Super Sumac Summer Curry - Recipe (serves 20*)
Super Sumac Summer Curry
This is a light, fruity summer curry with an abundance of roast red peppers, butternut squash, fennel, peas and some sharp berries to accent the curry’s tomato and red pepper fruits. Sumac, is perhaps its most subtly flavoured ingredient so that you might think it is so named because Super Sumac Summer has a ring to it. Well, beyond this it could be said that the Sumac has inspired some of the other ingredients and a direction of travel. Sumac - which is a purple red berry before being dried and ground into a spice, has a quite distinctive pepperry sharply citrus flavour. This led us to consider creating a fruity curry that also utilises the red currants that were brought into us this year by one or two of our customer neighbours, as well as our friends at Preston Park Victorian Walled Garden project.
Ingredients
4x butternut squash
6x large red peppers
6x medium/large white onions
3x fennel bulbs
1/2 (half)x bulb of garlic
3x Pomegranate
2x cups or sml punnets of red currants
1x yellow pepper
1/2x a sweet orange
500gm x petit pois
500gm x broad beans
1kg tinned tomatoes
2 tbl spoon cooked/tomato puree
1 tel spoon good vegetable stock
2x pots/ 4x tbl spoons of sumac
6-8 bay leaves
6-8 curry leaves
6 fresh lime leaves*
2 limes
1 lemon
1 small juicy orange
2 x dessert spoon fenugreek
2 x dessert spoon cumin
2 x tea spoon fennel seed
2 x whole star anise
2 x dessert spoon garam masala or curry ground spice powder; traditional madras blend* of cumin, coriander seed, cardamom, turmeric, ginger, garlic salt, chilli - etc. (not so much containing the winter pudding cinnamon and nutmeg flavours)
3-6x fresh chillis* (*vary to strength of chilli, and to taste)
3 or 4x teaspoon chilli flakes
oil, salt, pepper
Method
Prep Time: raw ingredients; (peeling dicing etc.) = 2 hours for 20-24 servings so 1 hour for 12 servings etc.
Cooking time 1 hour; Roasting = 1 hour at 180* (sumac-smothered squash + red peppers/stock-braised fennel) and a simultaneous/the same 1 hour to sauté and curry/stew the dish = (whilst the squash and peppers roast)*
Ideal cold rest homogenous stewing time = 24 hours after making, to reheat and serve.
Peel and dice the butternut squash into aprox 1 inch cubes, similarly cut the red pepper into inch+ pieces, fairly finely dice all of the onions, halve and smack the pomegranates to release and catch the seeds and keep these to one side with the red currants, which should be removed from any twiggy stalks. Cut the orange into 8 pieces.
Cut the fennel into aprox 2 inch pieces
Crush, or finely slice approximately 6 garlic cloves, grate about a 3 inch knobbly of fresh ginger.
Shell the broad beans* and keep these to one side with the petit pois.
Grind/smash and blend the spice mix* See end note
Method cont
Set oven to 180 degrees, smother the squash pieces in olive oil, sumac, lemon, salt and pepper in one tray and smother the red peppers and pieces of orange in olive oil, sumac, salt, pepper and lemon in another tray. Use about 2 dessert spoons of sumac and half a lemon in each. Cover the trays - of butternut squash and red peppers with baking paper to retain the moisture and roasting juices in the tray as they roast for approximately one hour.
Meanwhile, put half a cup of sunflower or rapeseed oil into a large pan and place in all of the diced onions to sauté, sweat and reduce - together with about 6 bay leaves and 6 curry leaves on the onions - on a high heat for about 5 minutes to get things going - stirring throughout without browning at all, then turning down to a medium/2/3rds heat and stirring occasionally whilst the onions reduce in volume by about a half inside the pan.
Next add your spice mix (See Spice Mix end note) - turning up to a higher heat once more and stirring in thoroughly, now also add the stock* adding splashes of liquid if the sugars and spices do start to stick to the bottom of the pan, to keep things moving in what by now should begin to be in syrupy fashion.
Next, on a medium heat again add the prepared garlic and ginger and chopped fresh chilli peppers- and stir in for a minute and add the tomato puree.
Next add the fennel and ‘sauté’ this within a shallow level of hot sticky stocky steamy liquid.
Then, after 10 minutes the passata and chopped tinned tomatoes and lime leaves, lime juice and sea salt. Stir in well and allow the tomatoes to cook out and cook in to the sauce for a good 20 minutes at least, now seasoning the base sauce to taste with salt, pepper and chilli flakes.
This cooking process should all take approximately one hour to coincide with the roasting of the squash and red peppers, which should then be about ready. Check this, and that each are cooked through with an obvious toffeeish caramelisation of their flesh through to the centres of the pieces. Transfer all of the squash and red pepper pieces including all of the liquid that they have released, into the large curry pot.
Gently stir through, then adding the garden peas/petit pois and broad beans, and then adding the red currants, pomegranate and roast orange pieces. Add black pepper and seasalt, and possibly more chilli flakes to taste.
At this stage the curry is complete, and delicious. Remove from heat after 5 minutes of adding final ingredients. This light fruity summer curry is ready to serve, but will be even better if allowed to cool for a few hours then refrigerated overnight to be reheated and served 24 hours after making.
Super Sumac Summer Curry
*I just made this summer curry yesterday for a group of 20 on a Yokati yoga retreat in Ibiza - a Healing Foods and Kundalini gig with Emma. Divide quantities as necessary, without going too tight on the curry spices.
This is a lighter, peppery fruity curry and as such requires a lower quantity of the blanket spectrum of curry masala spices that we often make for some more ‘traditional’ curries, with the subtle sumac spice providing the direction of travel for the dish. As well as sumac and the bay and curry leaves cooked through the onion base, our blend requires primarily distinctly lively aromatic fenugreek matched with an equal quantity of warm cumin, a little fennel seed aniseed flavour, and star anise. Nevertheless the curry does still require 2 spoonful’s of a suitable spectrum garam masala as listed above. The red currants pick up on the sharp fruit flavour of the sumac, whilst the pomegranate also enhances the zippy rather than too sweet fruit flavour.
We found fresh chillies and beautiful limes in the garden of the yoga villa, (and pomegranates actually!)
The leaves from the lime tree had an incredible scent and were perfect cooked through the aromatic basmati rice. A great dish to eat by the poolside with a Margarita on hand.
Aromatic basmati boiled with lime leaves to a fluffy perfection
With thanks to Kiran for making spelt chapatis, and Kati for making raita - and to Emma for the invitation to see how the other half live. We’ll do a future blog post about Healing Foods and Kundalini - and her lovely healing foods… and kundalini.