Spicy Kitchen: ‘Love and pleasure maxed up to the hilt’ in Kama Sutra Curry
Exotic, erotic Kama Sutra Curry, recipe from Mouthwatering Vegan / Photo: Mouthwatering Vegan
by Katerina Lorenzatos Makris ~
It’s fitting that Miriam Sorrell’s birthday falls on Valentine’s Day.
Browse her award-winning Mouthwatering Vegan website, and one ingredient you’ll find throughout the recipes and other writings of this self-described “passionate gourmet cook” is love.
“I love meatless dishes,” she tells us in her bio, “I love my kitchen, I adore food. “
Miriam also adores animals. Her recipes use nothing that comes from them—no meat, dairy, eggs, or honey.
“It could be said that some people act on their conscience, others from their gut,” she said in an interview with the Malta Independent. “I choose to live by my conscience, my research and my truth, and I do not wish my body to be a cemetery for animals.
‘Love and pleasure maxed up to the hilt’
A resident of Malta whose heritage is predominantly of Greek origin, Sorrell draws inspiration from an international range of cuisines.`
Here’s how she describes her provocatively named recipe for Kama Sutra Curry (below): “Culinary love and pleasure are maxed up to the hilt in this lavish delight. Too many exotic ingredients combined to create this magnificent magic—so divine in taste—it was impossible to classify!”
Four of those ingredients happen to be things I adore too—orange, chocolate, curry, and cardamom.
“The idea,” Miriam writes, is to “marry and consolidate the flavours of orange and chocolate in a curry sauce with orange-coloured vegetables and exotic spices—the result a truly sublime delight. Not for everybody’s palate, but wonderfully unique!”
Apparently Random House believes that Sorrell’s creations will appeal to quite a few palates. The publisher asked her to a write a cookbook, Mouthwatering Vegan, which will be released in June.
If you follow the culinary lead of this Day of Love birthday girl, trying recipes from her website and her upcoming book, you just might be able to make every day Valentine’s Day.
Miriam Sorrell’s favorite spice: cardamom.
Pre-order the Mouthwatering Vegan recipe book.
Kama Sutra Curry
Recipe by Miriam Sorrell, Mouthwatering Vegan
Serve with basmati rice, poppadoms, and a vegan raita (see recipe below).
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS
olive oil
1 medium sized onion, chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 cups (around 2 lbs/900 g) pumpkin peeled, cut into 1½ inch squares
1 large or 2 medium sized sweet potatoes peeled, cut into 1½ inch squares
14 mushrooms, washed and sliced
2 Tbsp tomato paste
juice of 1 large orange
zest of 1 orange
1 tsp stevia, or other sweetener of your choice
salt to taste
¼ cup (50 mL) water
3 to 4 tsp curry powder
¼ tsp asafoetida (may be substituted with onion powder)
½ tsp crushed cardamon seeds
½ tsp turmeric powder
¾ tsp chilli powder
¼ tsp ginger
¼ tsp cumin
1 cinnamon stick
around 3.5 oz (100g) dark vegan chocolate pieces or vegan chocolate chips (although this dish definitely needs the chocolate, the amount to use is subjective)
METHOD
Heat the oil in a large casserole, and fry the onion and garlic, stirring all the time
Next, add all the spices, and a little more oil, and mix. Then spoon in the tomato paste.
Now add all your chopped veggies, and mix all the time, so that the spices mingle and stick to them – the aroma will be wonderful.
Add the remaining ingredients, and a little water, and allow to simmer gently until all the veggies are soft. Taste for salt – add more if you need to, this is not a dessert.
Simmer for around 40 minutes, then serve with basmati rice, popadums, my raita, and chocolate pieces.
Drink water with this one, as it’s highly flavoursome. Enjoy !
VEGAN RAITA
2 cups vegan yoghurt
1 heaped tsp dried mint
salt
lemon juice
Mix the above together and serve.
Recipes and photo reposted with permission of Miriam Sorrell
Katerina Lorenzatos Makris is a career journalist, author, and editor. Her fiction includes 17 novels for Simon and Schuster, E.P. Dutton, Avon, and other major publishers (under the name Kathryn Makris), as well as a teleplay for CBS-TV, and a short story for The Bark magazine. She has written hundreds of articles for regional wire services and for outlets such as National Geographic Traveler, The San Francisco Chronicle, Travelers’ Tales, NBC’s Petside.com, Animal Issues Reporter.org, and Examiner.com (Animal Policy Examiner).
