Baked Bean Curry
Huge thanks to Chris from Thinly Spread for sharing this great recipe for baked bean curry
This one is a real family standby and appears in one form or another at some point every week (sometimes with chick peas instead of baked beans, sometimes it morphs into a chilli with the addition of a tin of chilli beans instead of the baked ones and a teaspoonful of cumin powder instead of curry spices!). It can be expanded to feed a descending hoard and it freezes very well indeed. We take it camping, we’ve eaten it to warm up after a particularly difficult sail, we’ve shared it with friends and it has appeared as one dish in a large many dished spicy feast.
My kids have asked me to compile a cookbook which they can take with them when they leave home (sob!) and this recipe uses all those left over bits of veg from the bottom of the fridge so it doesn’t cost much and is packed with protein and teen friendly yumminess with the beans and curry powder. Plus, it is dead easy to make!
Serves 4 (or 2 teenage boys!)
Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped
1 – 2 cloves garlic crushed
1 inch piece of ginger root, peeled and chopped finely
500g waxy potatoes unpeeled and chopped into large chunks (the kind of potatoes which don’t go to mush, I usually use charlottes)
300g carrots sliced
1 tin baked beans
1/2 – 1 pint of vegetable stock (If you make it with Marmite they will get their vitamin B12)
Curry powder of your choice, to taste
Plus any combination of the following, or all of them, or none of them!
– 4 or 5 left over cabbage leaves, chopped
– large handful of frozen peas
– 2 squares of frozen spinach (Sainsburys sell spinach frozen in little cubes and I throw them into SO many dishes!)
– 1/4-1/2 a small cauliflower broken into florets
– those last 5 green beans (French, dwarf or runner) that are hanging about thinking about going a bit limp, sliced
– a parsnip/swede/turnip/sweet potato peeled and chopped
– anything else you can find lurking in the veg drawer!
Method
Fry the onion in vegetable oil until just beginning to brown. Add the garlic, ginger, potatoes, carrots, curry powder and any other root veg you are using and stir until the veg are covered with the curry powder. Don’t let the garlic burn add a bit more oil and turn the heat down low or off completely if necessary.
Pour in enough stock to cover the veg and cover. Simmer for 10 mins, then add any other veg you have chosen fresh or frozen.
Cook for a further 10 mins with the lid off until the veg are tender and most of the stock has evaporated.
Add the baked beans and heat through.
Serve with boiled rice or naan bread and some sweet chutney. Mine like a generous handful of grated cheddar on top too.
For more Meat Free Monday ideas do check out
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