The winning foogath is on the lower part of the plate! |
The Great Foogath Experiment Goan Warm, spicy salad
My friend Jenny has been to India twice, where she has
fallen madly in love with foogath. I had
never had it, so I googled it, and have found about a gazillion contradictory
recipes, from which I have borrowed, stolen and invented this dish. Apologies to my fellow bloggers from whom I
may have stolen a few teaspoons of ideas!
You don’t need to use these exact vegetables; you can look
about you and get a sense of what you’d like.
Jenny tells me that eggplant is often used, but I didn’t have any, so we
went without that.For the winning foogath, I used:
2 kale leaves, stalk removed and leaves cut into small pieces
1 ½ cups shredded red cabbage
1 carrot, sliced finely
2 to 3 cauliflower florets, chopped
2 stalks asparagus, cut into two inch pieces
Competing foogaths! |
½ fresh ginger, julienned
1 fresh garlic clove, chopped
1 Anaheim pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon virgin, cold pressed coconut oil
1 teaspoon dark mustard seed
1 teaspoon cumin seed
ten curry leaves
¼ cup raw cashews
juice of 1 lime
1/3 fresh coconut, scraped
a few cilantro leaves (optional)
salt to taste
Have the vegetables and coconut ready to go before you
start cooking, because this goes fast, and you won’t have time to prepare while
ingredients are cooking.
Put the pan on medium high heat, and when it’s hot, add the
coconut oil. When it seems hot, toss in
a few mustard seeds. When they start to
sizzle and turn white, add the cumin seeds and let them sizzle and then
add the onion and ginger, stirring to cool down the pan, and lower the heat to
medium. Cook for a few
minutes, to caramelise them just a bit, then add the garlic, curry leaves and
Anaheim pepper. Let those cook for a
minute or two, then add your toughest vegetable. I added my kale at that point, then my
cabbage and let that cook for about three minutes. Then I added the cauliflower, carrot and
asparagus. The point isn’t to cook these
through but to warm them up, so they are partially cooked, but still have some
crunch to them. The idea of keeping the enzymes alive is very appealing to me, as it increases the health benefits of the dish. This shouldn’t take very
long at all, maybe seven minutes or so. Add
the cashews, then the lime juice and stir well to coat all morsels.My Goan coconut scraper! |
Serve on a pretty plate, sprinkling the coconut and perhaps
a leaf or two of cilantro over top.
Because Jenny’s recipe (on paper and brought back from Goa) asked for a
bottled masala,with no mention of what that might contain, we experimented by
using a madras curry paste in one pot, but we felt it wasn’t necessary, and
maybe even detracted from the more traditional foogath.
From what I learned, a foogath is a simple and quick dish
that relies on just mustard seed, curry leaves and fresh coconut to make it the
special recipe that it is. I also
gathered that this is usually served with rice or roti, but we felt the carbs
were unnecessary. I insisted on the raw
cashews, my invention entirely, because I like to put some protein into every
meal. This little experiment was quite delicious,
and if any of you out there can let us know what I really should have done, please
let us know!
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