It’s the night before holiday (Spain, and it was lovely thanks), there isn’t much left in the fridge except some slightly sad spinach, it certainly won’t last the week, and a store cupboard full of beans and pulses. I decided to adapt a curry we’d had before inspired by one my sister makes. What a success, it was a real delight - easy to make and truly, truly scrumptious. Our only sadness was that we wouldn’t get to enjoy leftovers tomorrow as we’d be in sunny Spain (honestly, I was quite sad about it).

The secret is in the raw lemon/ginger mixture that is added right at the end to make the dish quite unique. This is one that you have to stop yourself from having a third bowl - except that it has nothing but goodness in there and as cheap as chips to make so go ahead, eat your fill.

Ingredients
1 tin chick peas
1 tin chopped toms
1 medium onion
1 bag spinach (250-300g)
1 green chilli
1 thumb of ginger
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon garam masala
1/2 lemon

1 Weight out coriander, turmeric and cumin together and garam masala and cayenne together, chop the onion, chilli and ginger finely
2 Put 1/3 of the onion, all the chilli, ginger, juice from the lemon and half the salt into a bowl, set aside
3 Heat some flavourless oil (a decent 15-20cm pool) and fry the rest of the onions gently
4 When they start to turn brown (10 mins) add the tomatoes and coriander, turmeric and cumin
5 Cook for 5 mins then add the drained chickpeas, the rest of the salt and the last of the spices (garam and cayenne)
6 Simmer very gently, lid off, for 20 minutes - you can put the rice on about now too - in the last few minutes add the spinach and cover to wilt
7 Lastly stir in the ginger, lemon mixture, mix well and serve with rice, a roti (or other bread) and lime pickle