Sweet potato, green bean and coconut curry

 I'm not sure if my spice tolerance has gone down over the years or if I've just come to my senses and realised that too much chilli gets in the way of other flavours. Whatever the reason, I use far less chilli in my own cooking and studiously avoid anything excessively spicy when eating out. This is a very simple mild curry that can be prepared from beginning to end in about 30 minutes.

Ingredients

1 onion
500g sweet potato
200g green beans
2 tbsps vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp minced ginger
mild curry powder
1/2 tsp salt
400 ml coconut milk

juice of 1 lemon
small bunch of fresh coriander

Method

1. Peel and chop the onion. Peel the sweet potato and cut into small chunks. Top and tail the green beans and cut into 3 cm lengths.
2. Gently fry the onion in the vegetable oil until it is translucent.
3. Add the finely chopped garlic and minced ginger and fry for another minute or so.
4. Add the curry powder and salt, fry for another 30 seconds.
5. Add the sweet potato and the coconut milk, and simmer gently until the potato is almost done (about 15 minutes).
6. Add the green beans and cook for another 5 minutes, until they are done.
7. Add the lemon juice and chopped coriander, mix and serve.

Curry powder

Lots of recipes call for huge numbers of individual ground spices - and even roasting and grinding spices from scratch. It's the kind of detail that can turn preparing a simple dish into an unappealing chore. It's often quicker and easier simply to use a ready-made spice mix and it may be better, too: using spice mixes means you can cook with a far wider range of spices, and your spices will probably be fresher too.