Vegetable Kurma

A while ago, I made some chicken kurma with a recipe from Serious Eats. Although it was quite delicious (I made it for Brendan and he didn't complain), when I showed the recipe to my friend, Ruby, she thought that it was quite "ghetto." I'm all for ghetto recipes because I have no standards, or rather, really low standards. However, I decided that it'd be a good idea to try and make some kurma from a not-so-ghetto recipe.

I found this recipe from Edible Garden for a vegetable kurma. My friend, Nur, also had it bookmarked!


I didn't have a few things from the recipe so I had to make up my own substitutions. Mind you, it turned out really well so I think I got a large part of it right.


The vegetables I decided to use were:

1/2 a head of cauliflowers
4 small carrots
1 tomato
1/2 kabocha squash
1/2 cup of peas (not pictured)

So after I spent a hell lot of time peeling the squash (it was really difficult), my mom told me that the peel is edible and would soften as it's cooked. What? Now I know, next time, I'm not peeling any squash!


In addition, I have 1 medium onion and 1 green chili. I know, the recipe called for 2 onions, but I'm not a big fan of onions. Since I was making this for my family, I had to reduce the amount of chili because my mom cannot eat super spicy food.



I made a paste of the following:

1 tablespoon of ground clove (I didn't have whole cloves)
1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons of peanuts (didn't have cashew nuts)
2 whole cardamoms
1/4 cup of coconut cream powder (forgot to buy grated coconut)
1 tablespoon water

My paste didn't come out to be a fine paste because I don't have a powerful food processor. Chunky would have to do.



Oh, and I also hunted down some curry leaves! They smell like burning rubber so my dad thought that some electronics were burning. However, once the leaves get cooked, it smells delicious.



I heated 2 tablespoons of butter (didn't have ghee) and 2 tablespoons of butter. When that got heated, I added about 7 or 8 curry leaves and cooked for a minute.



Then I added and cooked the onion, 1/2 teaspoon of cumin seeds, and 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds and cooked for 3 minutes.



2 tablespoons of this awesome garlic and ginger paste went in. I didn't have to make my own!



The vegetables minus the peas joined the pot party. They brought along 2 teaspoons of coriander powder.



The hot hot chili jumped in with a cup of water to cool things down. I also added the peas and some mock chicken (seitan) after this. I put a lid on the whole party and let them all cooked for 10 minutes on medium high heat.



Then I added two heaping spoonful of plain yogurt and stirred that stuff in!



I emptied the spice paste made earlier in and stirred stirred stirred.



I measured 1/2 a cup of milk and poured that into my mini-chopper to get every last bit of the spice paste out. That also got added to the main pot.



I found some golden raisins and added a handful into the pot. Stirred that shit well and brought the whole thing to a boil. I turned down the heat and called "FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!" to my family.



We ate the kurma with rice and bread.



And then I realized that I made so many changes to the recipe that this kurma turned out to be a ghetto kurma, too. But it was so delicious that I was proud of myself. Proud, you hear? Proud! Maybe I'll follow the recipe to the letter next time and see what are the differences and report back to you.