Curried Potatoes and Kale

Our friend from Teasdale Utah, down in the middle of the state just minutes from Torrey, arrived last week bearing kale from her neighbor’s garden. With the wonderful variety of potatoes we have been getting from Ranui Gardens I made a spicy curry dinner. This coconut sauce and vegetables are perfect over steamed brown basmati rice with red quinoa —3/4 cup rice:1/4 cup red quinoa: 2 cups water. Serve with chutney and yogurt or raita.

In this recipe, the prep steps for the tofu, potatoes and kale are given separately. Multi-tasking is efficient here: prepare the potatoes while the tofu is being pressed, and boil the potatoes while the tofu is crisping and boil the kale while the onion and garlic cooks.

well-scrubbed potatoes

Curried Potatoes and Kale

1 (12 ounce) block extra firm tofu

1 tablespoon plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

4 medium potatoes, any variety, well-scrubbed

1 bunch kale, stems removed and discarded

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 ½ teaspoons turmeric

Pinch cayenne

½ teaspoon (or more, to taste) dried red chile pepper flakes

1 (13.5 ounce) can coconut milk

Salt to taste

Drain the tofu from its water and cut in half lengthwise. Place on a tea towel in a baking dish and cover with a part of the towel. Top with a second baking dish and place something heavy inside; it should weigh 1 to 2 pounds. Monitor so that the weight stays centered over the tofu pieces and press for about 10 minutes. The tea towel will absorb much extra moisture, even though you started with extra firm tofu. Dice the pressed tofu into ½-inch to ¾-inch cubes.

Golden Tofu Cubes

Heat the first tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over medium flame. Add the tofu cubes and cook about 10 minutes, turning the tofu after a few minutes, until the cubes are golden on at least 2 sides. Remove from the pan and set aside on paper towels.

Bring a saucepan of water to boil with a good amount of salt. Cut the potatoes into 1-inch chunks, add them to the pot and simmer until the potatoes are just tender, about 20 minutes. Remove the potatoes from the pot and set aside.

Add the kale leaves to the salted water. Simmer them until the greens are tender to your tongue, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from the water, saving about 2 cups of the cooking water. Let the kale cool on a cutting board and then chop—about 1 inch apart with your knife, in both directions to cut the leaves.

Heat the remaining oil in the skillet over medium flame. Add the onion and garlic and cook and stir until the garlic is translucent, 5 to 8 minutes. Stir in the turmeric and cayenne and the pepper flakes. Add the coconut milk, and the cooked potatoes and chopped kale, stirring everything around. Stir in the golden tofu cubes and enough of the reserved cooking water to make a wet sauce. Cook, stirring occasionally to let the flavors meld and heat the vegetables and tofu. Season with salt and more chile pepper flakes to taste.

Makes about 4 servings.

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Potato and Eggplant Curry

About this time of September someone in Park City will ask me if the Farmer’s Market is still open on Wednesday. Are you kidding? —This is harvest, abundant with tomatoes, peaches, pears, plums, butternut and spaghetti squash, bell peppers and on and on. It looks like John is still getting tomatoes from the Ranui greenhouses and those lovely purple Viking potatoes are again in our CSA box. So go buy some eggplant from East Farms at the Farmer’s Market. Serve this curry with basmati brown rice, steamed in a vegetable broth to which you have added a good pinch of saffron, and plain yogurt or a yogurt raita, along with a few dollops of chutney, your choice flavor. I made this in a pressure cooker and it took 8 minutes. After releasing the pressure stir in the tomato wedges. I barely changed this recipe from the one in my 1972 dinner party bible The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas.

potatoes, eggplant, peppers and spices

2 medium or 3 small eggplants

2 or 3 organic purple Viking or russet potatoes, well scrubbed

2 bell peppers

1 small Anaheim chile

¼ cup unsalted butter

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 ½ teaspoons Real Salt

1 teaspoon turmeric

Scant ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 to 2 /12 cups water

4 or 5 tomatoes, cut into small wedges

Wash the eggplants and slice them lengthwise about ½ inch thick. Lay them on a plate covered with a paper towel and salt generously. After about ½ hour, rub off the water that has beaded on top of the slices and cut them into large cubes. Cut the potatoes into cubes. Remove the seeds from the bell peppers and chile and cut them into ½-inch squares. Measure all of the spices into a cup.

Melt the butter in a wide pot (or pressure cooker.) When it has melted, add the olive oil. Add the spices and the garlic and cook and stir a minute or so. Add the eggplant, potatoes, peppers and chile, stirring the vegetables to coat them with the spices. Add the water (the lesser amount if using a pressure cooker,) and cover the pot. Simmer for 25 to 30 minutes (8 minutes for pressure cooker), stirring occasionally. Add the tomatoes. When the tomatoes are hot, serve the curry.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

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Potato and Garbanzo Bean Curry

It’s day 12 of the rafting trip.  This trip through the Grand Canyon has been called “ a trip backwards through time” as the river cuts through progressively older strata.  The days are hot, hovering at 110 degrees F., and the water coming straight out of Glen Canyon Dam is cold, around 50 degrees F. We have all become part of the desert and our worldly cares have melted away. Ahhh. We are deep in the canyon and it’s not my night to cook.

(But I am posting this as a draft and will store it to be published on a future date from my desk in Park City before we even launch at Lee’s Ferry, so the desert rat in me has yet to come out, nor have I felt the thrill of a dangerous-class rated rapid.)

Back to the river. Our coolers still have ice because we pre-froze them in the walk-in freezer at Deer Valley. But we are using more and more canned food each meal along with the now-thawing goods we broke into on Day 8. This particular recipe is sometimes called Curry from a Can because it uses groceries that will be edible on Day 15, my team’s last night in the kitchen and the night before take-out at Diamond Creek, garbanzo beans, coconut milk, canned pineapple, water chestnuts, button mushrooms and aseptic packages of tofu. We’ll serve our curry over whole wheat couscous because couscous cooks with just hot water, and therefore doesn’t use as much propane.

Enjoy my non-river trip version, with fresh vegetables from the CSA box or your garden, over steamed basmati brown rice.

1 tablespoon curry powder

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons plus 2 tablespoons olive oil

12 to 16 ounces extra-firm tofu, drained

1 large onion, chopped

2 teaspoons finely chopped peeled fresh ginger

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans

1 cup diced fresh tomatoes or 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes

2 potatoes, diced (1/2-inch)

1 sweet potato, peeled and diced (1/2-inch)

2 carrots, cut in ½-inch dice

1 (14 ounce) can lite coconut milk

1 zucchini, cut in ½-inch dice

1 bunch chard, kale or other green leafy vegetable, washed and stems removed.

1 (8 ounce) can pineapple chunks in juice, drained

2 cups toasted cashew pieces (salted OK)

Premix all the spices.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large (non-stick) skillet. Over high heat, cook and stir the tofu until it is golden on most sides. Remove from the pan.

Reduce heat to medium. Add the remaining olive oil and the onion, cook and stir until soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in ginger and garlic; cook another minute. Stir in the spice mixture and cook and stir constantly for another minute. Add the garbanzo beans and tomatoes with their juices, along with both potatoes and the carrots. Stir in the coconut milk. Cook, covered, about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

If the green leafy vegetable is kale, pre-cook the leaves in boiling, salted water until just about tender. Drain and chop coarsely. If the green leafy is chard, chop into 1-inch pieces. Add the greens and the zucchini, cover and cook until the potatoes are tender, another 10 minutes or so.

Add the reserved cooked tofu and pineapple and heat an additional 5 minutes. Just before serving sprinkle the cashews over the top.

Serve with Patak’s Major Grey Chutney and plain yogurt.

Makes about 8 servings.

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Basil and Cilantro

Sometime the herbs are what are left from the box when next CSA week rolls around. But if you took them out of the bag last week and placed them in a small jar of water, refrigerated or decorating your kitchen counter top, cilantro, basil and chives are just about as sprightly as a week ago. I try to be aggressive and use up the beet greens or any other leafy greens first, before the weekend, because I know I can continue to enjoy the herbs right into the next week. And there are so many international dishes that benefit and shine from their pungent flavor—from Latin American and Caribbean to Thai and Indian.

For us the basil is easy because we squirrel it away made into pesto. I keep walnuts and fresh Romano cheese on hand this time of year in hopes that John will bless us with his beautiful basil. If I feel like I am swimming in cilantro, I turn it into Latino pesto with toasted pumpkin seeds.

About a week ago I was cruising the deli counter at the Salt Lake Whole Foods and spied a fruit and jicama salad with a cilantro lime dressing. I was thinking about making such a salad over the weekend when supper in a hurry became a priority and since we had been gifted some beautiful farm fresh eggs—chilaquiles frittata (with ¼ cup of chopped cilantro) made the cut. Here is last night’s supper, which uses almost ½ cup of cilantro, a bit of basil and spinach greens as well as last week’s scapes. Deborah Madison once again provided the inspiration. In her book Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, she describes this as a Vietnamese dish, though I am not sure about my version with turmeric curry powder and almonds.

Tofu in Curry-Coconut Sauce

1 pound firm tofu, cut into cubes

1 huge handful fresh spinach or other green, thick stems removed

1 tablespoon coconut oil or peanut oil

1 small onion

1 large handful garlic scapes

2 carrots

1 to 2 teaspoons Thai curry paste, red or green

1 to 2 teaspoons curry powder

½ cup canned unsweetened coconut milk

½ cup vegetable stock

½ teaspoon Real Salt

1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped cilantro

2 tablespoons chopped basil leaves

Pinch cayenne pepper

1/3 cup chopped roasted whole almonds or peanuts

Bring a saucepan of lightly salted water to a boil. Gently drop the tofu cubes into the water and let them simmer gently for 5 minute. Remove the tofu with a slotted spoon onto a plate draped with a couple of paper towels.

Drop the spinach leaves into the simmering water and blanch a minute or so. Drain and chop coarsely. Set aside.

Slice the onion thinly. As you would with asparagus, snap the tops and bottoms off the scapes, then cut them into ½-inch lengths. Cut each carrot in half lengthwise and then slice into 1/8-inch half moons.

Heat the coconut oil in a large skillet or wok. When it is hot, add the onion and scapes and stir-fry for a minute. Add the carrots and stir-fry a few minutes. Stir in the curry paste and powder, then add the coconut milk, vegetable stock, salt and tofu.

Simmer several minutes, then stir in the spinach, 1/3 cup of the cilantro and the basil. Season to taste with more salt and cayenne pepper.

Serve over quinoa rice*, garnished with the remaining cilantro and chopped almonds.

Makes 2 to 3 servings.

* Quinoa rice is half quinoa and half rice, steamed as you would for rice.

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