This glorious wholefood batch-cooking Lentil, Spinach and Sweet Potato Curry family recipe by Susan Jane White will save you time, money and patience as the colder months draw in.
Lentil, Spinach and Sweet Potato Curry
Lentil curry is BAE (Beyond Anything Else).
Okay, so this teenspeak is normally a reference point for Justin Bieber’s abs or bare-chested members of One Direction. Grand so.
Except that when you get to my age, food will excite you more.
What you need:
Enough for 6
2–3 tablespoons ghee or extra virgin coconut oil, plus extra for roasting
4 medium sweet potatoes
3 tablespoons mild curry powder
1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
About 160g cooked or tinned lentils (these can be taken from the freezer)
1 x 400ml tin of coconut milk
300ml good vegetable stock, bone broth or seasoned water
1 lime, juiced
1 tablespoon maple or date syrup
Great big handful of baby spinach leaves, washed
For the wet paste 400–500g onions, peeled
6 garlic cloves, peeled
2 mild fresh chillies, deseeded
Good chunk of fresh ginger, peeled
1 finger-sized piece of fresh turmeric (optional)
What to do:
Preheat your oven to 200°C.
Pop all the wet paste ingredients into a food processor and pulse into pieces. This saves time on chopping and also helps the veg to melt into the curry later on. Gently cook the wet paste in a large heavy-based saucepan with the ghee or coconut oil for approximately 10 minutes, until softened.
Meanwhile, peel your sweet potatoes (if they’re not organic) and chop into little cubes. Roast in the hot oven with a little more ghee or coconut oil for 30 minutes, until super-soft and slightly coloured.
Add your curry powder to the pan of veg. I usually use 3 tablespoons, but it will depend on the mix you choose. As a rule, go stronger than you think you should.
Whack up the heat and stir briskly to prevent burning, then tip in the tinned toms, cooked lentils, coconut milk, stock, lime juice and syrup. Let this putt-putter away for 20 minutes.
When the sweet potato is coloured on the outside and soft on the inside, shake the pieces into the pot of curry. Both should be ready at about the same time. All that’s left is to stir through your spinach leaves before plating up.
There is a range of seriously good finishing yogurts later in the book for extra jazz hands. A simple bowl of basmati rice or naan bread will help stretch the portions out to feed more mouths.
Taken from Clever Batch by Susan Jane White (Gill Books). Photography by Joanne Murphy.
in Dublin