I was starting to get a little worried about keeping up with the Virtual Vegan Potluck (the brainchild of the wonderful Ann, a fellow blogger with a site “An Unrefined Vegan”. Brilliant idea!). When was I going to have time to whip up a new vegan recipe? And one that isn’t full of gluten, which I’m trying to avoid right now, plus one that The Husband was going to like. He’s not that fussy, but there are a few ingredients I need to work around.
And then I happened to make a mushroom risotto and a curry two nights in a row, both vegan, both delicious—well, that’s the opinion of yours truly and The Husband. I can’t vouch for anyone else’s tastebuds!
I’ve decided to post the curry because frankly, I’m a little obsessed. I’d probably eat just about anything if it was curried. My 11 years in London got me well and truly addicted to those spices and flavors that make up “curry”. I get a little annoyed—okay, A LOT annoyed—with people who say they “don’t like curry”. It’s like saying “I don’t like Mexican food.” No, not even that. Curry can mean so very many things—the Japanese, the Thai, the
Getting all the ingredients prepped and ready to go.
South Africans, the Caribbeans all have curry dishes, and many taste wildly different from the others. So tell me you don’t like Brussels sprouts, but don’t tell me you don’t like curry until you’ve tried all different kinds. Even in my India cookbook there’s 1,000 recipes. So there.
All right, so enough beating up my audience! Let’s get down to brass tacks. This curry, believe it or not, was inspired by Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives with the ever irritating Guy Fieri. He showed a woman from Trinidad in Milwaukee cooking up this amazing potato and chickpea curry. It was vegan, and you could tell that GF honestly liked it. I knew my mouth was watering, but I had to get around the chickpeas. The Husband does not like chickpeas unless they are transformed into hummus, in which case he’ll eat it all. Go figure.
Edamame, straight from the bag. I was going to use fresh peas, but the ones I found at Whole Foods looked old.
I thought I’d try edamame, which worked quite well, but I think next time I’ll try a white bean like cannellini or navy. They did add a nice color to the dish, for sure. I also threw in some mushrooms just because they were in the fridge, and I’m glad I did. This recipe is inspired by one from a website called the Caribbean Pot, but it’s different. I couldn’t help changing it up, and I couldn’t find habaneros. And Triple D only posted Marla’s oxtail recipe, not the curry recipe.
Next time, I will try making my own madras curry powder, but this time I just used a pretty standard yellow curry powder I found at Nina’s Grocery. This recipe seems infinitely changeable as long as you get the sauce right. I’m adding a little more water to the recipe than I made it with, as it came out pretty dry, and we like our curries saucy!
Tiny Kitchen Stories’ Caribbean Curry
Chiles and spices and cilantro—oh my!
1 cup shelled edamame (or 1 can of drained chickpeas)
6 small Yukon Gold potatoes, in 1-inch cubes (or 2 large ones)
1 small brown onion, sliced
1 chopped whole serrano chile (seeds and all!)*
3 cloves minced garlic
3/4 cup cremini mushrooms, halved if large
2 Tbs curry powder
1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground
4 Tbs chopped cilantro
3 cups water
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Coconut oil
Get all your ingredients prepped before starting, as it makes it a lot easier as it gets going. Put the curry powder and the cumin into a small bowl and add two tablespoons of water. Stir to make a paste.
Cooking down the curry. Apparently, it tastes better this way, and I’m not going to argue.
Heat two tablespoons of coconut oil over medium-high heat in a large pot or high-sided frying pan, one that has a lid. Add the curry paste and stir; let it cook for about two minutes. Once those wonderful aromas really permeate the house, add the onions, cilantro, chiles and garlic and keep stirring for about four minutes. Add another four tablespoons of water during this time to make sure it didn’t burn.
Once the onions are nice and soft, add the potatoes and stir well, making sure they’re all coated. Add the edamame and stir well. Add the 3 cups of water, bring to the boil then turn down to simmer. Cook for 10 minutes and add the mushrooms.
By about 25-30 minutes, the sauce should have started to thicken a bit. I took the Caribbean Pot’s advice and broke up a few potato pieces to give a little more body to the sauce.
Served with basmati rice and naan, it’s a lovely, warming, but not-too-heavy meal.
Serve with naan bread and basmati rice with a little Earth Balance stirred in at the end for flavor. This is one curry you don’t need pilau rice with!
* Please adjust according to taste. This was probably a 6 out of 10 on spice.
And now for more Virtual Vegan Potluck! Use these buttons to continue “sampling” the other dishes on the virtual potluck table, and enjoy!
This is a virtual potluck, so please click to see who was in the chain before me: It’s the Vegan Kat!
Go forward and see what main course the Toxic Vegan has whipped up!
