Basic Potato Vegetable Curry

Harvest Moon and Rune Factory Cookbooks display incredible enthusiasm for Curries. As a child, I lived in a country where I learned to make Curries. I therefore will include my own basic recipe for Curry here. As Harvest Moon and Rune Factory ordinarily do not include meat as an ingredient, this will be a simple vegetarian Curry from the far north, near Mount Everest.

Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic (or more if desired)
Butter or Oil

Spices:
Cumin, Cardamon, Coriander, Mustard seeds/powder, Cinnamon, Clove and Curry Powder (masala)
Optional: dried red chilis

Vegetables
Potatoes, diced
Cauliflower, cut or broken into small florets
Optional: Carrots, Green Peas
Salt and pepper to taste

There are two ways to use the spices. One traditional method is to grind all the spices with the garlic using a mortar and pestle until you create a paste. The chilis often are included here. The other method is to simply add the spices to your oil/butter and onion while frying it. The basic spices are Cumin, Coriander and Mustard Powder as well as some form of Curry Powder (which usually contains these spices as well as Tumeric). Cinnamon, Cardamon and Cloves add a sweet flavour to the curry.

Fry the onion (and garlic) over medium heat in butter or oil until transparent. then add spices or curry paste. After a few moments, add the vegetables and fry these for about five minutes, until coated with the butter/oil and spices. If you use curry powder or tumeric as well, the vegetables will turn yellow. Add water, salt and pepper and reduce the heat, then simmer until the vegetables are tender.

Serve the Vegetable Curry with Boiled or Steamed Rice.

'Curry' is fairly generic and can vary wildly both in ingredients and flavour. I next will post a Japanese Recipe for Curry.