Kidney and Butter Bean Curry with Roasted Aubergine

You've probably already seen my mixed bean curry with cauliflower rice recipe around and I'll attach it if you haven't...

Of course, everything I make is vegan and I'm looking primarily at getting a good amount of vegetables into things. This bean curry is different to the other one as it only uses two beans and the flavour is actually different too. With a bit more of a kick and some different herbs involved, you can definitely show off things in the kitchen if you've got some spare stuff lying around such as parsley.

Ingredients:

• 1x Tin of Red Kidney Beans
• 1x Tin of Butter Beans
• 1x Aubergine
• 2x Large Tomatoes
• 2x Tbsp of Tamarind Sauce
• 1x Tbsp Shredded Ginger
• 2x Green Chilli
• 1x Tbsp Dried Mango Powder
• 1x Tbsp Dried Coriander Powder
• 1x Tsp Salt
• 1x Tsp Paprika
• 20g Fresh Parsley
• 10g Dried Fenugreek Leaves
• 20ml Vegan Single Cream

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How To:

1. Heat some oil in a pan
2. Chop the chilli and put it in the pan with the shredded ginger and cook until the chilli starts to turn a bit brown
3. Add the tamarind sauce and cook with the ginger and chilli until you start to get a healthy smell and the mixture goes all sticky and shrivels a bit
4. Drain the beans and put them in the pan as well - cook them until they start to soften
5. Blend the tomatoes with the salt, powders and spices then add them to the beans in the pan and turn up the heat a bit
6. Chop your parsley and combine with your dried fenugreek leaves, you'll get this really lovely aroma from it - it definitely smells great
7. Once the tomatoes have cooked and sizzled a bit, you need to add the leaves and mix them in to avoid clumping - cook them a bit further so that you can really smell the fenugreek
8. After this, add the cream and mix. You want to turn down the heat and cook a little bit further until it turns a more rich brown colour
9. Take off the heat and set aside whilst you deal with the aubergine
10. Preheat your oven to 200/C
11. Chop the aubergine into circles and place the circles into a roasting tray
12. Pour a dash of oil over them and put the tray in the oven for about 25 minutes until they look like they've dried out
13. Serve a piece of the roasted aubergines with the beans atop of them with a side salad if you'd feel like
14. Enjoy with a side of plain Greek yogurt!

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I love this recipe because it's easy and there's no stinky onions involved. It takes maybe around half an hour to 45 minutes to fully cook, if you're feeling brave you can put your aubergines in first and then get to cooking the curry. I like to do it this way around though because that way I get a bit of a rest after making the curry.

Another version of this if you like more of a kick is to switch out the cream for a teaspoon of tabasco sauce, I quite like that but it is a bit hotter since you already have the green chilli. If you're going to expand this recipe, make sure that you don't overdo it with the chilli either because you have no idea how fast that can go down like a lead balloon. If you want to make things easier for yourself though, you can switch out the chilli and the tabasco for pickled red chilli - just three of those in a blender will do.

You could even make this with the cauliflower rice if this particular recipe doesn't fill you up. I quite like this because I would say beans are quite a heavy meal on their own however, in my last recipe there was definitely room for cauliflower rice. Can you 'rice' aubergine? Yes. After it's cooked, put it through a blender (please make sure it's dried out first) and then flash fry it in a pan until it goes very, very brown. This way you'll have quite a crunchy and crispy rice going on. Though I'm not going to lie, I would hate to eat aubergines that way.