Just a Massive Vegan Curry Recipe

Rich, creamy, spiced to hell and back. Accept no imitations.

If you’re new to veganism – to plant-based living, to whatever you want to call it – what you’re probably missing is best summed up as “indulgence.” You’ve cut out the meat and the dairy and all the other little things that you’ve just found out aren’t technically vegan, and now you’re grieving for the decadent food life you think you’ve lost. 

Well, good news: you haven’t lost anything. Nobody died and there’s nothing stopping you from having that thick, creamy, absurdly-sized curry that you’re lusting after on a Friday night – or any night of the week, if you feel like it.

Yes, it has to be a little different. Sure. But there’s no reason different should mean worse, and there’s no reason at all it has to mean anything like self-denial.

Being vegan doesn’t make you a monk – it makes you smarter, better looking, and generally a better person than anyone who isn’t, obviously – I should know. But it doesn’t have anything to do with asceticism.

Fuck that: we came to eat. So let’s go.

(NB: This is a bit of a chimera – part Butter Chicken and part Tikka Masala – I don’t want to hear any complaints about that. Just go with it.)

INGREDIENTS BREAKDOWN 

For the cream:

Obviously you can use a pre-made plant cream – Oatly makes a good one, if you can stand to look at their intolerably smug branding for more than five seconds, and the Elmlea one is okay too. Personally, I think this is better. 

150g silken tofu – I have found most brands to be pretty equivocal, but tend to use J-Basket or Clearspring and they work pretty well for me. 

100ml plant milk – there is no doubt in my mind, after trying it for the first time about two weeks ago, that Mighty makes the single best substitute in terms of flavour, colour and in terms of consistency for “regular” whole milk.

1 tbsp light agave nectar – you can just use sugar, if you prefer, but I think the smooth consistency and thickness of agave works better. (If you don’t mind it a little chunky, you can also use mango chutney.)

¼ lemon, juiced

For the sauce:

This, obviously, is the main event. The big boy. The reason we’re all here and the reason that your buttons might not do up quite as easy tomorrow as they do right now. 

400g chopped tomatoes – much like with the tofu, technically any brand of canned, chopped tomatoes will work here. I prefer to use the Mutti tins of San Marzano or their “Polpa” finely-chopped variety.  

50g butter – any vegan butter will work here, but not all vegan butters are created equal. I tend to use the salted Flora Plant Butter (which comes in the blue packaging), as it has the best consistency and flavour once it’s been melted. (Regular Flora has a kind of artificial smell when it’s being heated – it won’t affect the overall flavour, though.)

100ml rapeseed oil – you can also use vegetable oil or sunflower oil, but I find rapeseed works best in terms of how it behaves in tandem with the butter and as an ingredient in the overall dish. 

50g flaked almonds – you’ll blend these into more of a ground consistency, so you can just use pre-ground ground almonds if you prefer but they tend to me more expensive and there’s something nice about doing it yourself. 

1.5 x tsp ground cayenne pepper, garam masala, fenugreek

1 x red and 1 x green chilli – you can deseed these or not, depending on your preference, but you’ll want to cut them to a size where they’ve still got bite as opposed to dicing them too finely.

4 x generous garlic cloves 

1 x tsp black peppercorns

1 x tsp coriander seeds

1 x pinch curry leaves

1 x pinch chilli seeds

1 x thumb of ginger 

2 x star anise 

3 x cloves

For the chicken:

Now, you might (reasonably) be wondering about a marinade here. Yes, I’m including one in the recipe – but it’s a semi-optional element. Vegan chicken just isn’t as porous as the meaty stuff; if you can do an overnight marinade, great, but if you can’t then you’re better off just letting it absorb the flavour of the curry as it cooks. 

1 x 180g pack of plant-based chicken substitute – the Vegetarian Butcher’s “Impeckable” fillets are, by far, the best for this job. None of the pieces / chunks – including VB’s own “What the Cluck” product – are any good for marinade whatsoever. Instead, you want to get the fillets and tear them, by hand, into smaller pieces. Yes, they feel kind of like playdough, but something about the act of tearing them makes the pieces more receptive to taking on flavour than the fillets as a whole. 

100ml plant milk

1/2 lemon, juiced

30g tomato purée

1 pinch of curry leaves

1 tsp of salt, pepper, garam masala, cayenne pepper, sweet paprika

Optional extras

Really, you can add any veg that you want – I find that broccoli and peppers work best because they’re sweet and taste good with a light char, but I’ve also been known to throw in a potato or two and, you know what, I’d do it again.

4 x tenderstem broccoli stems

1 x sweet, pointed red pepper 

1 x generous handful of frozen peas – you can use fresh peas if you want, but I find that frozen peas work better in basically any recipe where you’re cooking them long enough to defrost and gently heat up. 

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Let’s get method.

If you’re marinading your chicken, tear the fillets into the kind of chunks you want to eat and then just add all of the ingredients to a sandwich bag. Ideally, that goes in the fridge overnight, but a few hours will probably still do something if you’re pressed for time.

Okay – onto the main event. First things first: fry off your spices. This is about getting the best out of your ingredients because, hey, don’t you deserve that at least?

Heat a small pan, ideally a little cast iron if you have one, and add just enough rapeseed oil to fully cover (not just coat) the surface area and add a teaspoon of plant butter. Once you feel like the pan is warming up, add the star anise, the cloves, the chilli seeds, the curry leaves, and the coriander seeds.

Usually, this will take less than two minutes if the pan is hot enough – which makes it a great time to finely chop your onion, by the way – but you’ll hear it and you’ll smell it and you’ll know it’s done. Don’t let the spices catch, because very few things taste good when they’ve been burned by accident and spices are absolutely not the exception to that rule.

Once the spices have released their oils, take them off the heat and let them sit there. Make sure they don’t keep on cooking in the pan, because – again – I cannot overstate how bad that will taste.

Next, put a big pan on the hob at a medium heat – the hungrier you are, the bigger the pot; do not be afraid of big pans, they are your friend and the progenitor of big meals, which are also your friend – and then add the rapeseed oil along with the butter.

Once the two have melted and mixed together, drop in your onions. Give them a quick stir around the pan with a spatula to make sure they’re evenly coated with the oils and they’re not just sitting there, and then spread them evenly across the base of the pan so that they’re all cooking at the same rate. Add a generous pinch of salt, cover them, and leave them to sweat for around 15 minutes. (You can keep checking on them, if they’re getting soft and brown then they’re well on the way. Don’t let them burn or stick to the pan – if they stick, you can use a squeeze of lemon juice to deglaze the pan and set them free.)

Once you’ve got a panful of soft, golden onions, add the garlic and the ginger and your ground spices and re-cover for another five to ten minutes. (You’ll want to check in at the five-minute mark either way, because burned garlic tastes like chewing splinters.)

Next, make sure there’s still enough oil in the pan (if not, add a little more butter) and add your chicken pieces (without the marinade) along with the pre-toasted spices and the oils you cooked them in.

Stir the ingredients together and fry them for long enough to give the chicken pieces a hint of colour – you don’t want too much, because sealing vegan meat isn’t quite the same as regular meat, and a fully-cooked outside will stop the flavours from getting in. Once that’s done, slowly stir in your tinned tomatoes and tomato purée. (Keep hold of the tin for now)

Add about 100ml of water using the tomato tin to make sure you get all the flavour that you possibly can, re-cover the pan and turn the heat down just a little to a medium-low setting. (Something like a 2 or 3 if you’re using a standard induction hob.)

While the base of your sauce is simmering, you’ve got time to make the cream. (If you’re using pre-made cream, hey, nice, just chill for a sec.) It’s not difficult: just add ingredients to a blender and – well – blend. You’re going to want this to be pretty smooth, so don’t be shy with the blades. You’re also going to want to taste it – if it isn’t sweet enough for your liking, just add a little more agave. (You can absolutely do this the night before, you’ll just need to loosen the mixture a little with a bit of extra plant milk and a stir.)

Once the blender’s free, pulverise those flaked almonds like they’re someone you hate. (Leave a few aside for toasting as a decorative flourish if you feel like being fancy with it.)

After about 15 minutes, uncover the pan, give the sauce a stir to fold all that condensated flavour back in, and slowly add your cream and red chillies to the mix. Re-cover and lower the heat slightly. (Induction fans, we’re definitely at 2 now.)

In an ideal world, you’re going to want to leave this dish simmering away with the lid on for about 60 minutes minimum. Listen to some music, read a book, whatever – just don’t forget to keep checking things aren’t getting too hot in there, you don’t want your sauce boiling. It shouldn’t dry out with the lid on, but if it’s reducing too much then add a little more water.

With the pan you used to fry off your spices – which ought to still be nice and oily and have retained some of those flavours – cook the broccoli on a medium heat; the kind that’s hot enough to char it just a little on the outside but not enough to turn it into a limp shadow of its former self. You can do the same with the pepper. (Or you can roast it in the oven for about 20 minutes on high with a little salt and a drizzle of olive oil.)

Add the peppers and ground almonds slowly to the sauce, stirring as you go – the almonds bring a sweetness to the flavour and an extra heft to the consistency of the dish, so you want them spread throughout and not all clumped together in weird little balls.

Finally, squeeze in the lemon juice, add your frozen peas and leave the dish to simmer for another five minutes or so – just until the peas are warmed through.

Toast a few flaked almonds in your spice pan, and – while they’re browning – serve up your curry into one large bowl. Top with your broccoli, a handful of ground almonds, your toasted flakes, your green chillies and a swirl of any leftover cream.

And that’s it. It’s not a quickie, I know, but fucking hell it’s worth it. Enjoy – that’s kind of the point here. (And if you really enjoy, you can consider sending a £ or a $ my way.)