Asparagus, sweet potato and coconut curry
Thanks to Where is my Spoon for the inspiration for this one. Their's has carrots and peas but not the lentils which I wanted for the protein.
Ingredients
▢ 1/2 cup yellow lentils
▢ 1 tablespoons coconut oil
▢ 1/2 onion
▢ 2 garlic cloves
▢ a large piece of ginger as big as a thumb
▢ 1 tablespoons garam masala
▢ 1 teaspoons paprika powder
▢ 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
▢ 1/2 teaspoon sugar
▢ 200 ml/ 7 oz coconut milk
▢ 1/2 large sweet potato
▢ 250 g green asparagus
▢ small eggplant
▢ lemon juice
▢ ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt or Kosher, more to taste
Instructions
Soak the 1/2 cup of yellow lentils for half an hour.
Grill or bake the eggplant till the flesh is soft and slice into small pieces.
Chop the 1/2 onion and set it aside.
Grate the 2 cloves of garlic and thumb of ginger, and set them aside separately from the onions.
Saute: Heat the coconut oil in a large pot/pressure cooker. Add the onions and cook until translucent, 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, tblspn garam masala, 1 tspn paprika powder, 1/2 tspn turmeric, and 1/2 tspn sugar and stir for about half a minute.
Simmer: Pour in the coconut milk and the vegetable stock, bring everything to a simmer, and cook for about 5 minutes.
Chop: In the meantime, peel and chop the sweet potato into cubes. Set aside. Remove the woody ends of the asparagus (freeze to use for a vegetable broth on another occasion) and cut the asparagus into mouth-sized pieces. Keep the asparagus heads separated; they will need a shorter cooking time.
Cook: Add the sweet potato, grilled/baked eggplant and yellow lentils to the pot, bring to a boil again and cook for about 10-12 minutes/pressure cook for 6 minutes (you may need to add a little water before pressure cooking) or until the potatoes are almost done (check, it depends on their size).
Add the asparagus stalk pieces and cook for another 5 minutes or so until the potatoes are soft and the asparagus is cooked but still has a little bite.
Next, add the asparagus tips and simmer for 2-3 more minutes.
Adjust: Add the a little lemon juice and to taste. Taste again and adjust the taste with either more juice or some sugar according to your liking.
Serve with rice.