Nepalese tarkari, spicy vegetable curry
Serves: 4-8 (it depends whether it’s the main course, or it’s part of a buffet)
Preparation: 40 minutes
Cooking: 60-90 minutes
Ah, this recipe! It was instrumental in bringing me to explore the Indian sub-continent cuisines, and their numerous delights. It’s one of my all-time favorite dishes, regularly ranking among my top five recipes — yes, I’m often asked about my favorite ones.
More than a decade ago, we bought what became our favorite cooking book: “Cuisine pour étudiants fauchés et pressés !: 100 recettes World Food”, by author Brigitte Carrère. This (mostly) French title translates to “Cooking for broke students in a hurry: 100 recipes from the world”. It packs 100 recipes from 37 countries in 96 pages, along with humorous cartoons. More important, all recipes are the simplified versions of the original ones, so they can be cooked by… well… broke students in a hurry. Tarkari was one of them, and I cooked it so often that the page is actually stamped by my yellow fingerprints (read further to understand where the color comes from). I decided to learn more about Nepalese cuisine, and I researched advanced recipes of tarkari, to eventually come with my version, which I have the pleasure to detail to you below.
Although I cook it with canned and frozen ingredients from time to time, I take an immense, greater pleasure when I bring in fresh ingredients. It’s not that the dish isn’t tasteful by itself, it’s just that fresh ingredients make a huge difference, especially for this recipe. If there’s only one you use fresh, I recommend to pick the tomatoes. Canned, peeled or chopped tomatoes are more juicy, and will bath the whole dish in their liquid. By using fresh tomatoes, you’ll get a drier tarkari, which I found to enjoy a lot more. Should you be able to find fresh turmeric, do not hesitate: it’s a must!
About turmeric
Turmeric is a plant from the same family as ginger. Its rhizomes (hence the names turmeric root, and ginger root) are edible, and appreciated for cooking dishes in Asia — especially India, Thailand (the two countries have a lot of different cultivars), and China. If you’ve cooked Indian dishes, you’ve likely already encountered this ingredient. It’s most often found as a yellow-orange powder, which colors dishes, fingers, clothes, everything due to one of its component: curcumin. If you manage to get your hands on the fresh version, wear gloves if you don’t want to turn your fingers yellow! Seriously, you’ll color your fingers for at least a week, just by handling the peeled root. Wear gloves, or prepare to explain which delicious ingredient you play with.
Turmeric is popular in traditional medicines, like Ayurveda. Science investigated the possible effect of curcumin on cancer prevention, however it concluded it doesn’t yield medical benefits. Still, it’s delicious.
Both the powder and the fresh versions of turmeric gives a great taste to your dishes, beside a beautiful color. Once peeled, the fresh root looks like a small carrot, as you can see from the picture above. Its taste is more subtle, strong without being powerful, compared to the powder version.
6 potatoes ~ 670 g
6 tomatoes ~ 580 g
2 big onions ~ 415 g
2 carrots ~ 230 g
200 g cauliflower florets (here, I used frozen cauliflower; fresh is of coursebetter)
70 g green peas (I used frozen peas; here, too, I acknowledge how fresh ones taste better, though frozen peas are way, way more convenient)
30 g ginger
20 g fresh turmeric, or 1 soup spoon of turmeric powder
2 coffee spoons of cumin seeds
2 coffee spoons of Himalayan pink gem salt
1 heaped coffee spoon of chili pepper powder (optional, though it gives power to the dish, especially if you use bhüt jolokia like I did)
3 soup spoons of sunflower oil
The preparation steps aren’t complex, they just take long. This is where you can significantly gain time by relying on frozen, pre-chopped cauliflower florets, and frozen green peas. Although you can start heating your cookware as soon as you’re done with the preparation of onions, it’s always a good idea to complete the steps below before moving to the Cooking ones.
Wash the potatoes; dice them in thumb-sized cubes, then wash these to prevent them from turning brown
Wash the tomatoes; chop into thumbnail-sized pieces
Peel the onions, cut in half from top to bottom, and slice each half from the outside toward the inside and top to bottom; finally, detach each “onion arc” (I don’t have a better word; see picture below for the expected result)
Peel the carrots, slice in 0.5 cm to 1 cm wide discs
If you have fresh cauliflower, wash it
Peel the ginger root, cut into small matchsticks
Peel the turmeric, slice, then cut each slices into rectangular pieces (see pictures above, and below)
Coarsely grind the cumin seeds; the idea is to turn some into powder while the majority is only
For years, I cooked tarkari in a non-stick, deep-sided pan. I’ve moved to rely on my fancy stainless steel, deep-sided Dutch pan. Although it makes cooking the potatoes a bit more difficult, since they’re more likely to stick to the bottom of the pan, it’s still my go-to cookware for this dish. As suggested in the Preparation steps (and in nearly all my articles), complete all of them before moving with the Cooking ones below.
Heat 5 soup spoons of oil to 50% of the maximum flame/power; wait for it to be hot
Add half of the turmeric and the potato dice
Cover and cook for 10 minutes; to prevent the potatoes from sticking to the bottom, stir vigorously every 2 minutes
Reserve the potato dice and the turmeric pieces for later
Increase the heat to 70% of the maximum flame/power; add 2 soup spoons of oil, the onions, the carrots, and the rest of the turmeric; do not cover, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly
Add salt, ginger, cumin, tomatoes, cauliflower (only if using fresh cauliflower); stir, lower the heat to 40%; cover for 10 minutes
Return the potatoes and the turmeric cooked in the beginning to the pot; add green peas, cauliflower (if you opted for its frozen version); stir, lower the heat to 30%, and cover
Cook for 30 (minimum) to 60 minutes (if you can afford the extra time) — the longer the better!
Adjust salt if needed
Once you’ve completed the Cooking steps, stop the heat, and leave the deep-sided pan covered until you serve. It can be enjoyed immediately, served with basmati rice, or (more difficult to find) purple Bhutanese rice. When I cook tarkari for guests, I like to also serve a lentils soup (though my gōbhī and masoor tandoori dal doesn’t reallty fit, here), and even other dishes.
The longer you keep the cookware covered, the more flavors will diffuse throughout the dish. I usually let it cool down (covered, so it takes a while), then I store the deep-sided Dutch pan in my fridge, as is. I re-heat it the day after, and I enjoy a dish where the flavors are evenly distributed. Beware, however, that the chili pepper propagates and turn up the overall heat of the dish — adapt the amount of fire chili pepper according to your serving plan.
This dish re-heats nicely, on low flame/power. I used to freeze some servings in the past, however the potato dice tend to turn mushy when returned to room temperature, then re-heated. I now adapt the quantity I cook to the number of guests, or to the number of meals I intend to batch cook for.
Enjoy!
If you’ve tried the recipe, and would like to comment - whether you loved it, or hated it - please do so. I’m welcoming ideas, even if these are non-vegan recipes I’ll have the challenge to “veganize”.
Here’s a tip before you go
The turmeric powder can help thicken a sauce, or a dish which would otherwise be too liquid. It does so without disturbing too much the balance of the existing flavors. Be cautious, however, that adding too much turmeric powder can give a doughy texture — choose a mix of turmeric, and ground coriander to progressively thicken your dish.
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