Coconut Curry Recipe (With Video)

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Hello and welcome to Freshly Served, the healthy vegan cooking show. I’m Heather and tonight we’re going to make a spinach coconut curry.

Now I’ve 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 we’re gonna start with is I’ve 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 I’m making but I have this size pot and I’m using that one for the millet so that’s what we gotta go with.

Alright! So heat this up to medium high, I’ve got about 6 out of 9 on my stove. Wait for that to heat up and then what I’m gonna use actually is some coconut oil because I’m making a coconut curry, (oh! That spoon is not good, I will use a knife) because I’m using coconut milk in this curry I’m 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 don’t 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 I’m doing is I’m stirring it around the onions so that it coats them and it cooks the onions rather than cooking itself.

And I’m using red onions tonight and in this dish I like to slice them and then just slice those slices in half so they’re kind of like a half of what we begin but that’s 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 we’re gonna add the spices to this dish. Alright! So these onions have soften up and while they were doing that I’ve chopped up my greens and I did called this a spinach coconut curry, I’m cooking this with chard either one is fine.

I just- I wasn’t 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 I’ve 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 don’t like to buy fresh ginger so for those of you who don’t you can use ground. Looks like I was putting a lot in there but it’s just that holes on that thing were not letting the ginger out.

I’ve 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. I’ve 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 that’s 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 doesn’t form as many free radical as say flax oil.

Flax oil is very unstable, it’s 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 you’re going to – oh! Actually first I’m going to add the greens and your gonna add these and let them wilt so it’s actually a good thing that I have this big pot because check out how full it’s 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 I’m using my salt grinder today that has salt crystals as well as dried kelp in here. Hope you can see it – oh! It’s getting all steamy now you can’t 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 I’m gonna put in next and it’s kind of a slow salt grinder.

So once you got that mix in you can add the coconut milk. Ok! And I’m 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 I’m using Thai kitchen which yes comes from Thailand but they don’t 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 what’s inside so this one has more water than coconut milk but it’s basically the same stuff so all it means is that it’s been watered down and guar gum is a natural occurring plant base product so whether they’re using a good guar gum in your particular brand of coconut milk, I’m not sure but it’s definitely vegan.

So no need to worry about that and you know I don’t use coconut milk that often so I’m 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 you’re 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 I’m 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 they’re an Indian type of bean but anyway very flexible dish and what I’m gonna do is serve it over the millet and I’ve got some almonds toasting in the oven that I’m 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. I’m Heather and this is Freshly Served.