Culture

Curry has always been our flat “go-to” meal when we are lazy and the fridge is looking sad. It’s ideal winter comfort food. Aloo Gobi (“aloo” meaning potato and “gobi” meaning cauliflower) is particularly ideal for winter as the more ritzy vegetables become rapidly less appealing both in appearance and cost. In addition to being cheap, potato and cauliflower are also excellent canvases for soaking up all the yummy Indian flavours. The only other veggies necessary for this are an onion and some peas if you’re of the pea persuasion.


The list of ingredients looks long because of all the spices. If any of your flatmates are into Indian food, you should have most of these somewhere in the pantry, or precariously balanced on an overloaded spice rack like at our house. The curry won’t suffer severely if you leave out the cloves or the mustard seeds, but the others are pretty crucial. All these ingredients can be found in New World or Countdown, but for the best spice deals in town I recommend heading to the Indian Food Market on St Andrew Street near Circadian Rhythm, across from the sports bar that keeps changing its name. They are really friendly and sell spices in bulk so they are much better value.
 
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
Half a tsp whole cloves
1 dollop of crushed garlic
1 dollop of crushed ginger
1 large onion
1 can chopped tomatoes
Chilli to taste
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp salt
2 tsp honey
1 cup water
2 large potatoes, cubed
Half a cauliflower head, chopped
Half a cup of frozen peas
 
In a large frying pan, slowly heat some oil. Add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and cloves – heat until they pop. Add garlic and ginger, then diced onion and cook until onion is clear. Add canned tomatoes, chilli, garam masala, turmeric, salt and honey and simmer. Add vegetables – it’s a good idea to slightly pre-cook the potato first – add water and leave to simmer for a good 30 mins until all the veggies are tender and the water has absorbed/evaporated.
 
While simmering, make sure you taste it. Needs to be sweeter? More garam masala. Needs to be hotter? More chilli. Etc. If you don’t have cumin seeds, ground cumin works too but add it with the garam masala and tumeric etc, rather than at the beginning. Also, some evaporated milk, or plain yoghurt could be added before serving to make it nice and creamy.  Serve with rice.