Veggie Ideas – Squash, Spinach & Coconut Curry
Of course, the star of the show in this recipe is butternut squash, but it is one of the last things to go in the pot. This means that you can split the sauce at this point and make a meat/fish version too. The idea here is that the veggies and carnivores in your life get the same tasty curry base
Ingredients
- 1 whole butternut squash
- 260 g bag spinach washed
- 1 tsp whole cumin seeds
- 1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds
- 1 tsp black mustard seeds
- 1 stick of cinnamon
- 1 tsp tumeric
- 2 tbsp curry powder
- 400 ml coconut milk
- fresh coriander to garnish
Instructions
The Squash Prep
- Peel and roughly chop into large chunks/strips/cubes. Uniformity isn't important here.
- On a baking tray add the squash, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle generously with garam masala and whole cumin seeds. If you only have ground then go with that.
- Roast in a preheated oven at 180ºC Fan/Gas 6 for 25 mins. You want the edges of the squash to start to brown
Prep the rest of your veg
- Grate, crush or finely chop 5-6 cloves of garlic (I use 10 tiny ones in the video because we love garlic)
- Grate a thumb size piece of ginger.
- Finely chop 1 red onion.
- Finely slice 4 red birds eye chillis. If you prefer a mild curry then amend accordingly.
Cooking the curry
- Drizzle your pan with a little oil and add the onion, garlic and ginger. Fry gently until there is no moisture in the pan and the onions start to stick.
- Meanwhile add your whole cumin, coriander seeds, mustard seeds and cinnamon stick to a dry frying pan and toast on medium heat.
- Add the spinach to the onions, garlic and ginger and stir. Cook this until there is no moisture/water in the pan and the mixture starts to feel stiff.
- Remove the spices from the heat and transfer into a pestle and mortar as soon as you hear crackling/popping. Set the cinnamon to one side. Grind your whole spices with your pestle and mortar.
- Add your turmeric and curry powder to the pestle and mortar and mix through.
Splitting the curry
- At this stage in the video I split 1/4 of the onions and spinach mixture into a small frying pan to make a chilli free version for the children.
- I also added 1/4 of the ground spice mix to the smaller pan. If you aren’t making more than one version then keep it all in the same pan.
- Add your sliced chilli and the rest of the ground spices to the big pan (or all of it if you are only making one version).
- Stir both pans and allow to fry for 1 minute.
- Add the coconut milk. If you are making one version then add the whole can to the pan. I add 1/4 of the milk to the children’s and the rest to ours.
- Mix the coconut milk in to the curry and then add the squash. If you are making a meat/fish version this is the opportunity to split the sauce before adding the squash.
- Stir in the squash, put the lid on the pan/s and leave to gently simmer for 10 minutes before you serve.
Notes
You can go as little or large as you like with curry. Midweek I am tempted to serve this with something like my cauliflower, courgette and garlic brown rice (recipe to follow in the future). But if you want to make it a bit more special you can add a whole host of special sides. I like to fill ramakins with different chutneys, make chilli onions and a raita, fry some fresh poppadums I buy these and bake Indian snacks like onion bhajis or my homemade samosas which freeze well and I will write about in the future.