I made this using some lovely potatoes from my garden. I have a lot of Charlotte potatoes that are ideal for this sort of curry, they taste very good, and they hold together during the cooking.
This is a Madhur Jaffrey recipe from Curry Easy, super delicious, one of my most used and reliable recipe books. I made a tweak, I have a thing about not putting olive oil in curries, I don’t think it heats well enough for cooking the spices. I served it with braised kale and dal. It goes well with rice.
INGREDIENTS:
- 3 tbsp rapeseed oil
- 1 tsp brown mustard seeds
- 1/2 tsp yellow split peas
- 2 birds eye chillies
- 15-20 fresh basil leaves, torn (should be fresh curry leaves, but these are not available locally)
- 1/2 medium red onoin, chopped
- 1 medium tomato, or a tablespoonful of tinned chopped tomatoes
- 2 tsp ground coriander
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 450g potatoes (I used Charlotte potatoes)
- 1 level tsp salt
- 120ml coconut milk
- 4 tbsp chopped coriander
METHOD:
- Pour the oil into a medium saucepan over a medium to high heat. Once the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds, yellow split peas and the chillies. As soon as the seeds begin to pop, add the basil leaves and the onion, lower the heat a bit and fry for around three minutes. Don’t let the onion start to brown.
- Add the tomato, ground coriander, cayenne pepper and garam masala, stir them in until the tomato is hot, and then add the potatoes and 250ml water and the salt. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
- Add the coconut milk and fresh coriander, stir and heat through.