make this in autumn or winter, which I often do, use tinned cherry tomatoes, frozen corn and some roasted or very thinly sliced raw butternut or winter squash.
Method
You will need a large shallow pan for this; a big frying pan would do. Put the fennel and coriander seeds into a spice grinder or pestle and mortar and grind until you have a rough powder. Put your largest frying pan or wok over a medium heat, add the ground spices and mustard seeds and push them around the pan, toasting for a couple of minutes, then tip into a bowl.
Put the pan back over a medium heat, add a little oil, the leeks and a pinch of salt, then cook for 10 minutes until soft and sweet. Put the toasted spices back in the pan and stir.
Add the garlic and chilli and stir around the pan for about another.
5 minutes or so. Next, pour in the coconut milk, add the tamarind, tumble in the tomatoes and cook for 20 minutes on a medium-high heat. You want the tomatoes to lose some of their liquid and the coconut milk to intensify and thicken.
Next, add the corn and greens (sliced stems and leaves) and cook for another couple of minutes until the greens have wilted.
Serve with lime-spiked yoghurt and rice, or rotis or chapatis.
To Serve
- lime-spiked yoghurt, plain yoghurt of your choice mixed with lime juice and zest
- rice
- warm rotis or chapatis
