Today’s theme for Vegan Mofo is Emoji Inspired. It’s a pretty good opportunity to dust off my recipe for Curry Rice.

When I started my adventure in Japanese-style curry I was following this recipe from Just Hungry. What sold me on it was the description: “The best way to describe it is probably to say it’s like a English style stew with curry.” So I thought it would be something like a more filling version of chip shop curry. Which it is. I love it.

Along the way I’ve made plenty of adjustments. To start with I took the meat out. Today we’ve used a seitan but I also like to use cubes of fried tofu. This has the side effect of making the dish quicker to cook.

I also like to muck around with the veg. We eat this curry fairly regularly between autumn and spring, often to use up the last of the root veg in our Riverford Box. I’ve used carrot, squash, sweet potato, swede, turnip… anything really. It’s a really good clean-out-the-fridge meal. I also sometimes use edamame instead of peas, just because Kate likes them better.

And finally I do use blocks of Japanese curry, instead of making my own roux. I like S&B because you can find it practically everywhere now (or order from Japan Centre) but I use double the amount. After all this is my Cheating English Lady’s Japanese Curry.

Ingredients

(serves 2)

• 1 large onion, sliced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 can of tomatoes, blended
• One cup of assorted mixed root veggies, diced
• Two squares of S&B Golden Curry
• Half a cup of diced beef-style seitan or cubes of deep fried tofu or more veggies
• Half a cup of peas or edamame
• Rice to serve

Brown the onion in oil over a medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for a further 30 seconds or so.

Add the tomatoes into the pan. Toss in the root veggies, curry and around 1 1/2 cups of water.

Cook until the vegetables are done. This will be around 20-30 minutes depending on what veggies you put in and how done you like them (Kate prefers hers mushy and textureless but I’m doing the cooking so…)

Add the seitan or tofu and the peas or edamame and cook for a further 5 minutes or so until they are heated through.

Serve with rice.