I felt like curry last Monday, with Owen going to be home late, I had an hour to myself to kill but hadn’t been shopping luckily we had lentils, potatoes and eggs so I made tarka dhal, egg curry and bombay potato curry.

Before making a curry it’s best to make up some masala – a mixture of chilies, garlic and ginger all finely chopped and mixed with a ratio of 2 chilies to 1 garlic clove and small knob of ginger.

Scrambled Egg Curry – this is one of my favourite my curries and only takes 10 mins to make

• Sliced Onions
• Eggs x 2
• Masala
• Turmeric (pinch)
• Cumin powder (pinch)
• Coriander powder (pinch)
• Coriander Leaves

Fry the onions slowly, once they are translucent and browning add the chopped chilli, garlic and ginger and the dried spices. Fry for a minute or two while stirring, then break in 2 eggs and scramble until the eggs are cooked well. Once cooked stir in some fresh coriander leaves.

Bombay Potato – another of my favourites

• Potato x 3
• Oil – 1 tablespoon
• Mustard seeds – pinch
• Masala
• Chili powder – pinch
• Turmeric – 1/2 teaspoon
• Cumin powder – 1/2 teaspoon
• Coriander powder – 1/2 teaspoon
• salt – pinch
• Coriander leaves

Quater the potato and then finely slice, each piece about 1cm thick, its best to try and get all the slices to be the same size and thickness so they cook evenly, rinse in cold water.
Add the oil to a frying pan then the mustard seeds. Once they start popping add in the sliced potato and stir (be careful as the oil will spit). Add the masala, spices and salt and stir. Leave to cook on a low heat till the potatoes are soft, if they start to stick to the pan add a little more oil. When the potatoes are nearly cooked add some coriander leaves.

Tarka Dal – I use a recipe from ‘Easy Indian’ by Das Sreedharan. Serves 4-6. This a good curry to make as you just add all the ingredients to the pan and leave, its also a good curry to freeze.

• Red lentils – 200g
• Yellow split peas – 50g
• Sliced Onions x 2
• Diced tomatoes x 2
• Garlic cloves chopped x 2
• Green chili sliced x 2
• Chili powder 1.2 tsp
• Turmeric 1 tsp
• To finish – 4 cloves of garlic sliced & 1/2 tsp of cumin seeds

Add all the ingredients to a big pan and then add about 2 pints of water and bring to the boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat and leave to simmer with lid on for about 20 mins or till the lentils begin to soften. I find the red lentils cook quicker than the yellow. Leave uncovered for 5 mins. If very watery then I tend to pour some of the liquid out as I prefer my dhal to be thick. Before serving, fry a little oil in a small frying pan and add some cumin seeds and the sliced garlic, once the garlic starts browning pour into the dhal.

This is another bread recipe from Dough by Richard Bertinet. It starts with his basic olive oil dough which is:

• 500g Strong White flour
• 20g Coarse Semolina
• 10g Salt
• 15g Yeast (fresh if possible)
• 50g Extra virgin Olive oil
• 320g water

Make up the dough and knead it well (it will be quite sticky at first, but should get firmer as you knead). Rest the dough for an hour in a covered bowl. Oil a baking sheet, and turn the rested dough out onto the sheet. Spread out the dough on the sheet by pushing it with your fingers (don’t roll it out or stretch it). Drizzle some olive oil over the top and spread it across the dough (easiest to do this just with your hands)

Cover the dough to rest for 45 minutes. I find that putting it in a plastic bag is the easiest thing, and doesn’t stick (the first time I made it, I used a tea towel, and ended up scraping half the dough off the towel). After it has rested use your finger tips to make dimples across the whole dough – just push your fingers into the dough. Then cover again and leave for a further 30 minutes.

Finally sprinkle some good quality sea salt (e.g Maldon Sea Salt) over the top (you want salt flakes, rather than granules), and bake in the over at 220 degrees C for 25-30 minutes. The original recipe adds rosemary at the same time as the salt, but we’ve been out of rosemary every time I’ve baked it so we haven’t tried it yet.

After it comes out of the oven, but while it is still warm, brush with more olive oil.

We absolutely love this bread – probably a bit too much. Delicious dipped in more olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

We’ve tried the same recipe as a pizza base – 500g flour made 3 medium sized bases when stretch out more thinly. They were still pretty thick, but good flavour.