David R. MacIver's Blog

Butternut squash, coconut and chickpea curry

We had our housewarming party last night, and I’d made this as food. A friend asked me for the recipe, and I was surprised it wasn’t already on here due to it being one of my standards, so I’m now fixing that.

I should warn you that this recipe is largely a lie, in that the details change every time I make it. This is the version I made last night though (well, this is a halved version of that).

Ingredients

• 1 white onion
• A smallish knob of fresh ginger
• Fresh chilli to taste (depends on type of chilli and spiciness you want. Do use fresh rather than dried though)
• One medium butternut squash
• One can chickpeas
• One small can of coconut cream
• A bit of sugar
• Quite a lot of salt
• Quite a lot of garam massala
• Plenty of sunflower oil

I can’t really give precise measurements on the salt and garam massala because I was adding them continuously throughout until I got the taste right. My guess is several tea spoons of salt and several table spoons of garam massala.

Cooking

1. Dice the ginger, onion and chilli finely.
2. Peel the squash and cut it into roughly 1cm cubes
3. Fry the ginger, onion and chilli with salt and sugar until the onion starts to go transparent
4. Add the squash and garam massala. Mix it all up thoroughly and fry for a little bit longer
5. Add boiling water until the squash is nearly covered. Allow to simmer for a while, stirring occasionally
6. When the squash is starting to go soft, add the coconut cream. Continue simmering and stirring
7. Eventually the squash should be breaking up, causing the sauce to thicken. Once it’s starting to taste nearly cooked, add the chickpeas and continue simmering

At this point it’s basically ready to serve whenever, but it improves significantly by leaving it to cook on a low heat for longer. Also, keep tasting it whilst it’s cooking and add more salt and garam massala to taste.

Comments

@ndy on 2012-02-01 21:15:31:

I used garam massala quite a lot in cooking, especially in soups and currys. It always makes everything taste of “more”.