Tag: curry

Cauliflower

How do you like your cauliflower? For me it’s raw, steamed, boiled, grilled, in gratin, in soup, in purée, with olive oil, with butter, with lemon juice, with just a pinch of salt… yes, you’ve got it. We love cauliflower at home, as well as his friends broccoli and romanesco and it is just the pick season for these versatile and easy to cook vegetables in Chiba. So I’ve got some beautiful ones at the farmers market, youpi!!! The question was what will I do with them, how could I cook them? Because I came back from work very late and it was very cold I wanted a very quick solution so I decided to cook (steam and grill) them with spices.

 Spicy romanesco and cauliflower:

I wash and cut the romanesco and the cauliflower and put them in a pan and I grilled them at high heat then I add 1mm of water. Add a tsp of curcuma powder, 1tsp of curry powder, 1tsp of cardamom powder, salt and black pepper. Serve and eat while hot! 

Curry-quinoa

Here is again a recipe based on quinoa. Because it cooks rather quickly, quinoa is always a good option when running short of time and a good alternative to rice and pasta. Since I discovered this quinoa soup recipe last year in my vegetarian cookbook I have found new ideas to use quinoa rather than simply boiling it. I also find that it goes very very well with lotus roots. This time I prepared it in a spicy version. Simple, warm and tasty.

Vegan curry-quinoa: 

– 100g of quinoa (adjust depending on the size of your portions, mine are usually not big)

– 1 large lotus root or 2 or 3 small ones

– 1 large sato imo or if not available 1 potato

– 1 large carrot

– 2 tomatoes

– 1tbs of curry powder

– a pinch of nutmeg

– a pinch of cardamom

– a pinch of salt and pepper

optional: fresh lemon and fresh ginger

In a large pan set the quinoa, cover with water with about 1cm more water. Start cooking. Peel the carrot, the lotus root, the sato imo, cut in the shape/size you like and add to the quinoa. Add salt. Add the spices and the fresh ginger. Then add the tomatoes. By then the water should have almost disappeared. Check with a tooth pick for the sato imo (or potato) if cooked. Serve immediately with the juice of the lemon. Have a beautiful week!

Vegan light curry

Nature has not plan for us to eat alone! Most of the fruits and vegetables are so large that if you want to it several sorts you need to be more than one person or you need to eat the same food over and over! I don’t even mention how we humans have even forced that tendency with packaging by almost only offering the option to buy food in buddles.  Luckily, in Japan this bundle sale is less common and it is possible to buy one apple, one carrot, one kiwi or 3 slices of bread! Yet cooking when you are alone snd want to eat several types of veggies is not simple, and A. is not back before tomorrow night… 

Last night I was really tired after the intense time at work, so I prepared myself some vegan curry with a can of chickpeas , carrots, eggplants, sweetpotatoes and anise seeds. Of course to keep a good bslance with the amount of chickpeas I had to add 2 carrots, 1 sweet potato and 5 tiny eggplants all cooked in coconut oil. And so I made a lot more than I could eat… And it’s goung to be lunch for two today for me and my friend D. who is still visiting my lab.

Vegan curry pasta

While curry rice is an institution it in Japan, I decided to try an other combination, of course with a slightly different recipe, and was very much surprised with the way it ended. As the title saus, it’s curry pasta. For two not too big servings I used 3 tomatoes, 4 okras and 1 carrots, a bit of olive oil, 1 tsp of curry powder and salt and pepper. It’s really simple. Boil some big pasta: penne or whatever you like. In a heated and greased pan I put the tomato cut in pieces, cook at high heat for 2min than at low heat. I add the carrot sliced, the salt pepper and curry and cook under cover until the carrots are almost done. Add the okras, remove the cover, cook until the moisture is almost gone. Serve with the pasta. The taste of curry must be subtle and should not hide the sweetnes of the tomatoes and carrots.

Vegan coconut milk curry

Yes I know, the picture is not the most pleasant, but really taking pictures of risotto and curry is not an easy task! But both are super delicious! Since yesterday I had this recipe in mind and just tried it: perfect for our palates that don’t like spicy-hot food. It starts with simple brown rice, cooked as you like. Then I used 1 yellow zucchini, a handfull of shelled cooked edamame, fresh coriander plenty, a small bulb of fresh ginger, 4tbs of coconut milk, 1tsp of curry powder, salt, a bit of oil. In a pan I heat the oil and add the zucchini cut in chuncks (suze and shape you like), cook at high heat, when it starts to golden on one size I stir and reduce the heat. Add the coconut milk, the ginger gratted, the salt and the curry powder. Stir well, add the edamame. If the mixture is getting to liquid (water in the zucchini) add a table spoon of flour or starch and cook a little longer while stirring. Remove from heat and add the fresh coriander chopped, serve with the rice. Have a nice weekend!

Yellow everything

Sometimes things are just like that: in the fridge there is a yellow zucchini a yellow capsicum, new carrots and eggs and the first things that comes to mind with this chilly grey weather is curry-rice. In the end it gives a all yellow everything plate.  Simply delicious and tasty, but very well presented I reckon!!! I need to work on my plating again… How do you do your plating for everyday’s food that has no real shape like curry-rice?

Coconut oil curry

I am not too much in food trends and I am not too keen in trying new fashionable products. I see them on the shelves of super market: hemp, egoma… but never or rarely buy any. Three months ago when our friends from Germany visited us and we went food shopping for organic rice and Japanese products for them to bring back home, they convinced me that coconut oil was nice, and before that I read that it has many virtues so I bought some. And then I kept it in the fridge since then. Open it once or twice, but the smell rebutted me and I continued cooking with olive oil as usual. Last night I decided it was time to try. So I come up with a recipe where I could as well have used a little coconut milk: a spicy vegetables mix to serve with grilled snapper and black quinoa. I used 1 onion, 1 potato, 1 capsicum, 1eggplant and 1yellow zucchini all cut in bites. In a big pan I heated one large teaspoon of coconut oil and added the vegetables: onion first then potato, eggplant, then the rest a little while after. And cooked under cover. I added 1tsp of curry powder a little of cumin powder, a tsp of anise seeds and a very little of nutmeg powder. Added 10cl of water and stir. Cooked an additional 5 minutes without cover. The curry is ready!

In the meantime I prepared the black quinoa and grilled the fish. Prepared the plates and served immediately. 

Then what about the coconut oil? The smell is quite strong and the taste persistent in the food, which for my preparation was perfect but it can be slightly repelling in some dishes or may be one needs to get used to it. It is vey nice for golden brown veggies, I obtained a very beautiful color and texture. So yes it’s nice, but for me it is going to take a little more brain to find recipes where to use it. Any suggestion to start with?

Croquettes and bonito

I really love cereals and grains but I don’t cook some often enough because usually their cooking is too long for my short cooking time and it’s often difficult for me to plan long ahead. So when I have time to, I can try some new ideas and recipes. Inspired by a picture in one of my cookbooks I wanted to test some vegan croquettes and to do it with quinoa and millet. For the veggies I used in season veggies: carrots and topinamburs. And because the bonito is still in season I seeved it with grilled bonito that was simply rolledin curry powder before, and a few radishes for the color and freshness.

So for the croquettes here’s what I did: first I boiled some millet, then some quinoa. I mixed both. I then boiled topinamburs chopped thinly, and I also chopped thinly a few little carrots (that I didn’t boil). I put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix. Their shouldn’t be too much moisture in the mixture. If it’s the case add some flour I used rice flour). Add salt and pepper. In a greased and heated frypan make little balls of the mixture and flatten then to obtain little galettes. Cook until golden. Can be eaten with just a salad too, or dip in a curry-yogurt dressing…

Chickpeas and cauliflower curry

Recently I’ve spent quite some time browsing my new cookbooks to ffind some inspiration and this time it comes from the “Encyclopédie de la cuisine végétarienne”. This book is really resourceful not just for receipes but also for a lot of techniques to prepare veggies or cereals, so I will come back to it quite often. One of the recipe that caught my eye at first reading was a chickeas curry with cauliflower and other veggies. I like very much the idea of having a plate all in shades of beige and yellows, and thought it’d be the perfect side for this beautiful piece of yellow tail (buri-鰤) I’ve found. Moreover I wanted to test something with the chickpeas water (heard that it could be used as a vegan egg white when whipped). The recipe for the curry is ultra simple. I used one can of chickpeas (remember I wanna try the whip thing), after draining them I heat some olive oil in a pan and roasted the chickpeas, then added chunks of cauliflower and roast them a bit too. Finally added curry powder, curcuma, salt, pepper and covered with water. Cooked at medium-high heat until most of the water is gone. Finally added a bit of fresh coriander. Ready to serve.

As for the whip, it works!!!! Talk about it soon. 

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