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Quick Curries this Winter
A curry is a great winter meal that can be packed full of a variety of vegetables and lean meats. It can be eaten as a main meal on their own, or accompanied with rice, pappadums or naan bread. As delicious as this may sound, you would expect such a meal would contain a large amount of kilojoules and fat, and take a long time to prepare. This article will discuss how to make a simple low kilojoule, low fat curry in 30 minutes or less.
Save Time and Money
Making a curry from scratch involves a number of ingredients and can take hours. There are now a number of curry recipe bases available in the supermarket that require the addition of only few ingredients such as lean meats, vegetables, coconut milk or yoghurt. Many well known brands have curry base options. The following are our best picks based on nutrition, natural ingredients and authentic curry taste.
Passage Foods is a brand that has a whole section dedicated to curries, called Passage to India. There are nine Indian curries to choose from including Mango Chicken, Vindaloo, Rogan Josh and a Madras. They can be prepared in approximately 30mins, and require adding meat, vegetables and in some cases a coconut milk or yoghurt. Passage foods pride themselves on containing all natural ingredients, using no artificial colours or flavours.
Patak’s is another good brand offering simple curry sauces that require the addition of meat and vegetables. There are eight curry sauces to choose from. Patak’s also offer a variety of curry pastes, however these are often much higher in fat and will require additional ingredients. Patak’s have a informative website with a number of curry recipes, guides to spices and regional curries of India and nutrition information on all their products.
If it is a Thai or Malaysian curry you prefer, there are a number of less known brands that offer green, yellow or red curry pastes or Rendang, Massaman or Penang curries. Authentic Thai and Malaysian brands such as Asian Home Gourmet, Ayam and Valcom have a wide variety of these curry pastes that require the addition of meat, vegetables and coconut milk.
Save on Fat and Saturated Fat
When choosing a curry sauce or paste you are likely to notice that many of them have quite a high fat content. This is because the sauces and pastes contain high fat ingredients such as oils, nuts, coconut milk and cream. On closer look the total fat content appears high but in many cases the saturated fat is quite low. As mentioned, the fat content of curry often comes from the addition of oil and nuts. If unsaturated oils are used, this will make the curry sauce/paste low in unhealthy saturated fat. To keep the total fat content low, choose curry sauces/pastes that do not require the addition of ingredients such as coconut milk or cream. Examples include Passage Foods Mango Chicken Curry or Patak’s Balti Curry. If you do want to try a curry using coconut milk or cream, choose a lower fat alternative such as Carnation Light and Creamy Coconut Milk or a low fat natural Greek yoghurt. They work just as well in cooking and taste just as great.
Save on Kilojoules/Calories
If you are looking to keep your kilojoule/calorie intake down, a curry is still a great meal choice as it can easily be eaten on its own, without the addition of high kilojoule/calorie accompaniments. Curries do not need to be served with rice, pappadums or naan every time. Load them up with an appropriate lean meat portion and stacks of vegetables and the curry can be a meal in itself. Any vegetable can be used in a curry, just suit the vegetable to the curry sauce/paste as follows;Indian curries – cabbage, capsicum, carrot, cauliflower, green beans, mushrooms, onion, squash, tomato, zucchiniThai/Malaysian curries – baby corn, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, bok choy, broccoli, capsicum, carrot, cauliflower, green beans, mushrooms, onion, red cabbage, snow peas, water chestnuts.
If you just have to have something on the side, choose wisely.Rice and naan are high in kilojoules and many pappadums are high in fat. Sharwood’s make microwavable pappadums that are very low in kilojoules and fat. Add a few of these to a curry dish and increase the hands on fun!
Try This!
The following is one of our top picks for a simple, low kilojoule and low fat curry to serve four people
Mango Chicken Curry
1 teaspoon sunflower/olive oil
600g raw skinless chicken breast, diced
8 halved cauliflower flowerets
1 sliced zucchini (150grams)
1diced red capsicum (150grams)
8 sliced mushrooms (70grams)
20 sliced green beans (70grams)
1 x 375g pack Passage Foods Mango Chicken Curry
16 Sharwood’s Mini Microwave Pappadums
Heat oil in a pan or wok and add chicken meat
Cook until just browned
Add all vegetables and cook for approximately 5 mins, or until start to soften
Add Mango Chicken curry sauce and mix well
Cover with a lid to simmer for approximately 10mins, or until chicken is cooked and vegetables have softened
Heat pappadums in microwave for 45 seconds prior to serving
Nutrition Information per serve – Serves 4
Calories - 375
Kilojoules - 1568
Protein – 41.9g
Fat – 11.4g
Saturated Fat – 2.6g
Carbohydrate – 22g
Fibre – 2.2g
Visit the Passage Foods website for more great curry sauce ideas
http://www.passagefoods.com.au/global/indian/mango-chicken/
Added to site on : Monday, 29 July 2013