Curry sauce for Ruth

Here's a dead simple recipe for a generic curry sauce that I use at home all the time. It's dedicated to my dear friend Ruth who complained that her curries always "go wrong". Hope you like it. And don't forget, if you've got a killer curry tip, do let me know! x

• 1 onion, diced
• 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 red chilli finely chopped
• 6 cloves of garlic, mashed into a purée
• A handful of curry leaves (Asian supermarkets usually stock fresh curry leaves)
• 1 tbsp black mustard seeds
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp cumin seeds, crushed
• 1tsp garam masala
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tsp tomato purée
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 400g tin of coconut milk

Heat some oil (or ghee) in a pan, add the mustard seeds and fry until they begin to pop.

Throw in the onion, ginger, garlic, chilli and curry leaves and fry slowly on a low heat until the onion is soft light brown in colour.

Add the spices — you could always substitute the spices I’m using with a ready-mixed curry powder of your choice — and continue to fry on a low heat for at least 30 minutes, the longer the. This is where a lot of people go wrong, you really need to ‘cook out’ the spices so that the natural oils are released. You’ll get a much deeper flavour, make sure you don’t allow the mixture to burn though!

Eventually you’ll be left with a paste. Add the tomato purée and cook and stir for a further five minutes. When the mixture ‘catches’ on the bottom of the pan, add the vinegar and with a wooden spoon, scrape or ‘deglaze’ the pan.

Add the can of tomatoes and continue to cook out until the mixture returns to a sloppy paste. Add the coconut milk, stir in,bring to the boil and reduce slightly.

Make sure the sauce is seasoned well and add more vinegar or lemon juice to add more zing if necessary, even a bit of sugar won’t go a miss. This is your base curry sauce to which you can add vegetables or meat of your choice. I like to fry off some aubergine and add a can of chickpeas but feel free to experiment.