Monday, July 6, 2009

Hello impromptu curry!



Today at cooking camp, the kids were supposed to learn how to make tofu from scratch, but our tofu man never showed up. We had to come up with something to keep the campers cooking, entertained, and engaged. And we had to come up with this something quick!

Looking through the cupboards, we saw potatoes and left over veggies (bell peppers, celery, bok choy, green onion). We had some coconut milk and garbanzo beans on hand. Hello impromptu curry!!

This was a perfect way to get the campers chopping an assortment of colorful vegetables. Plus, they were able to exercise their creativity as they threw in a little of this and a pinch of that. If it looked good, smelled good, and tasted good, it went into this curry! This required no formal recipe—just an imagination and a hearty appetite.

We cooked up some rice and made a salad to go along with the curry dish. We washed our rice before cooking it and saved some of the milky rice water to add back into the curry!



Impromptu Curry
Ingredients:

Onion, chopped or sliced thinly (whatever you prefer)

Garlic, minced

Roughly chopped vegetable assortment: potatoes (yams and sweet potatoes are great, too!), bell peppers, bok choy, celery, cauliflower, eggplant...

Tomato sauce or diced tomatoes in puree

Garbanzo beans (kidney beans would be good, too)

Spice mixture: tumeric, curry powder, cumin, cloves, cayenne, cinnamon sticks, bay leaves

Coconut milk

Water (you can use the water you used to wash rice)

Lime zest and juice

Cilantro or other fresh herb of choice

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Sautee the onions and spices until the onions start to soften (about 5-8 minutes).
2. Stir and add the peppers and other veggies.
3. Stir and add the potatoes.
4. Add the tomato sauce, beans, and coconut milk.
5. Add water if it gets too thick. Just eyeball it, no need for exact measurements.
6. Let everything simmer for a while until the potatoes are tender (may take about 20 minutes).
7. Taste and add some lime juice, zest, and cilantro.
8. Remove bay leaves and cinnamon sticks.
9. Enjoy over rice or with naan bread!

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