Step By Step Thai Vegan Curry

Do you remember how a few posts back, I confessed that I wasn’t really a chef? Well, this is a perfect example of that. Tonight I cooked vegan curry with a ready-made paste (gasp) AND it was delicious. Here’s how:

STEP ONE: gather your ingredients
1 preservative-free Thai curry paste
1 small can coconut milk
1 onion
3-4 small potatoes or sunchokes
1 large carrot
1 small broccoli head
some snap peas
1 punnet white mushrooms
(all veggies chopped small-medium)
1/2 cup raw peanuts
small bunch of fresh parsley or coriander

STEP TWO: heat a pan, add paste, 1 cup coconut milk and 1 cup water, bring to a boil. 

STEP THREE: add onion, sunchokes and carrots then cover and cook for 15-25 minutes.

STEP FOUR: add broccoli then cover and cook for 5 minutes.

Step FIVE: add snap peas and mushrooms and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.

TO FINISH: top with peanuts and herbs.

DAS IT, YO!

Vegan curried couscous salad

My adaptation from The Daring Gourmet food blog.

Told ya I was gonna spice things up this New Year (literally). So, without further adieu I introduce you curried couscous.

2 cups uncooked wholewheat couscous
2-3 small wild carrots, finely shredded (I used one orange, one white and one yellow)
3 spring onions, sliced small
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1 cup canned chickpeas, rinsed
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup raw walnuts

Dressing:
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp black pepper

Cook couscous according to packet instructions then set aside – usually it’s just adding hot water, covering with a plate, waiting then fluffing with a fork.

Prepare dressing by whisking all dressing ingredients together until well combined.

Add carrots, spring onion, parsley, chickpeas, raisins and walnuts to cooked couscous and mix together with a wooden spoon.

To finish, add the  dressing, a little at a time, stirring to combine between additions. For best results, cover and refrigerate overnight so the flavours have time to meld.

Bengali in Okayama

If you’re the type that gets offended easily, then I recommend you walk away now.

I’m about to offend some people (If you didn’t get that already).

Here goes…

The only two “spices” used in Japanese food are SUGAR and SALT.

Let the hate-mail start!

But seriously. Japanese food seriously lacks spice and my middle-eastern tongue NEEDS cardamom, cumin, turmeric, coriander and most of all it yearns YEARNS for hot-hot-heat (the band and the chilli). This is where Milenga (Bengali cuisine) comes to the rescue, wearing a cute apron and carrying a colourful and flavor-packed thali. To which I say, Hallelujah, the spice Gods have come! (To Okayama).

japanese people peel everything

Fun fact (Jap edition): Japanese people peel everything. Seriously; apples, pears, peaches, FIGS, GRAPES. ALL THE FRUITS.

Do you know how hard peeling grapes is? Borderline impossible.

So, as you can imagine, things didn’t go down too well when I told my Japanese friends I can eat an entire apple, stalk and all. Tehehe I accidently….

Okay, but in their defense, most Japanese fruit are gigantic. For example, the apples are the size of my dad’s head and their grapes the size of golf balls. And, I hear they have massive pears, too (I’m holding out for those). Oh, and since this post is all over the place and I’ve already gone on a tangent, let me quickly just say, I’ve literally been spotting hundreds of premature figs, persimmons and kiwi-fruits everywhere – the anticipation is killing me!

Anyways, since I don’t have any relevant fruity snaps for this post, please visually feast on the following photographs of my recent dinner parties, instead:

PS: if you’d like the recipe for anything just ask meeee

review no28 sivam indian restaurant

After the novelty of authentic Japanese food wears off (and it will), it’s beyond gratifying to chow down on anything that isn’t flavored by the sea, fried or rice. However; the rice at newly opened Sivam Indian restaurant in Yunogo is an exception because it comes with authentic Indian curry (cooked by Indian chefs) and ginormous as-big-as-your-torso naan. In addition; they have vegetarian options which are scarce in Japan. Pictured above is a set lunch option of vege curry and naan for a mere 750 yen (about $8NZD)! Sivam also sells adorable pottery, chopstick stands (in the form of edamame, broad bean, mushroom and chilli-pepper), house-made carrot dressing, chilli powder and mukhwas, a colourful indian after dinner snack or digestive aid. Definitely worth a visit if you’re ever in Yunogo. In fact, Yunogo is becoming one of my fave hangouts!