Aubergine and green bean curry with Marinated cucumber with mint

Aubergine and green bean curry
by Rhys

Substitutions: None. Kind of.


Rating: 6


So, on top of loving dry frying spices and crushing them, I really love making a curry paste. It makes curry feel so authentic and, let's face it, you feel more pleased with yourself because of that. My paste for this went a bit all over the place due to vegetable sizing. My shallots were tiny and my chillies were huge, so I wasn't sure how many of each to put in. My Struggle.

The paste was still fun. What was not fun was the aubergines. It is very hard to divide something into same-sized wedges when it is the shape of a cashew nut! (More on cashews later.) And then you have to fry them in batches which took about, oh, MY WHOLE LIFE!

When it was finally finished, I seasoned it to buggery and, to be honest, it just didn't taste that amazing. It was aromatic, for sure, and had a quite nice delicate flavour. But... well I wanted it to taste more amazing, that's all.

Also, the aubergines, due to their non-uniform sizing, were either completely mushy or a bit spongy. Spongy aubergines are the worst.

My co-diners said they liked it and thought it was full of flavour (which immediately made me think less of them), but the most compliments I got were for the roasted cashews on top. Which I think speaks volumes.

Marinated cucumber with mint
also by Rhys

Substitutions: None. 


Rating: 7

I was really excited to make this one! Not sure why, thinking back, but I was. Maybe because I just feel so bourgeois peeling and coring a cucumber. La dee da, look at me flushing all the bits with texture down the waste disposal! I have made it.

Anyway, it was pretty nice, though I would have liked if it had tasted a little more vinegary and a little less salty/oily. The salty bit may have been me over-seasoning, but the oil I weighed out and I used a very large cucumber. The mint didn't really pop like I wanted it to, but I possibly didn't have the requisite 'good handful'.

Which brings me to another point that has weighed heavily on my mind for a while now: what is with the inaccurate herb sizing in cook books? What is a 'good handful'? And what do they mean when they say 'two tablespoons of parsley, chopped'. Is that tablespoons before we've chopped it or after? It makes a difference! I find it nigh on impossible to figure out how much herbage (to steal a phrase from Hugh's kitchen rival Jamie Oliver) one is supposed to use. I wish cookery writers would just say '45 mint leaves' or '300 chive stalks' or whatever.

Yes, I know they already do that with bay.

So I don't have any more to say on the cucumbers. They were nice, very refreshing, and I'd do them again some time.


Aubergine and green bean curry WITH Marinated cucumber with mint

Substitutions: None, obviously.

Rating: 7.5

You wouldn't think to put these together. I don't think Hugh did; they're in very different parts of the book. But if you think about it, the cucumbers are basically a yoghurt-free raiita and that goes brilliantly with curry. I only put them together because they both looked nice, but I have to say they work very well together. The cucumber really cuts through the spicyness of the curry and feels so light on your tongue after the coconut milk. So, yeah, I'd recommend them together.