![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorchadas
You may have gotten the impression from reading my previous curry entries, but my diet is very meat-heavy. Not really by volume, because generally the majority of my plate is taken up by vegetables, but definitely by the centrality of it to the concept of a "meal" for me. Anything without meat isn't a meal, it's a snack. So I was understandably a bit worried going in to the last part of 50 Great Curries of India, and especially when I heard that the first curry on the list was a mango curry. Mangos are sweet, right? Sweet curry? Really?
Well, obviously the people who came up with this curry already thought of this. In more ways than one, actually--the book says that the local name is fajeta, which apparently means something worthy of mockery. In that case, I can say that it is not as advertised.
It was sweet, but only a little. One thing I completely forgot in the lead-up to eating it is that while a lot of mango-flavored foods and drinks are incredibly, almost mouth-twistingly, sweet, actual mangos aren't. They're totally reasonable, to the degree that the recipe has explicit instruction to sweeten the curry if the spice or the salt are overpowering the sweetness. The end result ofschoolpsychnerd cooking was a curry with a pleasant warmth and a nice sweet-and-sour taste that was much better than all my worries. I actually expect that this will be a problem, because it was so great that now future vegetarian curries will have this one as the point of comparison and may suffer more than they otherwise would because of it.
The summary here is that I expected them to try to pass off some kind of spiced mango lassi as a curry, but it was nothing like that at all. Fortunately.
We already determined that we're not going to add any meat to any of these recipes even if we have meat on the side, since adding meat to the curry directly pretty obviously makes it not a vegetarian curry anymore. But as you can see from that photo, it's more like a soup than a curry, and 50 Great Curries of India even ends the recipe description with, "This curry also makes a wonderful soup." Soschoolpsychnerd chopped some zucchini into noodles (our usual version of pasta) and filled the curry with that. It provided some structure to the bites so that we wouldn't have been better served pouring it into mugs and yelling skål before we chugged it, and the neutral flavor of the zucchini allowed the spicy mangoness to come out even more. The book suggests serving it over rice, and as schoolpsychnerd says, that's what we plan to do later, but I can see it over bread or something like cabbage too.
At least as written, it's a bit more like a curry sauce all by itself that then gets added to something to make a curry. It's instant curry, just add vegetables. And it does a very good job of that.
If this is the level of deliciousness (pretend I wrote 甘み there like some foodie asshole) that I have to look forward to from future vegetarian curries, I have nothing at all to worry about. We're off to a great start.
Would I Eat It Again?: To my surprise, yes!
Do I Prefer It to the Usual Thai Curry?: No. And I doubt any of these vegetarian curries will end up being something I could eat as a staple, though I'm willing to be proven wrong.
What Would I Change?: Mostly just try it with different vegetables. Cabbage actually seems like it'd really good as a way of showing that cabbage soup does not always have to be dull and flavorless.
Well, obviously the people who came up with this curry already thought of this. In more ways than one, actually--the book says that the local name is fajeta, which apparently means something worthy of mockery. In that case, I can say that it is not as advertised.
Mango!
It was sweet, but only a little. One thing I completely forgot in the lead-up to eating it is that while a lot of mango-flavored foods and drinks are incredibly, almost mouth-twistingly, sweet, actual mangos aren't. They're totally reasonable, to the degree that the recipe has explicit instruction to sweeten the curry if the spice or the salt are overpowering the sweetness. The end result of
schoolpsychnerd cooking was a curry with a pleasant warmth and a nice sweet-and-sour taste that was much better than all my worries. I actually expect that this will be a problem, because it was so great that now future vegetarian curries will have this one as the point of comparison and may suffer more than they otherwise would because of it.The summary here is that I expected them to try to pass off some kind of spiced mango lassi as a curry, but it was nothing like that at all. Fortunately.
A rare glimpse of the chef at work.
I was intimidated as hell by this curry. I wasn't intimidated because it's complicated (though it's method of making mango juice was. I passed on that one.) but because it's simple and very out of my wheelhouse. I've made egalitarian curries before, but this was the first fruit curry (yes Kashmiri curry has apples but there's a bunch of other things in there.) At one point I considered cutting a corner and not running the mango through a siv since I felt a rare bout of lazy. I'm glad I didn't and I am super, super proud of the texture of this curry. Other than the occasional ginger bit, it was perfectly smooth and the yogurt didn't curdle one bit! I also managed to get the right balance of sweet on taste rather than an exact measure (the book says to add based on taste). I like this curry a lot though I think my brain was a little unsure of what to do with it being that I have little culinary experience with it. I can't wait to have it with rice later in the week and possibly some chicken on the side that uses some of the flavors (like cumin) to compliment it. I'd make this one again because I'm just super proud of the texture!
You have to admit, it does look like a mango lassi.
We already determined that we're not going to add any meat to any of these recipes even if we have meat on the side, since adding meat to the curry directly pretty obviously makes it not a vegetarian curry anymore. But as you can see from that photo, it's more like a soup than a curry, and 50 Great Curries of India even ends the recipe description with, "This curry also makes a wonderful soup." So
schoolpsychnerd chopped some zucchini into noodles (our usual version of pasta) and filled the curry with that. It provided some structure to the bites so that we wouldn't have been better served pouring it into mugs and yelling skål before we chugged it, and the neutral flavor of the zucchini allowed the spicy mangoness to come out even more. The book suggests serving it over rice, and as schoolpsychnerd says, that's what we plan to do later, but I can see it over bread or something like cabbage too. At least as written, it's a bit more like a curry sauce all by itself that then gets added to something to make a curry. It's instant curry, just add vegetables. And it does a very good job of that.
It looks much more meal-like here. Kashmiri curry leftovers visible on the right.
If this is the level of deliciousness (pretend I wrote 甘み there like some foodie asshole) that I have to look forward to from future vegetarian curries, I have nothing at all to worry about. We're off to a great start.
Would I Eat It Again?: To my surprise, yes!
Do I Prefer It to the Usual Thai Curry?: No. And I doubt any of these vegetarian curries will end up being something I could eat as a staple, though I'm willing to be proven wrong.
What Would I Change?: Mostly just try it with different vegetables. Cabbage actually seems like it'd really good as a way of showing that cabbage soup does not always have to be dull and flavorless.
