spices for your curry blend….

In the colder weather there is nothing so nice as a rich curry to eat for your dinner! And if you find yourself with the time during lockdown to make a curry from scratch, this is a great one to try. It is full of flavour and worth the effort. My husband’s family is Indian and they ask us to make this for them when they visit us.

It is a recipe that I have interpreted from the Thermomix Basic cookbook. You start with a spice mix that you dry roast and then grind to a powder. But you can skip this part if you have a garam masala blend in your pantry already.

Spice Mix

• 30g coriander seeds

• 30g cumin seeds

• 2 tsp fennel seeds

• 40g long grain rice

• 10 cardamon pods

• 5 whole cloves

• 2 sprigs fresh curry leaves only

• one cinnamon quill

Dry roast all these ingredients together in a frying pan, cool and then grind them to a fine powder. You can keep this in an airtight container to use again and again.

Now to get started on the curry.

Curry Blend

• 6 cardamon pods

• 1 cinnamon quill

• 1 tsp ground fenugreek

• 12 whole cloves

• 1 tsp peppercorns

• 1 brown onion

• 4 garlic cloves

• 20g fresh ginger

• 1 stalk lemongrass (white part only)

• 2 long red chillies (deseeded)

Dry roast cardamon pods, cinnamon quill, ground fenugreek, whole cloves and peppercorns. Allow to cool and then blend in a blender. Add the brown onion, garlic cloves, fresh ginger, fresh lemongrass and long red chillies and blend to a paste.

And the rest

• 50 g olive oil or ghee

• 1 tsp tumeric

• 12 fresh curry leaves *

• 400 g canned chopped tomato

• 1.2kg gravy beef cut into pieces

• 400g canned coconut cream

• 2 tsp salt and

• 2 tbsp vinegar.

Melt the ghee or warm the olive oil in a heavy based saucepan. Add 2 tsp spice mix (garam masala), along with ground tumeric, fresh curry leaves and the curry blend. Saute together for a few minutes.

Add chopped tomatoes, gravy beef, coconut cream, salt and vinegar and cook together, stirring occasionally. Then simmer covered until the oil separates, the meat is cooked and tender, and the sauce has cooked down.

Serve with rice (look out for our coming post on jewelled rice - to make your rice extra fancy).

* Fresh curry leaves are usually available from Asian grocers or some of the good fresh veggie shops.

Do you ever get sick of cooking? Here are 5 ideas for family meals from shops nearby that are more around the $40 mark (so you can share your non-cooking love across a couple of businesses over the week) than the $100 mark. These are tried and true recommendations from locals.

1. Lasagne from Flour + Salt. It has a lovely smoky bacon flavour apparently. Then make your own salad and/or garlic bread.

2. Shepherd’s pie from Bean Counter. You could microwave some peas to go alongside?

3. The family pack from Rooster Bar - chicken, chips, gravy, salads and a drink. Surely every family has had it at some stage! Or you could just buy the chicken and make your own salad/vegetables.

4. A meat pack from Spitaki (pork is good) and then dips, bread and other bits and bobs from Oasis or A1. Make your own salad (or if you are feeling extra exhausted you can buy that too!)

5. Roast of the day and potatoes from the deli in FoodWorks, East Ivanhoe. Make your own veggies.

Bon appetit!

We’ve heard good things about all the Bean Counter options!

This recipe is a fabulous side dish for any occasion and a stock standard at our community lunch. Perfect because it is best pre-prepared. You can think of it as a room temperature veggie dish or a cold salad.

It comes from Abla Amad’s cook book. I love her cooking (have you been to her restaurant on Elgin Street Carlton? So good!)

Here we go.

• 500 g green beans, topped and tailed

• 1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil

• 1 onion finely chopped or sliced

• 1-2 fresh skinned tomatoes (or 1-2 tinned tomatoes roughly chopped are fine too)

• 1 tsp allspice

• 1 tsp salt

• 1/4 tsp pepper

In a pot put the olive oil and onions and cook for 10 minutes (put on your timer so you cook them long enough because it tastes better in the end).

Add the beans and allspice and cook for a minute, then add the tomatoes and salt and pepper. Put a lid on the pot, turn down the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

DONE! That’s it.  As mentioned, serve a room temperature or cold. Hard to believe something that tastes so good is so simple. See what you think.

Remember a couple of weeks ago we had a post about Adi who runs that delicious french bakery Little Bertha? Well … when we were chatting out on the corner, he told me that during corona times some of his staff have been working at Fareshare.

Fareshare is an organisation that rescues food and uses chefs to turn it into meals.They have been going flat out recently. In May alone they produced over 500,000 meals to feed people impacted by Covid-19.

This is the food we have been delivering to people in our community over the last couple of months. And I can vouch for it. In times gone by I have had their vegetarian lasagne (delicious), chicken and vegetable satay (delicious) and beef curry (also delicious) - we’ve sometimes had it for our Community Lunches (coming our way via SecondBite).

So … if you know someone who could do with a yummy free meal or two, and are independent enough to get around, here’s a link so they can order and collect the meals themselves, from Gelato Messina’s warehouse in East Brunswick.

Students might like it. Families might like it. Anyone who is feeling financial pressure or a bit overwhelmed in any way by the ongoing corona times might like it!

If you are keen, the Gelato Messina website is encouraging you to order a couple of meals - so that you have some variety during the week. Note that each ‘meal’ serves 3-4 people (they are very generous), and comes frozen and vacuum sealed. And note that when you go to order, there is a $1 fee, that you can override with a code. Just follow the instructions.

So … don’t be shy. No one has to give any reason for accessing this food at this time. It’s just a good community thing in these strange and crazy days!

Did you know that this week is refugee week? At ACC we have a long-standing commitment to supporting refugees that seek asylum in Australia.

We support refugees that have arrived more recently by being a collection point for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre food relief effort.

So, anyone can drop off non-perishable food at any time here at ACC - in the roller shed in our back garden. And perishable food can be delivered on Thursday mornings between 10am-12pm directly to Andy who then drives everything over to Footscray.

We accept multiple donations each week from both groups and individuals, and estimate that over $20,000 of goods are collected for ASRC through ACC alone each year - which is a wonderful commitment by our community to helping out people experiencing immensely difficult times.

It is just so heartening to see so many people demonstrating empathy, care and kindness through the action of donating.

Usually the food and other grocery items we collect go into the ASRC ‘supermarket’ but in Corona times ASRC (like other food relief organisations) has been putting together packs for delivery.