Curry favour with the kids
IT’S NEVER EASY GETTING CHILDREN INTERESTED IN MEALS BUT MASTERCHEF’S DANI VENN KNOWS HOW TO SPICE IT UP — OR DOWN
IT WAS mind blowing for Dani Venn to return to the MasterChef kitchen for this year’s Back to Win season. For viewers, seeing all the familiar faces return was like a big warm hug — a comfort in these uncertain times.
Another form of comfort is food, and one of the most comforting meals for the family is curry. They’re certainly a favourite of Venn’s to whip up for her young family.
“In Australia a lot of parents shy away from giving their children too much spices, herbs and chilli,” Venn says. “It can be quite daunting to introduce those things to kids. I’m of the belief that it is great to introduce lots of different tastes from a really young age. Even if it’s something they pick off their plate — like fresh herbs — it helps them get used to the idea of different tastes.”
Experts suggest it can take 10-15 times of offering new foods to kids before they will embrace it.
“With my kids, I’ll serve something to them one day and they are like ‘no, no way’ and then other days they will eat it,” Venn says.
Her son Oscar, 2, is “like a human garbage disposal unit”. He doesn’t turn up his nose to many foods whereas five-year-old daughter Harlow embraces the more plaineating territory — happy with just butter on a wrap or plain pasta. Venn is constantly racking her brains on how to mix things up and introduce a few more colours, textures and flavours to Harlow’s diet.
She suggests starting young children with the more subtle flavours of a massaman or yellow curry and its turmeric colouring.
Venn’s Sri Lankan pineapple curry — which blew away notoriously cranky Michelin-starred chef Gordon Ramsay and earned her the season’s only immunity pin — is another family-friendly choice.
Venn shared the pineapple curry recipe online after the episode and has since turned it into a simmer sauce, now sold at Coles. She’s got another two sauces to be released later this month. “I was just in Coles picking up some ingredients and I was walking past the international aisle having a quiet look on the shelf. And there it was — it was kind of weird. A real pinch-me moment.”
While the 34-year-old loves creating pastes and spice blends from scratch, she’s a big believer in balance.
“There are some really awesome products out there to speed up the process,” Venn says. “It’s really rewarding when you do have a bit of time — which in lockdown a lot of us do — to make something like a paste from scratch. And I love making things from scratch but it can just take you so long. And when it’s witching hour and the kids are playing up, it’s so much easier to open a jar.”
Another beauty of curries is you can tailor the taste. So for kids you can reduce the heat by adding coconut cream or milk. Or make it sweeter by adding coconut sugar.
You can dial it up it for the adults. “Ever since having kids, I haven’t put a lot of chilli into what I’m cooking,” Venn says. “I always do it as more of an afterthought. I’ll use dried chilli, chilli flakes, freshly chopped chilli or even just chilli oil to finish my own serving.”
And while she’s suggested beef and prawns for her recipes, you can use anything you have on hand.
“I’m getting people sending me pictures of them making my pineapple curry with their own twists — using a heap of green veg, or cashew and tofu, prawns and white fish,” Venn says. “Even just straight out the jar as a condiment it’s really yum.”
And as for the sides, the sky’s the limit. It doesn’t have to be plain old white rice. Think quinoa, cauliflower rice or even the more nutritious, nutty brown rice.
“Or try with pappadums, roti bread or sambals — what’s cool is you can really make it your own.”