I cooked this recently, wanting to use up the tamarind paste that’s sat unused since the first time I cooked this recipe. However, after buying all the ingredients, arriving home and opening Nigella Express only to realise that I hadn’t in fact cooked Curry in a Hurry before. I had confused the recipe with Nigella Kitchen’s South Indian Vegetable Curry. My dusty bottle of tamarind paste will have to languish in the ‘exotic’ cupboard for another day.
Focusing back on Curry in a Hurry, what a success! As a recipe from Ms. Lawson’s most time-efficient tome, Nigella Express, you would expect this Thai-inspired curry to be a dream to whip up. From getting the chopping board out to dinner table in 30 mins. The Curry in a Hurry was ready before my Jasmine rice had cooked. Express indeed.
Not all curry pastes are born equal.
It’s also a perfect store cupboard meal. It required very little shopping beyond picking up some chicken thigh fillets. I often have some green Thai curry paste in the fridge begging to be used up and the green vegetables are interchangeable. Not all curry pastes are born equal, I bought one from the Asian section of Tesco and it was a lot hotter than the westernised Tesco one. In terms of veggies, I usually use a combination of frozen peas and broccoli as I ALWAYS have both in. Broccoli also being cheaper and having more substance than green beans, a thrifty substitution. Oh and sod the soy beans. I’ll stick to a double portion of good old frozen peas.
One point to note, the curry is quite wet but don’t make the same mistake as me. On my first attempt I over-reduced the curry, aiming for a thick British gravy consistency. It became almost unpalatably salty and remove the hurried element of the curry. Luckily I rescued that attempt at Curry in a Hurry with some more coconut milk. That said, the ‘authentic’ thinner broth is delicious to finish off with a spoon or continue to dip some prawns crackers into.
Fresh. Fast. Delicious. Great for reheating. Recipe can be found here.
