Beetroot and spice

As you will have noted from my earlier post, I'm slowly working my way through a couple of bags of homegrown veg and have been trawling the internet for some more imaginative ways to use up this generous gift. Faced with a huge bunch of beetroot and particularly gruesome wintery weather, I needed something warm and filling for a cold and damp Saturday evening. There is such a huge wealth of information out there, with many interesting sounding recipes that I have made a note of and will come back to later in the year but to fit in with our normal 'curry night' I opted for a sweet and sour beetroot and mutton curry from Kulsum Kunwa on her site Journey Kitchen.

This is a slow cooked curry so makes very good use of cheaper cuts of lamb or mutton. I used chioggia beetroot, the candy striped Italian variety, so the resulting curry does not become a glorious deep pink but a more mellow yellow but the sweetness provided by the root is the same. The tamarind is very important, providing some sour balance and there was more than enough for a further two meals (now safely stored in the freezer). I paired this with my usual moong dhal and some brown rice. A truly exceptional curry, especially for those of you with a homegrown glut to clear!

Whilst we may not be getting the deep freeze that is currently affecting America and Canada, we are experiencing some pretty stormy weather in the UK at the moment and it appears that one Thrift Street resident has got so frustrated with the continual damp that he's gone into hibernation.