Mango curry (w/ homemade curry powder & tamarind paste) {vegan + gluten free}

(cliccate qui per la versione italiana)

Happy Monday, everyone!

By now you may have noticed that I never post or talk about spicy (hot) foods and that’s because I can’t eat them, actually I hate them! I feel sick after just one bite. I don’t know how anyone can enjoy something that makes their mouth go on fire 🙁 But at the same time I do love the smell and taste of curry, just minus the hot spices. So, every once in a while, I make some vegetable curry stew. Here you can find some of my previous recipes: red eggplant curry, curry with crispy tofu and sweet potato and chickpea curry.

Then, a few days ago I woke up with an idea in my head: mango curry! Was that a thing? Indeed, I quickly found out it is a popular Sri Lankan dish. So I read through a bunch of recipes online and made my own. Mango is my absolute favorite fruit and wow this tastes amazing!!

I also decided to make curry powder and tamarind paste from scratch so you’ll find those, too!

MANGO CURRY (+ HOMEMADE CURRY POWDER + TAMARIND PASTE) {vegan + gluten free}
by Marta Giaccone

Recipe
serves 4
prep time: 10 mins, cook time: 40 mins, total time: 50 mins (not counting homemade curry powder + tamarind paste)

Mango curry
3 tbsp light oil
1 red onion
2 garlic cloves
1 tbsp mustard seeds
2 tsp curry powder (to make your own, see recipe below)
handful curry leaves
a piece of fresh ginger, grated
400 ml (1 can) full-fat coconut milk
ground turmeric
3 mangoes, ripe but still firm
optional: 3 tsp tamarind paste (or to taste; to make your own, see recipe below) or brown sugar (to taste)
juice of 1 lime
fresh coriander
240 gr basmati rice

Method

1. Mince onion and garlic. Add to a pan with 3 tbsp of light oil, 1 tbsp mustard seeds and a pinch of salt. Sauté over medium/low heat, stirring often, until translucent.
2. Add curry powder and grated ginger, stir and let sauté for a couple of minutes. Add curry leaves, stir and keep sautéing.

3. Add coconut milk (both liquid and solid parts), then fill half the can with water and add that as well. Let cook on low heat, covered, for a few minutes. Add a little bit of turmeric and stir, just so that the liquid becomes a nice yellow (don’t add too much!)
4. In the meantime wash the mangoes very well (I used baking soda to disinfect), peel and chop them or do the crisscross cut thing. Keep the peel in large pieces. Take out curry leaves at this point which may be easier, but they will give less flavor. Add everything – mango pulp (reserve pulp of ½ a mango for decoration), peel and pulp – and continue cooking on low heat for 10 minutes. Remove from heat. When slightly cooler, discard curry leaves and mango peel and pits, squeezing out all juice and remaining pulp (you could also eat the peel at this point, but my mangoes were not organic). Taste and add a couple of tsp tamarind paste or sugar, if necessary, and salt.
5. Rinse and drain rice, add to a medium pot with 500ml/2 cups of water, cover and bring to a boil over medium-low heat. Let cook according to packaging instructions. If there is any water left, drain the rice.
6. Before serving, add lime juice and chopped fresh coriander. Serve warm over basmati rice.

Curry powder
4 tbsp coriander seeds
2 tbsp cumin seeds
2 tbsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1 tsp whole cloves
seeds of 8 cardamom pods
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp ground turmeric

Method

1. Place all ingredients (except for turmeric) in a small pan over medium/low heat and let toast for about 5 minutes or until you can smell their aroma and they start to pop. Stir or move the pan around very often to prevent them from burning.
2. Let cool.
3. Grind them in a coffee grinder or in a mortar and pestle. Add turmeric and stir.
4. Transfer to an airtight container.

Tamarind paste
any amount of tamarind pods or tamarind pulp
water

Method

1. Peel if necessary, remove the large outer fibers and break tamarind in smaller pieces.
2. Place in a small bowl and add hot water just so it covers the pulp, don’t add too much. Let soak for 30 minutes.
3. With your hands, remove the small stones, then filter pulp along with water through a fine or medium sieve, in batches. If you think you have too much liquid, remove some before filtering. The paste should be quite thick.
4. Transfer to a glass jar with a metal lid (seems like tamarind reacts to plastic) and store in the fridge.