Vegan curries with real flavour, not just heat

The "vegan curry" search result is mostly the same recipe with different vegetables - a can of coconut milk, a spoon of curry paste, whatever's in the crisper. The ones below are slower, more layered, and worth the extra ten minutes. Curry is a category where shortcuts always show up on the plate.

Bloom your spices in fat. Whole cumin, mustard seeds, a stick of cinnamon - heated in oil until fragrant, before any liquid hits the pan. The flavour difference between bloomed and dumped-in spices is enormous, and it's the single technique that separates a take-out-tasting curry from one you'd pay for.

Coconut milk quality matters more than people give it credit for. The cheap cans are mostly water with a thin layer of fat on top. The good ones - Aroy-D, Chaokoh, anything from a south-east Asian grocer - are creamy through and through and turn the curry from soupy to luxurious. The two-pound difference shows up on every spoonful.

Acid at the end pulls a curry from heavy to balanced. A squeeze of lime, a spoon of yoghurt, a splash of vinegar. Without it, even a well-seasoned curry can read flat and one-note; with it, the same dish reads bright. This is the move most home recipes skip.

The five vegan curries here are the ones we cook when curry is the actual goal - not just a vehicle for whatever's in the fridge. They sit happily in the fridge for three days, gain flavour overnight, and reheat better than they were on day one.