An Irish approach to Chinese Curry

Getting a Chinese takeaway is always a treat but can work out expensive if you have to feed a family. It could end up costing you between €40-€50.

Another approach is to make the curry yourself at home. I have done the calculations and it will roughly cost you about 25% of the price of the Chinese Takeaway.

I have been making these curries at home for many years and have perfected the art I hope! Lots of pictures are included so you can't go wrong!

First of all you will need to select your meat. I chose pork chops because they were doing a packet of them in Super Value for €3. For this curry I used two packets, 8 chops in total. All the fat was cut off and I diced them up. You can also use chicken or beef. Just remember if you are using beef (round steak) I recommend boiling it for an hour to soften it up or it will be too hard to eat.

If your in a hurry pork or chicken is the best option. If your a vegetarian you can just use vegetables instead of meat.

Step 1:
Take one large onion and chop it up. Put it in a bowl as you will need it later on.

Step 2:
Dice up the meat and put it in the pan. Add a little oil and then turn the pan on to a medium heat. I am using a wok so I had to use more oil. If you have a non stick pan you will need less oil.

Step 3:
Fry the meat for 5-10 minutes until it is white. Remember that pork has to be cooked well. Once this is done you are ready to add the frozen peas.

Step 4:
The sauce I am using for this recipe is called Bensons and Tesco and Super Value stock it. You will need to use the entire pack for the curry. They recommend to use about 1.2 litres of water. From experience I use about 1.1 litres of water.

Step 5:
If you have a container big enough, measure out 1.1 litres of cold water and add the powder to it. Mix this up with a fork to break up the powder.

Step 6:
Add this cold mixture to your wok. When the mixture is put in the wok initially it will look a bit watery as shown below. Don't worry about this as the sauce will thicken up. This will usually take about 15-20 minutes of simmering on a medium heat and remember to keep stirring or the sauce will stick to the wok.

Step 7:
Once your sauce has reached the required thickness you are ready to add the onions. Below is a picture of the thickness of the sauce that I usually go for. Onions are always added in about 3-4 minutes before serving the dish. This way they have a little crunch and don't get soggy.

Step 8:
I use micro rice with my curry so I put this in the micro once the onions have gone into the wok. You can do standard rice but you will need to cook this when you start the curry so that both are ready together.

Look at all that lovely curry! Total cost to make this dish is about €9 and will easily feed a family of 4. If you do try this let us know how you get on by using the comment box below.

 

Step 9:

Enjoy!

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