I wanted to try my homemade seitan and I had some Kashmiri Masala Curry paste, so I ended up cooking this rather tasty curry.

Ingredients
200-300g of (Marinated) Seitan
1 Small Aubergine
1 Small Cauliflower
1 Yellow Onion
Strips of Fresh Ginger (according to taste)
2-4 Tablespoons of Kashmiri Masala Curry Paste
1 Jar of Tomato Passata (500g)

Seitan, Aubergine & Cauliflower Curry

Enough for four meals. I’m lazy — I know how to cook curry from scratch, but it’s much quicker with some curry paste. I like the ones by Patak’s, most of which are vegan. I used a lot of their ready-made sauces when I lived in the UK. The sauces are not so readily available in Finland, but many ethnic stores here do stock their curry pastes, chutneys, and pickles (I also quite like the hot mango chutney and the hot lime pickle). Anyway, you could of course do the curry from scratch, if you have the necessary spices, or you could use a different curry paste. I recommend a medium or hot one though, it goes nicely with the seitan.

I used some previously prepared seitan, which I marinated overnight in about 1 tablespoon of the same curry paste. This is not necessary, but it gives the seitan a stronger flavour. You could do this with (firm) tofu or just use some chickpeas or beans instead, but I have a lot of seitan now so I wanted to use it. The seitan is also nice and ‘meaty’ in the curry, mimicking beef curry (not that I’ve ever had one!).

Cooking
Time required: ~45min (if using prepared seitan)
-Chop the aubergine into fairly thin slices. No need to peel.
-You can salt the aubergine to remove bitterness, but that shouldn’t be necessary anymore (modern varieties aren’t that bitter). If salting, sprinkle salt evenly over the cut surfaces and leave for about 30 minutes. Rinse the slices under cold running water and pat dry with kitchen towel before cooking.
-Heat some oil in a pan.
-Chop the onion and fry on its own until golden.
-Chop the ginger into some matchstick strips and add to the pan.
-Add the curry paste and maybe a splash of water, mix in.
-Add the seitan.
-I recommend using a different pan for the aubergine slices, since you want to fry them a little bit on both sides; you can do this while the onions are cooking. Transfer to the main pan when the slices are a little bit brown on both sides. They take in a lot of oil, so use sparingly.
-Add sliced cauliflower.
-Mix everything together and let fry for some 5min.
-Add the tomato passata and simmer on low heat under a cover for 10-20min, or until the aubergine is fully cooked — it should be soft and juicy.

Serve with rice (I use whole grain), and some salad if you like. Could also serve with poppadoms or vegan naan, but I didn’t have either handy.

I’m into my curries and cook them quite regularly, both Indian and Thai. It’s a pity that many Indian/Nepalese restaurants use ghee or other dairy in virtually all of their dishes, as I used to frequent them. However, I have come across a few Indian restaurants (notably in the US) that are vegan friendly. In any case, it’s perfectly easy to cook a vegan curry at home, and that’s the way I’ve been doing it for years and years.