Cocinando Con Chef Steve – Coconut Curry

(Maravilla, waiting patiently for some curry)

I used to make ok curries. They were not excellent, but they were passable. When I came to Nicaragua, however, they moved down from being ok to being a chore to have to eat for days after making a huge pot of it. I got discouraged enough to stop trying for awhile – until my friend and fellow TEFL volunteer in Nueva Segovia Megan introduced me to the two secret ingredients in her curries: peanut butter, and, if it’s around, coconut milk. Suddenly, my curry went from something I didn’t even want to attempt again to positively exploding with deliciousness; I was totally looking forward to getting to make it again so I could blog it. Because this is only the second time I’ve made it this way, I’m still experimenting with it, but this is it in a nutshell!

Ingredients:

Veggies: green/red peppers, a big onion, a big carrot, a root vegetable (potato, malanga, or yuca), and ½ pound of tomatoes (mushrooms, broccoli, zucchini/squash, others optional, if available)

Spices: curry, cumin, ginger, garam masala, chili powder, cinnamon, black pepper, salt

Also: peanut butter, soy meat, one can of coconut milk, one can garbanzo beans, rice, olive oil.

Directions:

Make rice (as previously described here). Boil some water, and throw in your cubed and peeled root vegetable until the cubes get soft (you can toss the soy meat/garbanzo beans in this same water). While they’re cooking, stir-fry the rest of your veggies, starting with carrot and onion, then peppers/mushrooms, and finally root veggies, soy meat and tomatoes. When the pot consists of carrot, onion, and peppers, I generally throw in liberal doses of cumin, ginger, and black pepper with a dash of salt/chili powder, and substantially more curry than any of the other spices. Throw in a big scoop of peanut butter after you throw in the last big ingredients, and mix it in good.

The timing of when to throw in the coconut milk is something I cleared up in my cooking last night: if you throw in the coconut milk while the pot is still on the flame for very long, you will not taste it afterwards (it will still taste good, just not too coconutty). The way to do it is to substantially lower the heat before throwing it in, and then once you mix it in, quickly take the pot off the flame. Toss in some cinnamon at the end before serving over the rice.

Voilá! It comes out just like I like it: sweet and flavorful, but not too sweet, and with very little, but still a bit of heat from the black pepper/chili powder. I really don’t care for super-spicy food. If you do, you can always add red pepper flakes/chili peppers if you want your mouth to be on fire while you eat it.

Makes: about 8 servings.