Curry!

Tuesday was my great curry adventure! I've had Raghavan Iyer's 660 Curries for over a year now, but had never made anything out of it. The book, though incredibility thorough and helpful, is a little daunting. For one, there are - as the title suggests - over 600 curries to choose from, which makes choosing just one curry to make somewhat difficult. Secondly, most recipes have long lists of ingredients that include spice blends and pastes that I would have to make myself. It always seemed like so much work, so I never managed to do anything with it until now.

In the end, all of my fears were unfounded. I picked Chana Paneer to make - paneer and chickpeas with tomatoes with a toasted fennel spice blend. We had all the spices I needed for the Balti Masala, and the toasting and grinding of them took no time at all. Even making the paneer was easy. Sure, it has to drain for 3-5 hours, but the parts that I was actually involved in only required me to stir and pour. Simple! Once I had prepared all of that, the actual curry making took about half an hour.

This curry was so wonderful! I'm trying to eat less meat, so the paneer and chickpeas were perfect - hearty, without being heavy. The only thing I would have changed would be the heat level. The recipe called for 1-2 thai or serrano peppers, but since I'm such a spice wimp, I ended up using only half of a jalapeno. That made the curry mildly spicy, but I could have handled a good bit more heat.

I'm making this again on Monday for Mom to take in to work. I hope they all enjoy it!