Monday, September 15, 2008

Recipe: Approximately Indian Tomato Curry

Everyone needs a couple pantry meals, and this is one of mine. The hard part is finding 'onion seed' kalonji, mustard seed, and fenugreek seed so you can buy it and have it ready in the cupboard.

Hard boil six eggs. Peel, halve, and set aside.

Into a large mixing bowl mix:
One 28-ounce can of diced tomatoes
2 tsp chopped fresh ginger root.
2 tsp crushed garlic
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin

Set aside.

Put the following spices into a small bowl together, so you can stir-fry them together:
1 tsp "onion seed" aka kalonji or seeds of Nigella Sativa
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp fenugreek seed
couple dashes of dried red chili pepper


Heat 1/4 cup of oil in the pan. Or only 1 tablespoon, if you are determined to prepare food that is low-fat. Add the seed mixture, and stir fry about one minute.

Add the tomato mixture to the oil-and-seeds. Stir-fry about three minutes, then lower the heat and simmer with the lid ajar, for about seven minutes.

Remove from heat. Garnish with eggs.
For fancy and extra tasty, sprinkle lemon juice into tomatos at the end, and serve with chopped cilantro.

I usually serve this with Pulao Rice.

4 comments:

Millie said...

What is fenugreek seed?

Elizabeth-W said...

Johnna!!! How, how, how??? how have we never met? I have bags of basmati in my pantry. You cook what I cook! I know what fenugreek is! I have cardamom pods in my pantry!!
Fenugreek is a seed. Wiki it. Trying to describe what it tastes like is tricky, but on the bitter side.

Johnna said...

elizabeth--clearly we do need to meet--I'm dying to know what else you've been doing with the cardamom pods.

I live in the Bay Area, so I bought my Fenugreek seeds and mustard seeds at an Indian grocery. My daughter was thrilled because they also had vegetarian ramen there. I had a harder time finding the onion seed, actually. My girlfriend who was teaching me Indian dishes found them, packaged as "kallonji," subtitled in French as "graines d'oignons."

JBC said...

Made this with naan. Here's the recipe I used making naan for the first time, and it came out great.
http://www.manjulaskitchen.com/2007/05/22/naan-bread/