How can I improve this recipe?

July 22, 2018 2:22 AM

My local pub does a sweet potato and spinach curry that's amazing. I'm trying to recreate it at home and I need help. I found this recipe and tried it last night, and the results were...ok. Cooks of Metafilter, can you offer suggestions to amazingify it?

I cooked it exactly as shown. I am not an intuitive cook at all. I don't have the ability to look at this list of ingredients or method and do the "I think instead I'll add more X and leave out Y and swap this thing for that other thing" thing. I found the spice blend ok, a mild heat that developed as we kept eating, but I'd prefer it spicier and I don't know what spices to adjust and by how much. I'm not a big fan of ginger or cinnamon in general, so I'm wary about increasing these so that's the kind of thing I need help with. There is a LOT of spinach involved. It did all wilt down, and tasted nice, although appearance-wise it resembled spinach stew, but it left the sauce watery rather than creamy. The one we eat out has a dark sauce, this was very pale. I have no clue what would make it richer or creamier.

I'm too shy/awkward to just ask them for the recipe. But I also assume there is some form of cream or ghee or something that probably makes it higher fat than I'd like. The version I found is good for that, but generally just...ok.

So MF foodies, can you work your magic and make it better? Or have you an alternative recipe for this that you can share? It's the perfect meal for us because it's low fat, vegetarian, it makes dinner for two nights, and we love spinach and sweet potatoes and spice, so if I can perfect it I'll be very happy. Many thanks.

posted by billiebee to Food & Drink (18 answers total)

Best answer: I think if you added a bit of coconut milk it would taste more like the curry at your pub (use the tinned kind of coconut milk meant for cooking, not the kind that is in the dairy case for drinking/subbing for cow's milk). Yes, it adds more fat, but you could try the light/low fat kind.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:31 AM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

One simple thing to make it less watery would be to cook the spinach separately, squeeze the water out of it and then add it, if you’re going to be adding the spinach at the last minute. If you buy bags of pre-washed spinach you can prick the bag to let the steam escape, microwave for minute or so, chop the wilted spinach and squeeze the water out in a colander.

Alternatively a different recipe which cooked the spinach longer and boiled off some of the water would help, although then you get less of a fresh green spinach and more of a spinach sauce — which might or might not be what you want.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 2:40 AM on July 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

You could also try looking up saag aloo recipes and substituting sweet potato for potato, although saag aloo is typically a dry curry which doesn’t sound like what you’re looking for.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 2:48 AM on July 22, 2018

Response by poster: If I was adding coconut milk, how much would I use and at what stage would I add it? Yes I really do need this much hand-holding... Also I could try cooking off the final mixture for longer after adding the spinach, but I don't think realistically I'd be bothered cooking it separately before adding it - I don't have a microwave and I prefer one-pot cooking for reasons of laziness. Thanks so far :)
posted by billiebee at 3:10 AM on July 22, 2018

The suggestion of coconut cream or milk would add the creaminess you are looking for (say 1 small tin or 1 cup) or you could mash/blend a tin of drained, rinsed chickpeas to thicken up the sauce. This will move away from the original dish though... an experiment worth trying!

Consider adding additional spices like tumeric, ground cumin and ground coriander seed (1/2 tsp of each)

Definitely add pepper to season it up (especially if using tumeric as it enhances the bioavailability of the curcumin in the tumeric).

Also, I found this recipe that may be worth a shot! Happy cooking.
posted by latch24 at 3:37 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Agreed that it's worth cooking the spinach separately and squeezing out the water, and that using coconut milk instead of the water (I'd just swap 1:1) will improve things. I'd also probably double the spices, or keep the whole cumin seed and swap everything else out for about a tablespoon of garam masala. I think that I'd also increase the sweet potato to about a kilo of it--the original recipe seems like a lot of water to not much veg.

Alt: I strongly suspect that if you post the name of the place, someone here will be only too happy to ring up and ask for the recipe.
posted by mishafletch at 3:55 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Honestly, though, it might be more rewarding to try a different recipe rather than retro-fit that one. I can’t actually vouch for this Sweet Potato, Chickpea and Spinach Coconut Curry which I found via google, but it sounds like it might get more of the effect you want: it has coconut milk, she mashes some of the potato and chickpea to thicken the sauce, it has tomato in it, which will make it darker and more savoury. The suggestion to use broth in place of coconut oil seems a bit odd, I would at least use a little vegetable oil to brown the cumin seeds and fry the onions. And again, if it looks like it might not be thick enough, it might be worth cooking the spinach separately — you can always add more water, after all.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 4:25 AM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

You might like this curried sweet potato and lentil dish.
posted by knapah at 4:53 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: For me, the curry game-changer was making it the way my Indian neighbour showed me, using 'wet' spices (ginger, chilli, garlic) and 'dry' spices (coriander, cumin, etc.)

This can be used as the base for any curry and it really does make a difference to the intensity of the flavour.

********

Chop 2 or 3 onions and fry slowly in a 2 tablespoons of light vegetable oil (canola, sunflower - *not* olive) or ghee over a low-medium flame until golden (this can't be rushed, it'll take a good 15-20 minutes, don’t let it burn).

While the onions are cooking, blend 2 or 3 tomatoes in a food processor, with three or four cloves of garlic, a 'thumb' of ginger and a red chilli (take out the seeds first if you don't want it super hot). Put this in a little bowl and set to one side. It might look a little watery, but do not worry, It will be fine. This is the 'wet' spice mix.

Mix together the dry spices:

- 2 teaspoons garam masala
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 0.5 teaspoon asafoetida (hing) –It’s absolutely essential to use this. You’ll find it in Indian supermarkets or you can get it on Amazon. This really is the secret ingredient.
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- 0.5 teaspoon ground coriander
- salt and pepper to taste

When the onions are cooked and cool, blend them into a paste in the food processor. Return the onion paste to the pot and fry, along with the tomatoes/wet spices and the dry spice blend, on a low heat for a few minutes, until the oil begins to separate.

Then proceed as you would adding the other ingredients, sweet potatoes, chickpeas, whatever, as directed by your recipe.
posted by essexjan at 4:56 AM on July 22, 2018 [13 favorites]

I agree with the above poster to brown the onions first, alone, for a long while until they are dark. Ginger is definitely the thing adding the heat, so I would increase the amount you are using. I would also recommend not using a full cup of water- add enough to cook the sweet potato, but no more- keep the heat low, and watch it closely.

My biggest tip for cooking Indian is making a "tarka" and adding it before serving. I have something like this utensil that I got in India. I melt a big spoonful of ghee in it by putting the spoon directly on my burner (you can use any all metal ladle for this), and add spices (for this recipe you could use small bits of the spices that were called for in the recipe, but especially whole cumin seeds), and fry until they smell aromatic. Add this to the curry, and stir. Finish with a pinch of asafetida- I never cook asafetida with my curries, just add it at the end.

Madhur Jaffrey is the a very good cook book author- and her book Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible has a lot of great info- it includes curries from all over the world, and I have adapted some of them to other recipes (the best curry IMHO is her Egg Curry, I make the tomato based sauce and add what ever veg I want to it, though egg curry is one of my favorites!)
posted by momochan at 5:52 AM on July 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

I would entirely eliminate the cup of water the recipe asks for, and substitute half a cup coconut milk and two finely chopped medium sized fresh tomatoes instead. Often, the addition of an acid helps brighten the flavour of food and may be that extra something your original recipe was missing. Salt, acid, fat: if a recipe is bland, it's usually deficient in one of those three elements. The tomato will add the acid that's missing from that recipe.

If you do cook the final product longer to make it less watery, try not to cook it much longer than 30 minutes after adding the coconut milk, or it might separate and not look so nice.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:31 AM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

I think this recipe is trying to do the "one pot meal" thing and think that's causing the case of the blands.

I would cook the sweet potato separately (about 15 minutes) and blanch the spinach, drain, and set them aside.

Then, over medium heat, brown the onion, add the garlic, ginger, salt, spices (add turmeric for heat, coriander, or garam masala), and either a can of diced tomato or 1-2 tablespoons tomato paste.

I also would use ghee or coconut oil instead of canola, but that's me.

Then, add in 1/2 cup - 1 cup coconut milk, lower the heat until it's simmering.

Then, add back the sweet potato and spinach, cover, and simmer for about 5 more minutes, until the sweet potato is tender.

The resulting sauce should be thick and fragrant. If it's not rich enough at that point, add 1 tablespoon of butter and let melt.
posted by skye.dancer at 12:23 PM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Just made it with some decent results. I switched out the assortment of spices for a tablespoon or so of Javin's curry powder (got from local spice shop, I imagine any curry powder/garam masala mix would do), some tumeric, and switched out the water for coconut milk. I also added celery and green bellpeppers with the sweet potatoes, and chickpeas with the spinach. I think subbing the coconut milk really helped - the sweet potatoes are a little undercooked so maybe cooking them separately would help too.
posted by Sotha Sil at 2:14 PM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Hi, fellow cooking novice! How old are your spices? If they are more than 6 months old, get new ones. Spices lose their flavor really quickly, so that might be a source of blandness. Also consider that you may just want to double or triple the spices, even with new fresh spices, until it tastes the way you want.

You can fine-tune your spices one at a time - taste the dish as-is, open and smell the spice so you have an idea of what you're adding, add in let's say 1/2 of the listed amount, taste the dish, and see if you want to add more. You can do this at any step in the process - with the onions, with the spinach, and at the end. Taste, smell, add, taste, repeat until you like the result. If none of the spices taste to you like the restaurant version, you might need different spices, like some of the ones in this thread (asafoetida perhaps).

Same with salt - it's a bit variable, even though it's listed as a fixed quantity. Taste, add, taste, repeat (you can skip the smelling for salt). Salt doesn't make a dish taste salty until you've added a bucket of it. Instead, salt makes the dish taste more like itself. Keep adding salt, a bit at a time, until your dish tastes like something, rather than tasting bland.

But in general, I agree with other commenters that this doesn't seem to be "a recipe for a curry" as much as it's a "recipe that uses the spices of curry." An actual curry involves coconut milk or some other creamy base. If you add coconut milk to this recipe, which I would recommend (and there are low-fat versions out there), be prepared to double or triple the spices so you can still taste them.
posted by danceswithlight at 2:45 PM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks everyone! So to collate the advice I will:
use coconut milk instead of water
do the wet and dry spices including adding tomatoes
double the spices, taste and maybe triple them
add tumeric and pepper
cook the spinach separately and add at the end
add a knob of butter if I need to

I think that's it, and thanks all as that's exactly the kind of "this not that" approach that I couldn't figure out alone. I'll try again this weekend and report back...
posted by billiebee at 4:10 AM on July 24, 2018

Just one further note, if you want to thicken the curry without the extra saturated fat of coconut milk: adding a tablespoon or so of ground cashew nuts (you can make this yourself with raw cashews and a blender) often works to thicken an Indian curry and add a creamy note to the flavour. Otherwise, I agree with everyone else, especially about browning the onions much longer and adding garam masala and ginger.
posted by Aravis76 at 4:38 AM on July 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Sorry, I forgot to add: the ground cashews go in towards the end, to thicken up the curry before serving. You could add them just before the spinach, simmer for 5-10 minutes, and add a bit more until you reach your desired thickness.
posted by Aravis76 at 4:41 AM on July 24, 2018

Response by poster: I made it again last night and thanks - it was so much better! I still need to tweak the creaminess and the spice mix, but it was way closer to what I was after. I did cut way back on the spinach and just wilted some baby spinach through at the end, but I cooked the sweet potatoes separately which was much better, and made up the wet / dry spices mix (except for the asafoetida which I forgot to get but will get for next time) - it's great to have that as a base for anything else I try. Also the coconut milk made a big difference - it genuinely wouldn't have occurred to me to add that! So, much appreciated everyone, I'm marking a couple as best but every answer was helpful.
posted by billiebee at 10:59 AM on July 30, 2018 [2 favorites]