Picture the scene. It’s cold. It’s dark. It’s wet. It’s been a long day and you really want some super tasty comfort food. A takeaway would be TOP. NOTCH.
Oh but also you need to fit into a wedding dress in 4 weeks and oh also… It’s not payday till Thursday and you. are. poor. There are wallet moths and it’s all desperately sad.
This was me today, after a tough day at work, absolutely starving because oh my god why didn’t I bring any snacks to work with me?! Time to whap out an oldie, but a goodie, conceived of an evening in my old, teeny tiny kitchen with no worktop space whatsoever, in a time when I had no money whatsoever. It’s one of my “lottery recipes” – one that actually worked (trust when I tell you a lot of lottery recipes end up in the bin because who thought it was a good idea to make apple and tomato spiced pasta?!).
Yu’know when you’re really on the bones of your arse and the only option for dinner is plain toast, dry cereal or some weird concoction of things left at the back of the cupboard/fridge/freezer? These situations are where lottery recipes are born. Especially when all you want to eat is that fine nutty thing from the Thai place that you can’t remember the name of.
SO long and short – this is where the peanut butter curry was born! It’s so simple but tbh something that started off as a meal intended to make sure I didn’t starve soon morphed into something I literally cook all the time for anyone who will eat it.
Part one: shit I always have in my cupboard.
I always, always, aaaaalways have ginger and garlic and chilli. Ginger is great for literally everything – salads, dinners, smoothies, PUDDINGS. Garlic is just the absolute one and I love it and grossing people out with my garlic breath. And chilli because… We’ll it’s fricking great.
get yourself 3 cloves of garlic and mince em up, grate about an inch piece of ginger and finely dice up your chilli – seeds or no seeds; iiii dunno how spicy you like your food.
I’ve also always got a ready stock of spices; for this you’re gonna need a heaped teaspoon of tumeric, paprika and cumin (this a teaspoon EACH, not in total). Pinch of salt and pepper too. Or to taste.
There’s also a 1/4 cup of soy sauce and about 400ml of vegetable stock.
And of course… my life blood… PEANUT BUTTAHHHH. My sun and stars. Moon of my life. Any peanut butter is fine but my preference is Meridian’s crunch peanut butter that comes in a bucket the size of my head. Come. To. Mama.
Finally, chickers . So cheap to buy, I always have a stock of these for bulking up my din dins.
Part two is, essentially, chuck A’HIN in a pan. Now, it’s entirely up to you what you use in this curry as the main element. I follow a vegan lifestyle so it’s all peppers, carrots, and other rabbit food for me, but you could go chicken, beef, whatever! My long suffering nearly-husband eats meat and I thought I took him out chicken this morning… turns out it was like chops… he swears this recipe still worked
Optional extra – teaspoon of hot sauce. We are a sriracha house, btw.
You want to do all the veggies and spices and garlic etc in a hot frying pan for about 5 minutes before adding all the sauce stuff. Gives them an opportunity to soften innit.
And this ladies and gents is the final product. I usually give everything about a half hour on a medium low heat on the hob – it can dry up a bit but just add some more water or veg stock till you get your desired consistency.
Today I’ve served with some sticky jasmine rice but noodles mixed all up in there is good too!
SO yeah, super easy, super quick, super tasty!
Oh, it was a massaman I was thinking of before btw.
good thyme gal ♡ 