Saturday, October 24, 2009

Using Curry Leaves

My curry leaf plant is from one of my aunts.

I have many aunts... My mother has 4 sisters and my father has 5. But I'm closer to my mum's sisters than dad's.

This aunt has not even been to my house yet. But she heard from my mum (her sister) that I grow some herbs in my balcony. So she sent a small pot of curry leaf plant through my mum over to me. Aww... So sweet of her, right?

Here's my little curry leaf plant.



I have her for about 3 months now.. and one thing I've found - she is definitely a lot less fussy than my Mediterranean herbs!

Shortly after she came over, she attracted some white flies.. An organic spray soon solved that problem and since then, she has been a good little girl, sitting quietly in one corner of my balcony. No complains about the occasional irregular watering.. no complains about the sorching sun.. she doesn't mind the occasional thunderstorm that sends raindrops pelting in..

Because of my open kitchen, I don't really cook curry at home often.. and so.. for the longest time, I didn't use her leaves... Just pluck pluck pluck and throw her leaves away..

Such a waste, I thought.

So I searched the internet for a suitable recipe and found this - Spicy Lemongrass and Curry Leaf Tiger Prawns. I tried a slightly altered version last week and it turned out quite good.

I am also thinking about another way to use my curry leaves - with baked fries.

We quite like to bake fries at home since our "open kitchen concept" does not allow for deep frying... It's so easy and require little cleaning up.. Just bake frozen fries with a dash of olive oil and lemon juice, then season with freshly ground pepper and salt as required when done.

Recently, we went to Everything with Fries recently and I tried their curry fries, which has curry power and curry leaves in them.. Oh.. they were so fragrant! So I think I'm going to use those 2 on my baked fries instead of lemon juice next time.

I'd post pictures of the Curry Baked Fries once I try making them..

2 comments:

Petunia Lee said...

I love the fruits of the curry plant. If you put it in a big pot, it'll eventually flower and you can eat the berries. They're yummy!

Open Kitchen Concept said...

Oh! Curry berries.... I have to try them! Yumz...