Tomato Curry with Peas !

Nigella has a new book out, ‘Kitchen‘ . I think the TV series starts this week. I’m feeling happier with this Nigella book than I’ve done with past ones. Not because of her love or not of lashings of cream or butter or her coquettish back-burner fluttering. But because on the cover of this book she is wearing an apron.

A friend used to have to avert her eyes from the bejewelled ringed, fingers of Jennifer Patterson (one half of The Two Fat Ladies) as she plunged them into a bowl of raw mince or whatever she happened to be mixing. Why can’t she take them off  ? my friend would lament.

When it came to Nigella my lament was Why can’t she put one on… All other of her charms passed me by as I agonised over what sauce-splashing fate her denim jacket or unprotected cashmere sweater might suffer. But whilst in ‘Kitchen’ there is still scoop-necked provocation (and I mean of the pan spluttering sort) going on, I’ve conducted an apron audit and don’t know why she fights shy of donning them. She has a fine butcher’s hook - of and in them - plain, striped, frilly and gingham, even leopard print. 

So whilst there’s no photographic evidence to prove it, I like to think she wore one for the making of today’s dish.  With a 1kg of cherry tomatoes to deal with – the risk of explosion (the very kind, posh sandwich chains warn their city tie-wearing customers of) is high.

This is a perfect dish for this kind of day, a day of two seasonal halves. Morning – summer with pottering and picking in the garden. Afternoon – autumn with grey skies, cold winds and rain.

A dish made with summer-fresh cherry tomatoes but complete with crumpet-toasting autumn-heat, courtesy of the spices. And with my favourite, never-can-resist-adding-them-in-anyway, peas. Now Nigella endorsed !

There are a couple of things to add before letting you go on your own apron-wearing adventure. The recipe called for English mustard powder. Which I didn’t have but I did have a jar. So I consulted our other English kitchen goddess – Delia.  Now whilst the edition I have of her Complete Course is from the early 80s I was still surprised to read ‘ It is now possible also to buy English mustard ready made-up‘. Really – is it as recent an innovation as that ?

Whilst that wasn’t quite an answer, I thought I’d take it as the one I wanted and bunged some in the pot, put the jar back in the cupboard and saw the expiry date of  ‘May 08′. Oh dear, I thought it looked a bit murky. Exactly the sort of dirty mustard shade the Colonel’s fustian trousers would’ve turned after a leaden pipe, library murderous mishap with Miss Scarlett. A quick swing open of the fridge door and there it was - a new jar of the much brighter, ‘sing like a canary‘ kind of yellow,  English mustard, expiry May 11. 

The second thing is that the tomatoes aren’t skinned – which whilst not a big problem – I’d advise using thin-skinned varieties. The third – Nigella makes coconut rice to serve with this, which I can see would be delicious. But after all the mustard going-ons I forgot all about rice – so made do with a pitta and that was nice too !

Tomato Curry

• 3oml of olive oil heated in a heavy pan. Add 2 large, chopped onions and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Cook gently for about 10 minutes.
• Stir in 4 chopped garlic cloves, 1kg of halved cherry tomatoes, 2 teaspoons of turmeric, 1 teaspoon hot chilli powder, 1 teaspoon garam masala, and 1 teaspoon English mustard powder. Stir it all up.
• Put the lid on the pan and cook for 20 minutes on a low heat.
• Cook the peas (200g) separately and add to the tomatoes for the last 5 minutes of cooking. (  I didn’t add mine in at all – but the reason given for keeping them apart until the last 5 minutes is to retain the green of one and the red of the other)

Of course I now very much that this will feature in one of the episodes – I will be apron agog !