CARRY AND RICECARRY AND RICECARRY AND RICECARRY AND RICE -makes four cups sauce

I like curry - but nice, mild curry. In Ceylon they used to cook specially for me. I

couldn’t eat the regular food, it was so hot. One day we were travelling and a friend said. ”Oh, they have lovely buns here.” She jumps from the car, goes and buys the lovely buns. There was curry inside, Gosh, it was hot! For hours I could feel that thing burning in my mouth. I don’t know how they can eat it.

We used to have on the menu chicken, beef, egg and kofta curry. They’re all the same idea: You take a nice portion of hot rice, you put your chicken, beef whatever you want on it, and you cover that with good curry sauce.

In London I used to get a curry powder called Venacatchukun, but any kind you can get in the supermarket will work fine, except that you will need to taste and see if the sauce is to your liking- not too mild and not too harsh – and remember next time you make it which kind you used and how much. Here is my sauce.

2 large onions, sliced 2 tbsp butter 2tbsp oil

3 cups water 2 tbsp curry powder

2 cooking apples, diced 1 lemon, diced 1 cup raisins

1 tsp dried mint leaves 1 tsp dried tarragon leaves

½ tsp salt ¼ tsp pepper

Brown the sliced onions in the butter and oil in a large sauté pan. Add a little

water to the curry powder to make a thin paste; add it to the onions and mix together. Gradually add the water, mixing constantly until it’s a thin sauce. Add all the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil and then lower heat to a very slow simmer. Cook until the lemon is soft.

This needs to cook at least thirty minutes, but it is much better if you can make it ahead of time. You can cook it slowly all day and it will just get better. The lemon peel especially needs to cook well. You can make it the day before, refrigerate it overnight, and warm it slowly the next day. It smells wonderful.