As I type this, the 'no-chicken curry' is cooking away. This is my quick week-night dinner with the Seitan that I made over the weekend. My 'curries' change every time I make it. It depends on the time that I have and what I feel like doing. Here are the basics. Em, you can make it for yourself when Mike is away?
I sauteed pieces of the Seitan first.
Heat oil. This is the only standard :)
I always add ginger and garlic cloves (cut up) and let them cook a little, with a couple of green chillis cut up. Sometimes, I add cloves, cinnamon and bay leaves too and let them brown.
Add one onion, finely chopped. Cook till translucent.
Add 1-2 cans of tomatoes (based on how watery I want the gravy).
At this point, you can cook it down like this for a few minutes and leave as is or puree the onions and tomatoes.
Today, it was chunky.
The spices I add are also inconsistent. Salt, turmeric are standard. The rest - depends on my mood, again. The choices are pre-made garam masala, paprika, chilli powder, kitchen king masala or a pre-prepared masala powder. Occasionally, I will dry roast some ingredients and grind them too... very very occasionally! Kasuri meth is an option too!
Add the protien - paneer, seitan (today), beans (garbanzo or kidney), black-eyed peas, other lentils, tofu and cook.
Sometimes I also add a vegetable at this stage - peas, spinach (today, I threw in some broccoli) - so, this one dish has it all :) Cook it all together well.
To end, again options include - cream, plain yogurt whippped together, coconut milk or just broth/water to make a tomato-based gravy. I had some left over coconut milk that needed to be used and so it was used! Boil again. If using yogurt, don't boil it for too long. You can also grind together dry-roasted cashews and add them... makes for a nutty texture. Sometimes, I just add cashews for my crunch! (Or I tend to revert to chips... bad, bad)
I *love* cilantro, so that always gets added at the end. Depending on the taste, I add some sugar to cut the acidity or lemon juice to add acidity.
Serve with rice/naan/chappati/tortilla....
The moral of this post - let your taste guide you!!
As the curry cooks, I should confess that I tasted a lot of the seitan when I was cutting it and I am not completely sold on the texture. It is very 'meaty' and I am not a huge fan of 'meaty' textures. So the jury is still out. I have some seitan left, so I will use it in a stir-fry later this week too and see what I think.
Any other Indian-food enthusiasts that read this blog - any other modifications you would make to your curry? Add it to the comments section, please.
itan. This time I made them with another similar recipe that was in the October 2008 edition of VegNews Magazine called "Down-Home Country Fried Seitan." I bought a package of White Wave seitan at Wholefoods. This version was coated in mix of spicy dijon mustard and then dipped in Panko, nutritional yeast, flour and then pan fried. It was very crispy but hard to keep from burning (I am not the best fryer in the family-I usually give that job to my husband but at least I tried!). I also breaded and fried a little bit of tofu that was milling around in my fridge. Sadly, I did not get a photo of the most recent batch. We may make these again but I think M likes the Fried Chicken version better.
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