anti oxidants curry with fresh herbs

This curry is a different version from the red curry with ginger tofu. I felt like eating curry with fresh ginger and fresh kurkuma yesterday. I often cook with what's available at home and/or based on a recipe that I adapted to my taste. Last time I used the spice mix of Jonnie Boer (curry madras mix) and that's really fine; it has kurkuma, ginger, cumin, pepper, onion and garlic in it. This time I wanted to make the curry with fresh herbs, also so I could see if and how the taste is different from using dried herbs and spices. You often read that, especially about kurkuma, for your health it doesn't make a difference between using fresh or dried herbs. Kurkuma is very healthy; it's full of anti oxidants. It is being used a lot in the Indian cuisine and I love indian food. We travelled in India in 2016/2017 and the food was delicious. It was an incredible journey.

in India the food is great everywhere

Kurkuma also gives your food a beautiful yellow (curry) color. If you use fresh kurkuma, you will see your finger will end up very yellow after cutting it. (and my toothbrush too, btw) In general, food with more color has more anti oxidants in it. Especially red is full of anti oxidants. So, with this meal, you'll eat plenty of anti oxidants. Often I make too much for 2 persons. Than I will used the leftover the next day for lunch or I'll upgrade the leftover the next day and make some more. That way, I can practice the recipe again too.

3 onions, in big chunks (I prefer to cut my veggies and fruit in big pieces, so I can chew more which is healthier)
3 garlic, finely cut
1 red pepper, finely chopped
3 cm fresh ginger, finely chopped
3 cm fresh kurkuma, finely chopped (warning: yellow stains!)
cumin, lightly toasted and ground
1 eggplant in big chunks
2 big carrots in big chunks
1 big red bellpepper in big chunks
1 can of lentils
tomato sugo and water (you can use veggie bouillon, but than I only used one I make myself, because the ones from the store come with salt)
sunflower oil
pumpkin seed, lightly toasted
extra vergine olive oil, to pour over the food
fresh cilantro, cut
veggie balls
fresh groud pepper

fry onions in 3 tbs of sunflower oil until golden
add garlic, kurkuma, ginger, red pepper and cumin
After mixing the herbs well together, add the eggplant, bellpepper and carrots. Mix well until the vegetables are all covered well by the herbs. Add a bit of oil if necessary.
Add lentils and sugo and water and raise the temperature until it cooks. Then, lower the temperature and cook softly for about 5 minutes. I prefer my veggies to have a bite. After that, turn down the temp completely to let the mixture soften a little bit more. Add the veggie balls so they take some of the flavour if you like. Otherwise add the veggie balls when serving the meal.
toast the pumpkin seeds.
serve it with  some extra vergine olive oil (healthy), the pumpkinseeds and fres cilantro. add fresh grounded pepper if you like.

My conclusion: I prefer the taste of the fresh herbs. They tasted more subtle and layered, deeper. I also like to cut them; I find it relaxing. But the dried herbs are an easy choice if you don't have the time to cut fresh herbs or don't feel like it. The dried herbs taste very good too.

everything cut in advance

so many colours with ginger, kurkuma, garlic, pepper

the result

As I mentioned before, I love to collect cookbooks. The Indian cookbooks in the picture are very useful. I found the book "Stylish Indian" in a thriftshop. In it was a note of the lady of the house to her "babu" (the cook) in which she asked babu to prepare a meal for that evening, referring to the pages of the cookbook. There was also a paper from a takeaway/delivery for pastry in Delhi. Very authentic!

the notes in my thrifted Indian cookbook

more inspiration