Curry Up

In assisting vegetarian chef Mary Taylor, coauthor of What Are You Hungry For?: Women, Food, and Spirituality (St. Martin’s Press, 2002) with Lynn Ginsburg, I had the pleasure of creating Indian curry mixes for her family and friends. While the process of making this spice blend can be a bit time consuming, curry can stay fresh for months, adds a nice kick to your favorite Indian recipes, and tumeric packs amazing anti-inflammatory properties. (For more on healing spices, see “Spice Up Your Health” in our September issue, on newsstands now.) While some curry ingredients can be found in your supermarket, I went to an Asian market for one-stop shopping.

Taylor’s traditional South Indian Curry Powder recipe below can be used in place of store-bought curry powder, and it's a bit different from store-bought curries because the dal, or dried beans, provides extra protein. Whip up this recipe with a friend, and after you finish, you could split the curry powder into two containers for each of you. Then use the curry blend in Taylor’s yummy Curried Potatoes recipe that follows. I’d love to hear about your experience experimenting with homemade curries and how this recipe turns out for you.

Curry Powder

6 tablespoons coriander seeds

1/4 cup yellow split peas, rinsed (chana dal)

2 tablespoons split mung beans, rinsed (urd dal)

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

4 dried red chili peppers

1/2 teaspoons asafetida (hing)

1 teaspoon tumeric

1/2 teaspoon salt

1. In a heavy skillet, dry-roast the coriander, split peas, and mung beans separately, stirring frequently until toasted evenly. Transfer to a bowl.

2. Heat the oil in the skillet and sauté the red chili peppers until brown, adding asafetida to skillet before the chili peppers finish.

3. Transfer all ingredients, including tumeric and salt to a blender. Blend until the mixture is a fine powder. Store in an airtight container.

Curried Potatoes

Serves 4

3 large Yukon Gold potatoes, diced

1 garnet yam, diced

1 onion, diced

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon curry powder (or to taste)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/3 cup fresh grated coconut (substitute soaked unsweetened flakes if fresh is not available)

1 tablespoon chana dal, soaked (optional)

1 teaspoon black mustard seeds

2 curry leaves (if available)

1/4 cup minced cilantro

Salt to taste

1. Steam the potatoes until just tender, then set aside.

2. Sauté the onion in 1 tablespoon of oil until very soft, about 10 minutes. Add the potatoes, curry powder, cinnamon and coconut and mix well. Lower heat and cook, stirring often, until the spices are well married into the mixture and the coconut has begun to lightly brown.

3. In a small saucepan, heat the remaining oil. Stir in the drained dal, mustard seeds and curry leaves. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mustard seeds begin to sputter. Stir this mixture into the potatoes, add cilantro and serve.