Curry Cascade

Curry is its best when you have lots of different dishes - I usually try to have at least the main curry, two sides, and perfect rice:

And even better, several different curries, several different sides. BUT if you try to do all that at once, you end up with insanely complicated prep arrangements like this:

And your stove looks like this:

And your kitchen looks like this:

If you want to spend the entire day chopping, cooking, and washing up after yourself (and sometimes I do), making a curry fest is an excellent way to do that. But you can equally have a complete curry fest every time you have curry, and only ever make one dish and the rice - with the magical curry cascade!

The Magical Curry Cascade!

	Cook	Madras	Aloo Gajjar	Sag	Dahl	Jalfrezi
Total quantity		1,500 ml	1,500 ml	800 ml	2,500 ml	1,250 ml
Meal 1	Madras	500 ml
Meal 2	Aloo gajjar	250 ml	250 ml
Meal 3	Sag	250 ml	250 ml	400 ml
Meal 4	Dahl	250 ml	250 ml	400 ml	250 ml
Meal 5	Jalfrezi	250 ml	250 ml		250 ml	250 ml
Meal 6	Sag		250 ml	400 ml	250 ml	250 ml
Meal 7	Madras	500 ml	250 ml	400 ml	250 ml	250 ml
Meal 8	Aloo gajjar and sag	250 ml	250 ml	400 ml	250 ml	250 ml
Meal 9	-	250 ml	250 ml	400 ml	250 ml	250 ml
		250 ml	250 ml		250 ml
		250 ml	250 ml		250 ml
			250 ml		250 ml
			250 ml		250 ml

Principle:

• make 1 dish + rice each time
• freeze 125ml per person (250ml for two) except for sag paneer
• serve 3-4 dishes each meal, + rice

Note: you'll need at least 14 250ml tupperwares for this - which is why it's so handy to buy the little cheap ones! You'll also need a freezer or icebox - you can actually get 14 little tupperwares in an icebox, because they stack so well. So here's the meal plan (I'm assuming these aren't subsequent meals, otherwise you'd get sick of even the finest curry). This is based on two people, adjust yours to your household. 250ml of each dish doesn't look like enough for two, but trust me, it easily is. I'll whisk through the first five meals...

Meal 1

• Make  1.5l Madras, rice, and a quickety side-dish of chopped tomato, cucumber, and onion (aka kachumber). 
• Eat 500ml of the Madras (250ml each, larger quantities because there are few sides).
• Freeze 4 x 250 ml Madras.

Meal 2

• Defrost 250ml Madras
• Make 1.5l Aloo gajiar + rice. Maybe more chopped tomato, cucumber, onion (aka kachumber).
• Eat Madras, 250ml Aloo gajjar, + rice
• Freeze 5x250ml Aloo gajjar

Meal 3

• Defrost 250ml Madras, 250ml Aloo gajjar
• Make 800ml Sag paneer + rice
• Eat Madras, Aloo gajjar, half the Sag paneer, + rice
• Freeze 1x400ml Sag paneer

Meal 4

• Defrost 250ml Madras, 250ml Aloo gajjar, 400ml Sag paneer
• Make 2.5l Dahl + rice
• Eat Madras, Aloo gajjar, Sag paneer, 250ml dahl + rice
• Freeze 9x250ml Dahl

Meal 5

• Defrost 250ml Madras, 250ml Aloo gajjar
• Make 1.25l Jalfrezi sauce
• Eat Madras, Aloo gajjar, dahl, 250ml jalfrezi with prawns/chicken, + rice
• Freeze 4x250ml Jalfrezi

... and so on. Obviously you can mix it up however you want and I tend to make fresh sag or sag paneer most times, but occasionally I'll freeze some sag paneer for another time. The freezer's constantly stuffed with little curries and anytime you feel like curry, you only need to make one dish, if that.

To reheat the defrosted curry, put the oven on a low heat (about 120-140 degrees), put them all in pretty little bowls, and for added Clever, put the bowls on an oven tray so they're not all precariously balanced on the wires. (It's also easier to take them all out without burning yourself, that way.) They'll heat through in about half an hour.

This is actually post-curry fest leftovers, so that's palak paneer, prawn jalfrezi, remnants of aloo gajjar mixed with a scraping of madras sauce, a moong dahl, and rice.

And then you can cook one dish or just rice and eat like this:

The curry recipes will follow in due course - several of them are from The Balti Bible, so tempting as it is to overshare the entire book, I'll restrict myself to just a few, and strongly recommend that you buy the book. (Ingredients aren't copyright, just the wording of the method is, but still, it's the principle of the thing. It's a great book and if you like curry you should buy it. Or tell someone; it's almost Christmas after all!) [UPDATE: The essential recipes are up!]