Tag Archives: coconut

March 7, 2013

Spiced Butternut Squash and Coconut Soup

What can be healthier or tastier than a bowl of soup packed with vegetables and spice? This Butternut Squash, Ginger and Coconut Soup is positively brimming with positivity. Have it for lunch then you can eat what you what at dinner time. That’s the way it works in our family, anyway. It couldn’t be simpler to make. Just boil up the veg, whiz in a food processor and Bob’s your dad’s brother!

Serves 4

Knob of butter
1 butternut squashed, peeled, de-seeded and chopped into chunks
1 floury potato, peeled and chopped into chunks
Half onion, peeled and sliced
Golfball-sized piece of ginger, peeled and sliced
1 red chilli, de-seeded and chopped
1 can coconut milk
500ml vegetable stock
1 tsp black pepper

1. In a large saucepan, melt the butter and add the squash, potato, onion, ginger and chilli. Cook for a few mins to sweat the vegetables down. Add the coconut milk and stock and bring to the boil.

2. Cook for 20-25 mins, until the squash and potato start to break down.

3. Allow to cool, then transfer to a food processor and liquidise. Return to the pan and season with pepper.

4. Serve with a little chopped chilli on top.

Recipe Shed: Eddoe & Coconut Curry

My local supermarket has gone all exotic lately, stocking more unusual vegetables than the bog-standard potatoes, carrots and cabbages. I’d never heard of dudhi, cassava, chayote, and this one, eddoes (also called avri). The latter is a root vegetable, used in Indian and Caribbean food. Apparently you can treat it like a potato (peel it, boil it, mash it, chip it) or use it as a veggie ingredient in curries. That’s what I’ve decided to do.

Now let me be honest here: at the risk of offending eddoe lovers the world over, I thought it was alright – and just that: alright! Eaten without the curry, the flesh is very bland and rather slimy. With the curry, it’s a good vehicle for the sauce. Would I try it again? Hmm, er, no. Not as long as there are King Eddies on the shelves!

Serves 2 (or 4, as an accompaniment)

4 eddoes, peeled
1 tbsp ghee or vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
Thumb-sized piece of ginger, finely chopped
2 green chilies, deseeded and chopped
1 tsp hot curry powder (shop-bought is fine)
1 tin coconut milk

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Filed under Recipe Shed, Vegetarian

Tagged as arvi, coconut, Curry, eddoes, exotic, vegetable, Vegetarian

September 9, 2012

Recipe Shed: Coconut Beef Curry with Green Chillies and Spinach Bhajee

This is a delicious creamy coconutty curry imparted with fantastic beefy flavour. I another hunk of meat that I recovered from the bottom of my freezer drawer. You could use more expensive fillet or sirloin beef, but by bashing the topside with a meat hammer to tenderise it, the results are pretty much the same.

400g topside beef or 2 steaks
2 green chillies, seeds removed and sliced into rounds
50g creamed coconut, crumbled

For the curry base

4 tbsp sunflower or vegetable oil
2 onions, sliced
4 garlic cloves, sliced
Thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and sliced

For the marinade

200g Greek natural yogurt
1 tsp Chinese spice powder
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garam masala

1. Make the curry base by heating the oil in a large frying pan, then gently cooking the onions, garlic and ginger for 12-15 mins until very soft. Add some water if it gets too dry to prevent it burning. Transfer everything to a food processor and whiz into a puree.

2. To make the marinate, mix the yoghurt with all the spices (except the garam masala) and salt in a shallow dish.

3. With the knobbly side of a meat mallet (or use a rolling pin), bash the beef until about 0.5cm thick to tenderise it. Chop into slices and add to the marinate, then mix until the beef is thoroughly coated. Put in the fridge for an hour.

4. Add another tablespoon of oil to a frying pan and gently heat the onion puree. Add the green chillies and cook for 2-3 mins, until the chillies soften.

5. Add the beef and the marinate and gently cook for approx. 10 mins until the beef is cooked through. Add the creamed coconut and a little water, then stir through to thicken the sauce. Sprinkle in the garam masala and stir through.

6. Serve with spinach bhajee, made by gently cooking 1 sliced garlic clove in a little oil, then add 2-3 big handfuls of washed spinach. Cook down to release the water from the spinach for around 5 mins. Sprinkle over 1 tsp garam masala and stir fry for 30 seconds.