Monday, March 22, 2010

Pistachio and Green Chili Kofta in Tomato - Coconut Sauce


We had guests for dinner on Saturday night, so I wanted to whip up something extra tasty. I wasn't feeling particularly inspired in the cooking department on Saturday, so I turned to my cookbooks for a bit of help. I pulled down the Cafe Paradiso Cookbook; I hadn't cracked it in years, and wanted to refresh my memory a bit.


This particular Cafe Paradiso (I'm sure there are many cafes that go by that name) is a well-known vegetarian restaurant in Cork, Ireland. And though I lived in Ireland for several years...sadly, I never ate there. It seemed that on the few occasions that we happened to be in Cork city, we were in omni company that "poo-pooed" the idea. Oh well...there's still time.

The recipes in this book generally lean towards dairy, but all in all, most of them are pretty veganizable. I chose this recipe  because I had  made it once before and knew it was yummy. The recipe calls for yogurt, so I used coconut milk yogurt in place of the dairy kind.

Without disclosing too much, the kofta are a mixture of chickpea flour (aka gram flour) and coconut yogurt (or whatever kind you want to use), with pistachios, chilis (I used jalapeños), and various spices. This makes a wet batter that you shape into balls and deep fry. You could potentially add any combo of nuts, veggies, and spices to the gram flour/yogurt base.

The kofta are the three balls around the outside in the photo:


The tomato-coconut sauce is delicious. It's basically a curried sauce with tomatoes and coconut. The flavors go perfectly with the kofta. The recipe in the book calls for serving this with cardamom-lime pancakes, but I opted for a lentil and bulgher wheat pilaf sort of thing (middle). Turnip greens and fresh tomato garnish the sides. You could use any leafy green in place of the turnip greens...kale or chard would be nice.

Roseann LaPonte
Rosanne Tobin

20 comments:

  1. I love tomato coconut sauce. Your guests must've been thrilled to be served such a beautiful meal.

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  2. Hi SV,

    I have to say, it went over well...no leftovers whatsoever.

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  3. Those flavors are perfect. If it has coconut, I'm there:) And your presentation was just lovely too.

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  4. This looks just wonderful. Lucky guests!

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  5. Cor the sound of the dish made me rush over. And it so tantalizing to the eyes.

    I love how you veganized the dish without losing out on flavour. I don't think I have ever seen coconut yogurt here.

    That is one of my favourite cookbooks. If I should ever visit Cork, To eat at Cafe Paradio would be high on the list. I've been told its quite expensive, but it'll be a treat - no like we do it that often (eat out that is)

    Also wanted to say, Thank you so much for sending me from afar warm wishes to get well.

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  6. Janet,

    I agree, I love coconut too...can't go wrong with coconut on your side.

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  7. Andrea,

    Thanks, I was glad that it turned out well...I don't have guests often and am a bit rusty on the home entertaining front.

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  8. Mangocheeks,

    I'm glad you're feeling better.

    It's neat you have the same book...I'd love to see your rendition of one of the recipes sometime.

    Cafe Paradiso is on my list too...next time I'm on that side of the pond.

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  9. That looks absolutely wonderful! I think I need that cookbook! Yummmm...

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  10. this is so exotic, i see so much good food on your blog, what a time to be without a kitchen!!! grrr everything i make in our kitchen right now, without fail, has gravely bits in it from all the work being done on our house.

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  11. Allyson,

    Thanks for stopping by. The kofta are fun, and once you have a "fryable" base of some sort of yogurt and chickpea flour, you could play around with other flavors and spices. The batter is quite wet, but fries up nicely.

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  12. Dirtyduck,

    It's always a bummer when your kitchen is indisposed. Hope the work gets done fast so you don't have to eat gravely bits.

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  13. Wow, that looks really delicious! I need to lay my hands on that cookbook, it sounds fantastic!

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  14. Hi Mihl,

    Thanks for commenting...the cookbook has some wonderful recipes...most are veganizable.

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  15. Thanks, Rose. That was a really sweet comment :)

    Wow. That Kofta looks divine. You just made me so hungry right now.

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  16. JennShaggy,

    I get hungry every time I read your blog! Thanks for stopping by.

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  17. Rose,

    This looks fabulous! What a shame you didn't get to the restaurant when you lived in Ireland. Sounds like it would have been a treat. I can see why you didn't have any leftovers.

    Alicia

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  18. Alicia,

    I know it's not the healthiest thing because the frying, but it was fun to do some entertaining.

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  19. Rose,

    Sometimes you just need to have a good time and throw caution to the wind. A little frying now and then isn't that horrible. Glad you had fun!

    Alicia

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  20. Thanks for your kind words Ali.

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