Butternut squash cooked with poppadoms for texture, and a black chickpea and mango curry topped with bombay mix

Curry: one word, big subject! The word derives from kari, the Tamil word for “sauce”, which clearly covers a lot of ground (for those interested to know more, Sejal Sukhadwala’s The Philosophy of Curry is a slim but brilliant read), but, for all my love of the sauce element of a curry, it’s also the need for something with crunch to go with it, both for balance and to add some textural contrast, that keeps me coming back for more. That’s why today’s two recipes are as much about the crunchy toppings and fillings, from poppadoms to potato sticks, as they are about the gravy.