Easy curry

OK, so here's my first recipe offering, really easy curry. The secret to a good, tasty curry is cooking it for ages. And ages. Not the 20 minutes recommended in a lot of recipe books and on the back of Patak's curry sauces. Not that I'm dissing Patak's, they are great for lazy buggers like me......just ignore the instructions.

So you get some meat, I use pork a lot because it's really cheap and lamb isn't, at least not over here in La Belle France. Living here is why I have to make my own curry, the French as a nation are apparently allergic to spicy food. Get some onions, essential ingredient in just about every thing I cook. Fry the onions in some oil, doesn't matter what sort (maybe not engine oil though) for ages on a low heat til they're really golden brown, lots of people don't fry them for long enough.

Don't ask me how many "some" is, I don't do quantities, if you're the sort of person (like my dear husband) who feels the need to measure precise quantities of all ingredients and prepare them in little bowls like they do on Blue Peter, this probably isn't the blog for you. Once you're onions are a nice colour, add the meat in chunks, fry it for a bit then chuck in some curry paste. I tend to use the aforementioned Patak's, it's got all the spices you need in one place and there's no faffing about roasting cardamom pods and the like. Use the mild curry one then you can always chuck in some killer chillies later on unless you're catering for a bunch of lightweights.

Stir it all around for a bit, then add a load of water, and leave it to cook. For ages. Whilst you go and do something useful with your time like randomly surfing the internet or playing Lord of the Rings online. Even better, leave it to go cold after a few hours then fire it up again the next day. Keep chucking water in if it gets too gloopy. Then about an hour before you want to eat it, bung in a tin of tomatoes, or if you're feeling really keen, actually go to the effort of chopping up some tomatoes to put in. Then you can add some veg, whatever you like, prechopped frozen are often my légumes of choice.

And there you have it, job's a good'un, you can leave it bubbling away til your guests arrive, no last minute messing about in the kitchen, just stick the pot on the table, sprinkle over some chopped coriander (if you can be bothered) and hand them a ladle. You might have to go to the effort of cooking some rice, but then you can always get it in those handy microwaveable sachets these days..........