Aubergine/Eggplant in Coconut-Cashew Gravy

Origin

I had some coconut milk left over from making pumpkin in coconut milk, and because I have trouble resisting baby aubergines (they’re so cute!) I had a dozen of those. So I looked for recipes to use them, and found this and this, but wasn’t completely satisfied with either, so I made something in between. This is a very mild, creamy sauce.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup cashews
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 12 baby aubergines
• 1 yellow onion
• 1/2 teaspoon brown mustard seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 piece of cassia cinnamon
• 1 dried red chilli
• a few curry leaves
• 1/4 cup fresh or frozen coconut
• 2 cups coconut milk
• 1 teaspoon vegetable bouillon powder
• salt
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• coriander leaves (cilantro), to garnish

Method

Put the cashews in a bowl, and just cover them with boiling water. Set aside.

Cut a cross into the bottom of each of the baby aubergines. Cut about halfway up the vegetable. Leave the top intact to hold the aubergine together.

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a pan on high. Add the aubergines, and toss until they some brown spots. Then reduce the heat to medium and continue to cook, tossing them from time to time. Cook about ten minutes in total, then remove them from the pan and set aside. Reduce the heat to low.

While the aubergines are cooking, roughly dice the onion and purée it with a little water. Set it aside.

Purée the cashews, using water as needed, to form a smooth paste. Set it aside.

In the cooler pan, add the remaining tablespoon of oil and turn the heat to medium. Once the heat pan is warm, add the cassia, cumin seeds, curry leaves, chilli, chilli powder, turmeric and mustard seeds. Cook until the mustard seeds start to pop, then add the onion and cook over low-medium heat until the raw smell disappears.

Add the coconut milk, vegetable bouillon, cashew paste, the coconut, and a couple cups of water. Add the aubergines to the pan. They do not need to be covered by the liquid. Allow to simmer on medium until the sauce is thick and the aubergines are soft when you insert a fork.

Remove from the heat. Add garam masala, lemon juice, and salt to taste. Serve garnished with coriander leaves.

Discard the curry leaves, aubergine tops, and cassia when eating. Serve with rice or roti.

 

Light Pasta Salad

To make this pasta salad, I first soaked a handful of cashews in warm water, before blending them with a little water, one small clove of garlic, a bit of nutritional yeast, and half of a teaspoon of Dijon mustard. I then cooked the pasta, along with the carrots and broccoli, which I did not want to eat raw.

While the pasta and vegetables were cooking, I rinsed some tinned corn, sliced olives, chopped yellow and red sweet peppers, chopped cucumber, and chopped parsley. I rinsed the pasta, broccoli and carrots in cold water to chill them, then mixed them with the remaining vegetables, the cashew sauce, black pepper, salt, and olive oil.

Obviously the vegetables can be changed to taste – I meant to add some frozen peas to the pasta just before draining, but discovered I had run out – as the main thing about this dish is that it has a very light sauce instead of a heavy mayonnaise one that is typically found in pasta salads.

Carrot, Mung Sprout and Spinach Salad

This recipe gave me an excuse to sprout some mung beans. As usual I did not follow the recipe faithfully, opting to use frozen grated coconut over rehydrated dry coconut. I also used a mix of purple and orange carrots to add additional color.

This was more work than the carrot mustardseed salad I’ve made in the past, and in my opinion the other salad is nicer. This one isn’t bad, but it wasn’t special enough to justify the effort.

Little Roses Tortellini

I decided to use ready-made dumpling wrappers for this in place of making my own dough.In retrospect, this was a mistake – most of the gyoza wrappers didn’t stand up the the sustained boiling.

The filling was made of grated beet, cashew cream, salt and nutritional yeast. To make the sauce I first pan-fried the mushrooms in olive oil, then wilted some spinach in the pan, before adding salt, black pepper, and oat cream.

Pretty little parcels, but overall not a success. The sauce was tasty, the filling was adequate, and the execution failed.

 

Vegetable Pasta with Creamy Garlic Sauce

Did I mention how delicious the creamy garlic sauce was with the cabbage? Even though I halved the cabbage, I still made the full recipe for the garlic sauce because I knew I would love it. I made it using cashew cream.

I used some of the leftover creamy garlic sauce as a dipping sauce for carrots, sweet peppers and crackers. The rest I used to season this pasta, which I cooked with carrots. Some stir-fried mushrooms and Brussels sprouts completed the dish.

Lentil and Chard/Mangold Soup

The base of this soup consists of red lentils cooked until they dissolve and cashew cream. Chard/mangold adds some greens, and citrus juice (I used lemon as I didn’t have limes) and cilantro perk it up and keep it from being too heavy. I enjoyed this soup.

Creamy Vegan Pasta with Mushrooms

I used this recipe with cashews in place of hemp seed. I used more wine than the recipe called for and let the mushrooms simmer longer. It was quite creamy and had sufficient flavour, plus I could not taste the cauliflower.  I liked the potato/cashew cream in this recipe better than the bean-based sauce in the creamy summer vegetable pasta.

Brussels sprouts stew

I used this recipe but opted to grind the cashew nuts before adding them to make a creamier sauce.

Vegan Lasagne

I made one of my favourite lasagnes, which happens to be vegan. Vegetarian spinach lasagne and Moosewood lighter vegetarian lasagne are the other two I’m fond of. I used butternut squash, sweet peppers, courgette/zucchini, and kale. My basic tomato sauce also contains carrots, so there were plenty of vegetables amid the cashew cream and the pasta sheets I added.

Amaranth Porridge with Cashew Cream, Cinnamon and Maple Sugar

I made amaranth more or less according to this recipe, save that I used water as the liquid, then topped it with cashew cream (cashews soaked in warm water and then ground), cinnamon, and  maple sugar.