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Hello and welcome to Freshly Served, the healthy vegan cooking show. Iím Heather and tonight
weíre going to make a spinach coconut curry.
Now Iíve got mine going with some millet on the back. I like to serve it over with
millet because it has such a nice, soft texture and the curry juices get all over the millet
and it's really nice and yummy. But you can serve it over whatever you like.
Now weíre gonna start with is Iíve got a pot here and you want a pot big enough to
hold however much your making. Now this pot is large for the amount that Iím making but
I have this size pot and Iím using that one for the millet so thatís what we gotta go
with.
Alright! So heat this up to medium high, Iíve got about 6 out of 9 on my stove. Wait for
that to heat up and then what Iím gonna use actually is some coconut oil because Iím
making a coconut curry, (oh! That spoon is not good, I will use a knife) because Iím
using coconut milk in this curry Iím also going to use some coconut oil.
Now with coconut oil you do have to wait for it to melt before you put your vegetables
in which is not what I usually do, I donít like to heat the oil before I put the vegetables
in because the reason we put the oil in is to coat the vegetables not the pan.
So if you heat the oil up before you put your vegetables in you just letting your oil cook
which is not the healthiest thing to do. When oil cooks it creates free radicals and the
longer it cooks, the more it creates.
So you want this to have as little time as possible in contact with just the pot so what
Iím doing is Iím stirring it around the onions so that it coats them and it cooks
the onions rather than cooking itself.
And Iím using red onions tonight and in this dish I like to slice them and then just slice
those slices in half so theyíre kind of like a half of what we begin but thatís personal
preference. How you chopped your vegetables is up to you.
Ok! So let those cook just a little bit, you want them to soften up and then weíre gonna
add the spices to this dish. Alright! So these onions have soften up and while they were
doing that Iíve chopped up my greens and I did called this a spinach coconut curry,
Iím cooking this with chard either one is fine.
I just- I wasnít sure if anyone would try it if I called it chard coconut curry, sometimes
thta intimidates people so whatever type of greens you want to use. Alright! so once these
are soften your gonna add the spices in there and Iíve got some ground ginger, now yes
fresh ginger is lovely but if you can believe it the market across the street from me is
out of ginger today.
And I thought you know some people donít like to buy fresh ginger so for those of you
who donít you can use ground. Looks like I was putting a lot in there but itís just
that holes on that thing were not letting the ginger out.
Iíve got some coriander and I put approximate amount in the recipe but as always just go
however much you like of each of these spices. Iíve got some cumin and by back at the oil
a minute and I mentioned that when you eat oil it starts to form free radicals now the
different types of oil would be more stable at heat.
Coconut oil is a saturated fat which we normally associated with - oh this is turmeric normally
coconut oil or saturated fats are associated with heart disease but thatís not necessarily
the case and some saturated fat can be good for you.
In this case when you are soothing onions, coconut oil because it is a saturated fat
is more stable molecularly so when you put it at heat it doesnít form as many free radical
as say flax oil.
Flax oil is very unstable, itís very healthy for you in terms of just the fat but if you
heat it up it creates a lot of free radical that is why I said not to cook the flax oil.
Now you often see if you watch my show I cook with olive oil most of the time. Olive oil
is monounsaturated which means that it is fairly stable not as stable as coconut oil
but not as unstable with flaxseed oil and its closer to the coconut oil and end of the
spectrum.
So, ok! Once you get your spices in there youíre going to ñ oh! Actually first Iím
going to add the greens and your gonna add these and let them wilt so itís actually
a good thing that I have this big pot because check out how full itís going to get.
So you just stir this around a little bit, I get a little bit of water here just to steam
them slightly that will help them wilt.
Alright you can see that they wilt right down nicely and it now fits in my pot so once your
there the next thing your gonna do actually add some salt, help bring these flavors together
and Iím using my salt grinder today that has salt crystals as well as dried kelp in
here. Hope you can see it ñ oh! Itís getting all steamy now you canít see it anymore.
Anyway! The kelp brings extra minerals to the salt as well as making it salty without
as much salt. That might have look like a lot but I was also adding for the coconut
milk that Iím gonna put in next and itís kind of a slow salt grinder.
So once you got that mix in you can add the coconut milk. Ok! And Iím using light coconut
milk because it has less fat. The difference between light and full fat coconut milk is
well first of all a lot of fat and second of all as long as you get a good coconut oil
look at the ingredients so if I look at the ingredients of mine and Iím using Thai kitchen
which yes comes from Thailand but they donít make coconuts where I live.
Ok! So the ingredients are water, organic coconut milk and Guar Gum. Now water is the
first ingredient on the light coconut milk. I look also at the ingredients of the full
fat coconut milk and the first ingredient was coconut milk, the second ingredient is
water, the third ingredient guar gum.
They put those in order how much of a proportion they make out of whatís inside so this one
has more water than coconut milk but itís basically the same stuff so all it means is
that itís been watered down and guar gum is a natural occurring plant base product
so whether theyíre using a good guar gum in your particular brand of coconut milk,
Iím not sure but itís definitely vegan.
So no need to worry about that and you know I donít use coconut milk that often so Iím
not too concern about it. So give this a stir and what you wanna do is just let it simmer
for a few minutes and then youíre going to serve it over whatever you like. You can have
it over some baked zucchini will be really nice or some mashed potatoes or what Iím
doing is with some millet.
You can also add some beans to this dish so if you wanted to add some cooked lentils you
can just throw them in, cook them separately and put them in the dish or whatever type
of bean you wanted to add.
Lentils goes very nicely with curries because theyíre an Indian type of bean but anyway
very flexible dish and what Iím gonna do is serve it over the millet and Iíve got
some almonds toasting in the oven that Iím gonna put on top.
Cilantro, fresh cilantro of course is always nice, you can stir that in at the very end
so I hope you enjoy. You can find the recipe at HealthyVeganRecipes.net. Iím Heather and
this is Freshly Served.