Prep Time: 30 minutes Cooking Time: 60 minutes Total Time: 1.5 hours
Filiz Hussein is one third of the Balance Bowl. Below she shares the recipe for one of the acclaimed Maltese vegan restaurant’s popular dishes: Butternut Squash Curry.
The idea for this spicy, fragrant meal came from one of Filiz’s Balance Bowl three partners, Barbara ‘Basia’ Blaszak.
Follow Basia’s simple recipe to create this delicious and filling vegan dish.
Ingredients – serves 5 people
Curry dish ingredients:
2 x medium butternut squashes cut into cubes
3 tablespoon (tbsp) of sunflower oil
2 tbsp of cumin powder
2 tbsp of coriander powder
1 tbsp of crushed chillies
2 tbsp of curry powder
Salt
Black pepper
Curry sauce ingredients:
3 tbsp of sunflower oil
2 x red onions chopped fine
3 x garlic cloves chopped fine
2 x thumbs worth of minced fresh ginger
2 x fresh chillies (remove seeds)
75g of fresh coriander (stalks), put leaves aside for garnish
2 tbsp of curry powder
10 x fresh tomatoes, dice them up, or 2-3 large tins of chopped tomatoes
2 x small tins of chickpeas
2 x containers of spinach
25 grams of dry chilli flakes
Rice side dish:
1 kg of basmati rice
1.5 teaspoon of turmeric
Water*
Preparation:
- Mix the squash, sunflower, and spices for the curry dish together.
- Place in an oven-proof dish and put in the centre of a pre-heated oven and bake at 190 degrees Celsius (Gas Mark 5) for an hour, until the butternut squash is cooked through.
- For the curry sauce, first set a large soup pot over a low heat. Add the oil and once it is heated, add in the chopped onions and garlic, the minced ginger, fresh chilies and coriander stalks. Fry, stirring frequently, for 10-15 minutes until the onions sweat (soften).
- Increase the heat to medium-low and add in the curry powder. Cook, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes to release the spicy aromas.
- Add in chopped tomatoes and wait for the mixture to come to the boil, then add rinsed chickpeas.
- Now increase the heat to medium-high and again bring the ingredients to a boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat back to low and simmer until everything has combined well, which should take about 20 to 30 minutes.
- Taste and add salt, pepper to taste
- Add in the baked butternut squash to your curry sauce, and mix all.
- Then add spinach to the mixture.
- *For the rice, grab a cup and pour out the rice into a large sieve. For every cup of rice, you will need 1.5 times that of water*. So, if a kilo of basmati rice is five cups, you will need 7.5 cups of water.
- Rinse the rice in the sieve under running cold water to get rid of the starch, Keep rinsing until the water runs clear.
- Put rice and turmeric into a large saucepan with cold water* (1.5 cup for every cup of rice you use), stir and bring to the boil, then reduce heat to a simmer, cover the pan and cook the rice for about 15 minutes, until the rice is tender.
- Remove from the heat and allow the rice to sit for 5 minutes, then fluff out and serve.
- When serving the curry, place 200 grams of turmeric rice on the add curry mix, follow with sprinkle of fresh coriander and chilli flakes (5grams per person).
Curry is one of those great dishes that also keeps well if refrigerated. You can store in the fridge for about 3 to 5 days after cooking.
