Vegetables Korma

More pandemic cooking, and this time we’re flush with fresh produce because our friends at Albert & Eve came by yesterday with two bags full. We’ve been enjoying learning Indian cooking from Vegan Richa’s Indian Kitchen, and this time we made cauliflower, carrots and peas korma. I made a few adjustments to Richa’s excellent recipe to make it mild so that Rio would eat it. Big success!

As an aside, Richa’s terrific book is one of the two cookbooks we use most at home, the other one being Chloe’s Vegan Italian Kitchen by Chloe Coscarelli. We have lots of great cookbooks, the vast majority of which are vegan, but at this point we have our kitchen style and recipes pretty much mastered, so we need cookbooks only to learn things we don’t know yet.

The recipe in the book is very much like this one from Richa’s website, but with a few important changes, and I made a few additional simplifications. I substituted the fennel seeds with poppy seeds to great success, omitted the chiles, and had carrots in lieu of potatoes. We were lucky that fresh peas are in season, but wanted lots of peas so defrosted a frozen pea bag. I made a few other tweaks to fit the pandemic pantry situation, and there ya have it:

sauce

  • 1 tsp oil
  • 1 small onion
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 cup canned tomatoes
  • 5 cloves of garlic
  • 1 inch ginger
  • 1 tbsp poppy seeds

Veggies:

  • 3 cups cauliflower florets
  • 1 cup sliced carrots
  • 1 cup peas (frozen is great)
  • 2/3 cup coconut milk
  • 1/4 cup water

Heat up oil in big pan, slice onion thinly, add to pan with coriander and cumin, and sauté until golden. Finely mince garlic and ginger and add. Sauté for about 5 more minutes, then add tomatoes, and cook an additional five minutes. Then, add poppy seeds and cook for another 2 mins. Add cauliflower and carrots and mix. Add coconut milk and water, cover, and cook on medium-low heat for 15 mins. Add peas, mix again, and cook for another 15 mins. Great over rice!

Muttar Tofuneer

We are so lucky during this pandemic to get fresh vegetables every week from our local organic CSA Albert & Eve. A big box comes in without fail every Tuesday. But since they are flooded with larger-than-usual deliveries to existing an new clientele, the box doesn’t arrive at the crack of dawn as it used to. This means that, after a week of vegetable Tetris, I’m sometimes left without fresh produce for a meal or two.

But fear not, because we have lots of fantastic Indian spices, as well as Vegan Richa‘s legendary cookbook. We have found the book incredibly useful, and today I was especially thrilled with it, as I had a bag of frozen peas and a block of my favorite tofu, Hodo Soy. Because the paneer is very delicate and the tofu very tolerant, I changed the cooking instructions somewhat to allow it to soak more of the curry sauce. I added a pinch of nutritional yeast to up the “paneerish” flavor profile. We also omitted the spice, because Rio dislikes spicy foods (we’ll convert him yet, but he’s still a toddler!) The original recipe calls for spinach and for Richa’s very special almond paneer (a lot of work but worth it), but I decided to use the fantastic sauce for peas and tofu and we happily enjoyed it over rice. It’s very easy!

Ingredients

  • 1 minced onion
  • 2 tsp coriander seeds
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1-2 cloves
  • 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tbsp minced garlic
  • 1.5 cup canned tomatoes
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1 bag frozen peas
  • 1 block extra-firm tofu, cubed
  • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1 tbsp vegan yogurt
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened plant milk
  • 1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Preparation

Heat up wok. Dry-roast coriander and cumin. When wok is hot, add the onion and sauté until fragrant. Remove from heat and place in a blender with the rest of the spices, the water, and the canned tomatoes. Blend until creamy. Pour back into wok and turn on the heat. Add peas, yeast, and cubed tofu. Cook for 12-15 minutes. When it reduces and thickens, add yogurt, plant milk, and apple cider vinegar. Cook for another five minutes. Serve over rice.