Vegetable Curry

While I was on the Pilgrimage of Peace to India I met Dr. Kranthi who is the wife of Sri Prasad, the main organizer of the pilgrimage. Dr. Kranthi is the granddaughter of one of the followers of Gandhi. She works full time as a dentist so her husband, Sri Prasad, can work full time, without pay, as General Secretary for the Andhre Pradesh Sarvodaya Mandel, the Gandhian organization in their state of India. She joined us for about five days of the pilgrimage. She is one of those persons that one feels like they already know. Learning of my interest in cooking and eating Indian food one day while traveling to one of the pilgrimage sites, she gave me a recipe for Lime Rice. I made it and wrote to her about it. She then sent me a better recipe for lime rice and told me what ingredients to purchase at the local Indian store. I had already been there but went back the other day to get the rest of the ingredients.

This morning I took some boneless pork chops out of the freezer and was thinking of interesting ways to use the cauliflower in the refrigerator. When I went to check my emails I found a recipe from Dr. Kranthi for vegetable curry. Since I had a number of the vegetables suggested, including a cauliflower, and all the right Indian spices, I decided to make it for dinner tonight. I cut up the boneless pork chops and cooked them separately in an electric frying pan with a little curry spice I had purchased.

However, the curry vegetable recipe called for many spices that make curry but not for any curry powder itself. I found the hard work was in preparing the ingedients. I cut and cooked all the vegetables ahead of time and got ready all the many spices the recipe called for. The actual cooking of the meal, like most Indian dishes, is done quickly and is dependent on adding the right spice at the right time.

Dr. Kranthi had said to send her a photo of the dish and that she could tell me my mistakes just by seeing the preparation, even without tasting the food. So to test out her statement I will not tell you about any mistakes I think I might have made. (The dish was better looking than this picture.) But I can tell you that my wife and son really enjoyed the vegetable curry. My wife, my toughest food critic, said that this was one meal I could make every night. This means she thought it was excellent and above the par of some of my other homemade recipes. She loved the combination of tastes, spices and vegetables. I had cooked the pork separately but all three of us ending up adding it to the vegetable curry in our dishes.

I will tell you my grade and possible mistakes after Dr. Kranthi responds. Eventually I will list this and other recipes on one of the Pilgrimage of Peace web pages. When the food is fresh, the spices and timing are right, Indian cooking is delicious and a true art.

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