I went out for a curry last Friday, and was pleased to find that there were a lot of vegan choices. Sadly, as I excepted, the mint dipping sauce for the poppadums was (as is traditional) based on yoghurt.

Tonight we were finishing off a coconut and green bean curry from the freezer, so I thought I would try and make some raita to go with the onion bhajis and toasted pitta bread.

I started with cashew cream as a base; a recipe I found in the No Meat Athlete Cookbook. The cashew cream is basically cashews, water, lemon juice and salt whizzed-up in a blender.

I had made some a few days ago, so I took this and added a squeeze more lemon juice, and then a bit of dried mint, onion granules and garlic granules.

It tasted amazing! Very similar to the same stuff that is served with poppadums. I didn’t have that bright yellow colour, so I added a bit of turmeric and a shake of black pepper. It didn’t end up very yellow because I didn’t want the turmeric to dominate the flavour, there was just enough to enhance it a bit.

Very pleased with this little experiment, it turned this meal from reheated leftovers into something which felt a bit special. I’ll be making this one again!