Adzuki Bean and Mango Curry

In case you've never tried adzuki beans let me tell you that you're missing out.  They have the texture of a black bean and a flavor along the lines of a sweeter version of a kidney bean.  You can use them in place of any similar sized bean for something different. 

The only problem is these pretty pink beans are a bit hard to track down.   I get mine in the bulk pins at Whole Foods (I know it's a gluten free no no but I wash then thoroughly and have never had a problem.)  Eden Organics also has them canned flavored with seaweed at all the local groceries I go to so they are out there if you look.

Putting beans regardless of how unique they are with mango in a curry might sound odd.  I thought so too until I actually gave it a try.  The sweetness of the mango mellows the spices and gives this curry a really interesting mouthfeel making it seem much richer than it really is.  With the coconut milk included this either becomes a weight maintenance only dish or a curry to eat while skipping the rice.  To make this for a low fat/high fiber meal just sub out the coconut milk for some vegetable broth and add a bit of tomato paste to get a thick sauce without the fat.

I found this Adzuki Bean and Mango Curry recipe over at the City Life Eats blog along with a handful of other really tasty ideas for recipes for us picky allergic eaters.  It's sometimes a hard blog to navigate but this recipe is perfect so I'm just sending you over there to check it out since I didn't change a thing.

Extremely Spicy Bean Curry

The fella and I love spicy food especially of the Indian variety but this recipe was something else.  He was actually pretty okay with it but I made the mistake of trying it for the first time while I was at work.  I wasn't expecting it to be that overly spicy because I'm no wimp.  Boy was I wrong.  Gladly the lunch room was empty that day because this curry was so hot I was crying.  In a very good and happy way its just I don't exactly make a habit of sitting alone in public at work weeping over my food.  It gives people the wrong impression I guess.

This curry is so good it manages to both be very very hot and tasty at the same time.  So if you're not big on spice I would suggest making it with the least amount of chilies suggested in the recipe and it should have a nice bit of kick to it.  If you really want to challenge yourself go ahead and add all the chilies and be prepared to have a pleasant fire in your mouth. 

And don't be put off by the long list of ingredients, they are mostly spices that require no effort on your part other than tossing them in the pan so it is actually a really quick meal once the beans are cooked.  I even cheat by making my beans in the crockpot while I'm at work so I can start cooking as soon as I get home.  With that short cut this very hot meal takes almost no effort.

So there you go all my friends that are fans of insanely hot food, give this a try and let me know if it's hot enough for you.  If not I'm scared of but impressed by your idea of spicy.

Extremely Spicy Bean Curry

1/2 cup of dried chickpeas
1/4 cup of dried kidney beans
1/4 cup of lentils (puy lentils or black lentils are best)
2 tablespoons of coconut oil
1 generous teaspoon of black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 teaspoon of ground cumin

1 teaspoons of agave nectar
1 1/2 teaspoons of sea salt
1 teaspoon of ground coriander
1 teaspoon of turmeric
dash of cayenne
2 - 4 dried red chilies
1 large tomato, finely chopped

1 small clove garlic, minced
2 - 4 fresh red or green chilies, finely chopped

Rinse the chickpeas, kidney beans and lentils in a strainer. Soak overnight in enough water to cover. Drain, transfer to a large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer until the beans are tender - roughly 1 hour.  Or put beans in crockpot covered in water at low heat for 6 hours.

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. When hot, toss in the mustard seeds and cook until they begin to pop. Add the cumin seeds, ground cumin, agave nectar, salt, coriander, turmeric, cayenne and dried chilies. Stir quickly and add the tomatoes, garlic, and fresh chilies. Stir a few times and cook until the tomato is softened - roughly 5 minutes.

Drain off some of the water from the cooked beans and add the tomato mixture to the pot. Simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for another 10 - 15 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Garnish with the fresh parsley or cilantro.  

Original recipe from Lisa's Kitchen blog. 

Simple Lamb Curry

I'm apparently little bit obsessed with my newest culinary discovery.  My article over on Forkful of News today is a review of two of Judith Jones' books and now I'm posting for your cooking pleasure one of my favorite recipes of hers.  

It's just that she's a great writer, has had a jealousy inducingly interesting life and she also has amazing taste in food.  Most of the things the fella and I have eaten recently have come from her cookbooks.  She takes something simple like a steak or a curry and adds a little something extra to it that will make you rethink the way you've been cooking things all along.  And for someone like me who likes to know why something works instead of just being told what to do, I love that her recipes always include the reasoning  behind the instructions she provides.  I learned a lot about cooking just from reading her recipes.

Her book the Pleasure of Cooking For One was a lot of fun to cook out of the last time the fella was out of town.  She is a big proponent of cooking well for yourself and makings something special when you're alone, to make dinner a treat instead of a chore.  With that in mind she scales down huge feasts like Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon or tells you how to cook a whole duck and use every part of it to make meals for yourself for the week.  

And the recipes are amazing, I ate really well that weekend while cooking alone.  I had scallops and butternut squash risotto and this lamb curry.  Both were somewhat fancy but very simple, I defiantly felt treated and enjoyed my food which is sometimes hard to do when you're alone.  

I upped the scale on the portions from her original recipe to post here so that it makes dinner for two or dinner with left overs for the next day for one person.  Either way this is one of my new favorite curry recipes.  There is just something about lamb and curry that appeals to me and I could probably eat it everyday.

Simple Lamb Curry
 
4 tablespoon veggie oil
1 1/2 pounds lamb, cut into 1 inch piece
1 onion or 2 shallots, chopped
1/2 red pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
4 tablespoons curry powder
salt and pepper
lemon juice, to taste
1 1/2 cup broth of your choice
2 tablespoons unsweetened shredded coconut
1 small tart apple, cut into wedges

In a frying pan over medium high heat add 2 tablespoons of the oil until warm. Add the lamb pieces to the pan without crowding them. Brown the meat on all sides briefly without burning the meat or cooking the meat all the way through. Once browned set the meat aside.
 
Add the the other 2 tablespoons of oil to the pan and saute the onion, pepper and garlic for about 8 minutes or until softened but not browned. Add the cooked lamb, fennel seeds, and curry powder. Salt the lamb lightly then squeeze several drops of lemon juice into pan. Add broth of your choice, cover pan and cook at a decent simmer for about 10 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Reduce the heat and add more liquid if it evaporates too quickly.
 
When the sauce is your desired consistency add the coconut and apple slices, tossing them in the pan for about 5 minutes to warm through. Taste the curry, re-season with salt, pepper and lemon juice as needed then serve over rice or with flourless naan.

From Judith Jones' The Pleasures for Cooking for One. 

 

Indian Butter Chicken in the Crockpot

Not too long ago I finished Jay Mcinerney's A Hedonist in the Cellar which is a wild ride through the best of his articles for House and Garden. He spends a lot of time talking about wine no ordinary person is going to have the opportunity to get within 1000 feet of. The rest of the time he obsesses about wine and food pairings. As a lover of Indian cooking I was especially intrigued by his going on at great length about the perfection that is pairing a great spicy curry dish with Alsatian Gewürztraminer Seemed just crazy enough to give a try.

Unfortunately an Alsatian Gewürztraminer is about as affordable as a sports car and I wasn't about to spend that much on a bottle of wine I knew nothing about. So I left the comfort of the semi-upscale wine store I work in to go to a local warehouse wine store and browse the random Gewurztraminers of the world. Oddly enough they didn't have any German Gewürztraminers in the entire store but had two at a reasonable price from South Africa of all places. I don't remember the name of the wine we bought that night because it was utterly unremarkable and didn't do anything for the curry we made that night.

So I gave up in the Gewürztraminer/curry pairing that I was so excited about until the most recent meeting of Wasted, the wine tasting group I'm involved in. The theme was women wine makers and earlier in the week I happened to be at work shelving a Gewürztraminer from Oregon made by Joy Anderson, it was organic and $11 so I was sold. It was awesome, sweet but not cloyingly so with nice undertones of cinnamon and cloves that really opened up the palate. It got a lot of ohs and ahs which is always rewarding. Since then the fella and I have been obsessed. We've bought the Snoqualme Naked Gewürztraminer no less than three times and it never gets old.



Then today the stars aligned. In our house Tuesday is crockpot day since neither one of us are home to cook, we let the crockpot do the work. The fella threw together Indian butter chicken this morning and by the time I got home between jobs this afternoon the house smelled divine. Curry powder and chicken and all sorts of yum were lingering in the air.

Even without rice, this chicken might be the best thing we've made in the crockpot. The chicken thighs fell apart under my fork, super tender and juicy. The sauce was creamy and rich with butter, coconut milk and spices. Then I opened the refrigerator and was surprised to see an open bottle of the Naked Gewürztraminer from the other night that I had totally forgotten about. It was time to test the Gewürztraminer/curry pairing again.

This time it worked, both the chicken and the wine are outstanding alone but together they literally made me drool. The curry matched perfectly with the herbal notes of the wine and they both opened up on the palate to do wonderful things that even I don't have the wine vocabulary to describe. You'll just have to try it yourself.

Now I know what Mcinerney was talking about. It just took the right curry and the right wine to make it happen. I don't think the Naked Gewürztraminer would pair with every curry but with this thick saucy chicken it was magic that made me even more obsessed with this wine. And the chicken curry is super easy, all the ingredients get tossed in and you walk away. The most difficult part is making a satchel for the cardamom pods which is way simpler than the original recipe which wanted you to sew them together. That wins for craziest set of cooking instructions ever, sewing does not belong in the kitchen. Nonetheless I still adore the A Year of Crockpotting blog, insanity and all.

Indian Butter Chicken in the Crockpot

15 cardamom pods wrapped in cheese cloth or a tea bag
2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
1 onion, sliced
6 garlic cloves, chopped
4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tsp garam masala
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 can light coconut milk
1 6-ounce can tomato paste
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 cup plain yogurt


Use a 5 quart or larger crockpot.

Tie cardamom pods in a cheese cloth bundle. Put chicken in crockpot, and add onion, garlic, and all of the dry spices. Plop in the butter and tomato paste. Add lemon juice and coconut milk. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or high for 4. The chicken should shred easily with 2 forks when fully cooked.

Stir in plain yogurt 15 minutes before serving. Discard cardamom pods. Salt to taste if needed.

Original recipe from A Year of Crockpotting.