Today's lunch was leftover sweet potato and chickpea curry.
So, curry. Ah curry. Curry and me. Me and curry.
Pomegranate curry does not yet exist (but it's going to happen. Just you wait, 'ungry vegans! (...meant to rhyme with Henry Higgins...yeah, ok, lame, I know)). The name of the blog stems from a combination of Pomegranate BBQ Tofu - the recipe almost singlehandedly responsible for drawing me into vegan cooking - and curry, my Achilles' heel. And the great curry I will invent by combining the two. Anyway.
Curry has been a little like a myth in cooking-land for me. I've heard people swear that it's soooo easy and they eat it everrrry day and blah blah blah. This has not been my experience. My experience has involved getting jalapeno juice in my eye, faulty tofu preparation, two hours of cooking when I expected about half of one, cutting my fingers while zesting a lime, a generally soupy consistency rather than stewlike...in short, nothing like the thick creamy veggie crammed goodness I had hoped for.
This curry ended up cooking too long (that's what I get for making a big batch of chili at the same time) and I didn't have jalapenos on hand the night that I made it, but it was pretty good despite that, and, of course, excellent reheated.
For the base, I used peanut oil, yellow onion, garlic, fresh ginger, curry powder, and coconut milk. Veggies were sweet potato, chickpeas, tomato, and broccoli. I added the tomato and broccoli (after blanching the broccoli for about 4-5 minutes) just long enough to heat through.
Today, I added some fresh jalapeno, some hot sauce, and topped with a bit of fresh cilantro. The jalapeno and hot sauce definitely gave it the kick I was looking for! The consistency is still not as thick as I would like - even after thickening in the fridge - but that may be partly due to using lite coconut milk. I'll have to experiment. The cilantro was piquant, but I will probably not top with it regularly, as the flavor distracted from the curry, rather than complementing it. Also, carrots would make a great addition....
Anyhow, I am progressing in my study of curries. Please let me know if you have any tips!
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My friends made a lot of curry starting when I was living with them in Shippensburg and they (now married) have gotten pretty good at it. It's all about the base/paste that is used. You may consider it cheating (and, well, it probably is) but going online or to a very well-stocked ethnic grocer and getting a good curry paste will make your curry virtually fool proof (though I have screwed it up... the less said the better.) Now, I am not talking about the premade curry spices that you can find anywhere, I'm talking about the stuff that really doesn't have any English on the label and the instructions are more guessing game and luck than anything else. They blow anything mainstream out of the water. My friends once brought back a few jars from curry-mad London that they bought at a family owned grocer that is still the best I've had outside of a high end Indian restaurant. But you can always search online and steal the ingredients off the can of premade stuff for ideas. That works well, too.
ReplyDeleteBut, that being said, if you go the "from scratch" route, I would highly recommend crazy amounts of experimentation. It's curry. It should be an adventure, ya know? Personally, I think that most people go a bit too crazy with the coconut milk. Also, you may be right about the lite coconut milk not being the best for curry. Curry tastes good because it has greasy and/or fatty elements to it that we crave. Coconut milk is extremely high in delicious calories and through the roof in even more delicious saturated fat. The fat helps in taste and in cooking the other ingredients. The mixture of oil and coconut milk (aka, pure fat that tastes sweet) almost fry the ingredients, especially in meat curries.
I'll email my friends and ask them for some real tips, rather than the above which is just what little insight that I have stumbled upon in the dark.