Malaysian Sweet Potato Curry

Found this recipe several years ago, when I was looking for something to make with sweet potato that was soupy without actually being a soup. What attracted me to this dish was the use of almond meal in the curry, and it always turns out good even with a bit of tweaking here and there. The untweaked version is by Nick Nairn and can be found in the Ready Steady Cook book published by BBC Books in 2003. Got the book on sale at the Pakenham book shop, which sadly is no more.

What you’ll need:

*500g sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks

*1 red onion, sliced

*1-2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

*1 teaspoon chopped garlic

*2 red bird’s eye chillies or 1-2 teaspoons chilli flakes

*1 lemon grass stalk (didn’t have any so used a couple of lemon grass leaves from the pot plant that’s too juvenile to have thick stalks, combined with a kaffir lime leaf), finely chopped

*2 tablespoons ground almond (sold as ‘almond meal’ in Australia)

*2 tablespoons oil

*1 teaspoon cumin powder

*1 teaspoon coriander powder

*1 teaspoon red chilli powder

*½ teaspoon turmeric powder (the original recipe calls for 1 teaspoon)

*300ml vegetable stock/water (or water plus one stock cube)

*400g coconut cream/milk

*1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon black pepper (or to taste)

*juice of 1 lime (have never used it)

“Chopped fresh coriander leaves for garnish (wasn’t used today, as I was serving the curry with the green bean dish that follows this post).

What to do:

The original recipe calls for the onion, garlic, ginger, fresh chillies, lemon grass, almonds, oil and spices to be pureed, then stir-fried.

I’ve never liked the prospect of cleaning out the oily mess left behind in the food processor, so prefer to the following method:

Fry sliced onions in oil until edges brown, then add garlic, ginger, fresh chillies. Stir fry for several minutes, then add sweet potato chunks. Fry until sweet potato is well coated, then add spices, including salt, pepper and almond meal. Stir fry until fragrant. Then add water/stock and coconut cream. Also add kaffir lime leaf and lemon grass. Bring to a boil. Then simmer for 15-20 minutes until sweet potato is cooked. Take off fire, and if using, add lime juice and chopped coriander leaves.

Green Beans with Sesame Seeds

This adaptation of a recipe came after we ran out of coconut and I only found that out (as is often the case in this household) in the middle of cooking. Fortunately, we all preferred the adapted dish to the original, which came from Madhur Jaffrey’s World of the East Vegetarian Cooking.

What I used:

*500g frozen green beans

*¼ cup chopped fresh coriander leaves

*2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

*1-2 fresh chillies, used both green and red

*2 tablespoons sesame seeds

*1/2 tablespoon whole black mustard seeds

*1 teaspoon salt

*1/2 tablespoon chilli powder

*1-2 tablespoons butter with 1-2 tablespoons oil

What I did:

Melt butter in oil. Add sesame and mustard seeds, fry for a few seconds, then add chilli powder. Stir through the seeds, then add frozen beans (still frozen). Fry until the beans are cooked through but still crunchy (15-20 minutes, on high heat, uncovered). Then add garlic, salt and fresh chillies. Fry for 5-10 minutes more. Take off heat, stir through fresh coriander leaves and it’s ready to serve.

Tart, Tasty Chickpeas

The first time I made these Indian-spice flavoured legumes, my relative Dineshi wanted me to put the recipe on this blog. That was several months ago and I have been procrastinating. Then last weekend, during a pot luck dinner with my workmates, again this easy-to-make dish proved unexpectedly popular and I got requests for the recipe. Finally, thought of writing out this recipe several times over has propelled me out of my lazy ways! Here goes…

What you’ll need:

2 x 400g cans chickpeas, drained

2 medium onions (either red or brown), sliced

1 teaspoon grated ginger

½ teaspoon crushed garlic

1-2 fresh green chillies, finely sliced. (Substituted 1/2 tablespoon of red chilli powder)

½ teaspoon turmeric

3 tablespoon oil or oil/butter combo

400g diced tomatoes

1 tablespoon coriander powder

2 teaspoons garam masala

2 tablespoons lemon juice (optional, or use 1 tablespoon)

2-3 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves

What to do:

Fry sliced onions in hot oil until they brown at the edges, then add ginger, garlic and turmeric. Fry for several minutes more. Add tomatoes, cook until pulpy (generally 10-15 minutes), then add coriander powder and drained chickpeas, with about a cup of water. More water can be added if the gravy is too thick. Partially cover pan and cook for roughly half an hour. Then during the last few minutes of cooking, add garam masala (and lemon juice if using) and chopped coriander leaves. Stir through and take off fire.  This is good with rice or Indian roti. The last time I served this was with ready-made paratha and cucumber raita.

Cucumber Raita

I used to make this Indian dip without the cumin. Then I saw an Indian friend add unroasted, raw cumin powder to a similar yoghurt dish and really loved the resulting taste.

What you’ll need:

1 large green cucumber (guess any cucumber will do)

1-2 scant teaspoons salt

½-1 teaspoon cumin powder

2-3 cups plain yoghurt

2-3 teaspoons finely chopped fresh mint or ½ to 1 teaspoon dried mint

What to do:

Grate cucumber. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of salt and set aside for 10 minutes. Squeeze as much moisture from the cucumber. Mix in yoghurt, mint, cumin and remaining salt (add this to taste). Mix and serve.  

Black-Eyed Peas with Trinidadian Seasonings

I’d never heard of or seen black-eyed peas until I came to Australia. Now the Sri Lankan food shop in Pakenham stocks these peas as well as lots of other legume/pulses or dried beans which allow home cooks like me to experiment using other people’s recipes. This one was taken from Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian.

What you’ll need:

* 1 ½ cup dried black-eyed peas

* 3 tablespoons olive oil

* 2 scallions (sold as spring onions in Melbourne supermarkets), sliced (both green and white parts)

* 1 celery stalk, diced

* 1 carrot, diced

* ½ green pepper, cored, seeded and diced

* ½  teaspoon dried thyme or 1 ½ teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme (used fresh, and was generous with the quantity)

* 1 teaspoon paprika (or cayenne aka red chilli powder)

* ¼ to ½ teaspoon crushed dried chilli pieces

* ½ teaspoon ground allspice 

* ½  teaspoon ground mustard powder

* 1 ½ teaspoon salt

Black-Eyed Peas

What to do:

Soak black-eyed peas overnight. Drain and set aside.

In hot oil, stir fry spring onion, celery, carrot and green pepper (the books says for five minutes, until ‘vegetables start to brown’. Waited longer than 5 minutes and couldn’t see anything browning, so waited a little longer…then added) drained peas, 4 ½ cups water, thyme, chilli powder, chilli pieces, allspice and mustard. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer gently for 40 minutes or until peas are tender. Add salt, stir and simmer for another 20 minutes. And it’s done.

Banana Peppers in coconut milk

Banana peppers (known as Malu Miris or capsicums in Sri Lanka) have been making an appearance at the Asian Veg shop in Dandenong Plaza. Back home, we’d have these peppers stuffed with spicy potato or fish filling, crumbed and fried. Yummy, but time consuming. So here’s a much simpler method of cooking malu miris from the cookbook, Asian Food by Charmaine Solomon.

What you’ll need:

* 500g banana peppers, whole (or sliced)

* 1 cup thin coconut milk (half cup coconut cream mixed with half water)

* 1 teaspoon salt

* Sprig of fresh curry leaves

* 4 tablespoons chopped onions or shallots (finely sliced 2 small red onions)

* 3 fresh green chillies (didn’t have any, so left out)

* 1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds

* 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

* 3 tablespoons thick coconut milk (or about half a cup of coconut cream)

Banana pepper/capsicum

(Note: the original recipe also asks to add 2 teaspoons of pounded Maldive fish, omitted as this is for vegetarians).

What to do:

Simmer all ingredients except coconut cream in a pan until peppers are soft and gravy has thickened. Then add coconut cream, bring to a simmer. And it’s done.

Green Beans with Onion, Garlic and Tomato

Even with two phone calls in the middle of cooking, this dish still turned out quite well, so I guess the plus points for this recipe is that it’s easy and fairly indestructible. Modified slightly, it’s from the Philippines according Madhur Jaffrey’s World of the East, Vegetarian Cooking.

What you will need

* Green beans (1 ½ pounds/680g)

* 2 mediums onions, peeled and sliced

* 6 cloves of garlic, minced (the original recipe called for 2 cloves of garlic!)

* 400g x tinned, chopped tomatoes

* 4 tablespoons oil (used olive oil)

* 1 ½- 2 tsp salt

* Freshly ground black pepper

What to do:

Cut beans into preferred lengths- chose inch-sized pieces. Heat oil in a pan. Add garlic, then sliced onions (or the other way around as I did). When onion is translucent and garlic is fragrant, add green beans and fry for a while (this is supposed to help retain the ‘green-ness’ of the beans, but I got a bit distracted, so wasn’t able to fry it for long enough). Then add the tomatoes,  cook for several minutes, then add half a cup of water, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Simmer for a few minutes (10-15 minutes. Less is better). Then take off fire as soon as the beans are done.