This Keralan curry with coconut and lime is the ultimately adaptable dish—a vegan baseline, but easily adapted for chicken or seafood versions. The rich, fruity flavours of this Southern Indian dish suits many palates.
Kerala, Kerala, Kerala chameleon...
This Keralan curry with coconut and lime is very mild—though you can butch it up with additional chillies if you wish. I learned to cook it the first time I went to India decades ago. The was something very "home" about it: all those fruity flavours that are very present in the Indian diasporan cuisine of KwaZulu-Natal...
The most notable difference, however, is that this very mild dish has none of the cayenne fire of those (in)famous "Durban curries" I so adore. Sure, you can tart up its fierce factor if that blows your skirt up—simply add more chillies to the spice paste or in the early stages of cooking. But, I find it the perfect "everyone happy" dish when my spice-wary Flemish partner and seriously chilli-munching friends are all at the same table.
I'm doing it here as a two-pan version. It is a vegan dish until you add the animal protein, making it the perfect option for catering for mixed groups of diners. However, even if you know that everyone is going to eat the chicken or seafood, I still suggest the two-pan cooking method, because the chicken or prawns can become overcooked if you do the more traditional one-pot (or should that be one-karahi?) version.
I'm doing it here with chicken. My all-time favourite version is duck; my second is crayfish. But, yep, you can pretty much do it with anything. And, indeed, the vegan and veggie iterations are just as delicious—they're intrinsically included in this version; basically everything before you add the chicken,
These quantities are for three to four diners. I usually cook it in larger quantities because it freezes really well; one of those perfect "I need it right now" dishes when you get home too late to cook from scratch but want to be pleasured i.e. the microwave loves it.
This is a dish traditionally served with rice—which I'm doing here—or parotta (paratha) the traditional flatbread from Kerala. I love parotta, but that's probably a recipe for another day. However, I do think this particular recipe works best with rice overall.
Because it's mild— a little sweet from the carrots and butternut squash—this is another of those dishes kids like. So I always stack it high with "stealth veggies"—if you don't have them in the larder, you don't need to use all of them.
Similarly, I always prefer to make this dish with unpeeled butternut squash, scrubbing the skin clean with a brush and benefitting for what my Granny Bertha would call "additional roughage". It's your call: it's definitely better to peel the butternut squash if the skin has already got to that tough stage.
Shopping list
for the Keralan curry paste
I make this curry paste in larger quantities than here because it freezes well—in ice trays—and can be easily used from frozen whenever you want. For example, mixed into some vegetable stock and a handful of veggies, it makes the most wonderful soups.
While I prefer to make my own, if you don't have the time I recommend this readymade version by Waitrose. My brother-in-law Karel (and incidentally our on-board sommelier) is a fantastic and discerning cook. He had great fun whipping up dishes with it in Frankfurt. Basically, Karel is one of those guys who doesn't dish out unwarranted praise about food. So, if he rates it, you know it's good...
Anyway, here's my homemade version...
1 large onion, grated
Approx. 50g creamed coconut
3 tbspns garlic & ginger paste
the juice and zest of 2 fresh limes
4 green chillies, chopped
3 tbspns peanut oil
2 tspns ground cinnamon
2 tspns ground cumin seeds
2 tspns yellow mustard seeds
½ tbspn amchoor (powdered mango)—optional
8 to 10 curry leaves; chopped
1 tspn of freshly ground black pepper
1 tspn finely grated cloves
4 or 5 lime leaves; chopped (optional)
1 tspn hot chilli powder
2 tspns turmeric
8 cardamom pods
for the Keralan coconut and lime curry
Approx. 3 tbspns of peanut oil (or sunflower oil)
2 large white or brown onions, sliced vertically
1 or 2 green chillies, chopped
1 large red chilli, chopped
2 tspns garlic & ginger paste
½ a large butternut squash; scrubbed, de-seeded and cut into bite-sized pieces
3 or 4 carrots, peeled and chopped into large slices
4 or 5 celery sticks; finely sliced
Approx. 10 large mushrooms; roughly sliced
200g coconut milk
1.5 cups of vegetable stock (fresh or diluted from stock cube/s)
Approx. 60g spinach (fresh or frozen, finely chopped)
for the condiments and sides
Basmati or pilau rice; enough for the number of diners
12 to 15 cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 pickled red chilli; sliced
6 or 7 spring onions, chopped (or diced onion)
the juice of 1 fresh lime
a little malt vinegar
1 banana, sliced
2 tbspns of desiccated coconut
Cooking Method
the Keralan curry paste
Create the spice paste first. You can do this days—even weeks—before and store in the fridge or freezer. Or, you can do it just before cooking. Using a pestle and mortar or an electric spice grinder, grind all the dry spices into a rough powder
Add the "wet" ingredients—the grated onion, garlic & ginger paste, chopped chillies, etc.—to a food processor (you can also do it with a handheld blender)—and blend together, pouring in the peanut oil and lime juice to "lubricate" it into a rough paste
Add the dry spice mix a bit at a time and blend in. Once it's a suitably thick paste, store or use for the dish.
for the Keralan coconut and lime curry—the chicken
Marinade the diced chicken breast with a couple of spoons of the spice mix for about 20mins. Heat 1 tbspn of the the peanut oil in a pan on a medium/high heat. When the oil is hot, add a little garlic & ginger paste and sizzle for a minute or so
Add the chopped green chilli. After no more than a couple of minutes, add the marinaded chicken ensuring you add all of the spice paste
Sauté the chicken on this medium/high heat until completely cooked. Remove from the heat and cool (you can actually do this some time before and store in the fridge)
for the Keralan coconut and lime curry—the rest
Heat the remainder of the oil in a large pot (with a lid) on a medium/high heat. Add the remaining garlic & ginger paste and sizzle for barely a minute. Add the sliced onions and chopped red chilli. Sizzle for approx 2mins then add 3 to 4 generous tbspns of the spice mix and mix in
As soon as the aroma of the spices is released, add the sliced celery. Reduce the heat. Cover and sweat these ingredients together until the onions soften—add a little water if needed to prevent sticking
When the onions have turned golden and soft, add the juice and pulp of the fresh lime and stir in. While this juice is cooking off, add the mushrooms. Recover and sweat for another 4 or 5 mins—the mushrooms should release water, but if that doesn't happen, add a little of your stock to prevent sticking
As soon as the mushrooms begin to brown, add the carrots and butternut squash to the pot. Pour in the stock, stir, cover and turn up the heat. Bring the pot to the boil and boil vigorously for about 4 to 5mins
Turn the heat down to low and slowly simmer the contents. There isn't a "rule"—you want to ensure the carrots and butternut squash are properly cooked, but still a little al dente. The only test is "the taste test": if you can eat a carrot or butternut piece without it being too "crunchy", it's probably done. My guidance is that I tend to cook this dish a little longer on a lower heat than many Indian dishes I cook. This one usually takes 30 to 40mins.
When the carrots and butternut squash are nearly cooked, add the coconut milk and stir in. Re-cover and simmer for at least an additional 5mins
Add the spinach (adjust timing based on whether it's frozen or fresh) and ensure that it's cooked in; it will actually blend with the sauce quite naturally if it's finely chopped
If cooking for a mixed group of diners—one of the things I often do with this dish—decant the relevant amount of this vegan dish into a serving dish and keep warm in the oven. Add the chicken (or other animal protein) you cooked earlier to the remaining curry. Ensure it simmers in the sauce for at least 5mins
Plate (or decant into a serving dish) and serve with the rice and preferred condiments.
Accompaniments
When I first encountered this dish in Kerala, it was served with poppadums and a a green mango chutney I've yet to re-create well. Obviously, it was gorgeous. But I tend to use the hack of "sambals" stolen from South African Indian and Malay diasporan cooking.
Here I'm doing it with two of my favourites that couldn't be easier:
roughly chopped fresh tomatoes, a sliced pickled red chilli and spring onion dressed with a little vinegar
"klapper met piesang"—sliced banana and desiccated coconut dressed with a little full-fat milk
Basically, you spoon a bit of each onto your curry as you eat it. Delicious!
Alternatives
Until you add the chicken or other animal protein—which you obviously don't have to do—this is a default vegan dish. Yes, of course you can add increased quantities of butternut squash, carrots and mushrooms if you're cooking for fully vegetarian and vegan company. This really is not a dish that is "missing" anything; it needs no additional ingredients.
For carnivores and pescatarians, this is one of those dishes where it is definitely best to cook the animal protein in the manner outlined above. The main exception to this is when using king prawns: in this case I prefer to add them raw pretty, much at the same time as the pre-cooked chicken describe above. Raw, large prawns only take a few minutes to cook.
Pairings
Oddly, this is a dish about which I can talk about good wine pairings. Obviously, I'm gonna mention my beloved South African chenin blancs, the grape that has the balls to cope with curry—go there by default if you've got nothing else available other than your local supermarket plonk.
However, I've found that Spanish wines are the absolute best pairings with this dish. In particular, try these...
Zárate Albariño - my current go-to Basque Country pairing with most Indian dishes without red meat. Luc and I stumbled upon this lot serendipitously and I'm sticking with them. You don't need a superstar, you need a reliable big brother. This is it.
White riojas are notoriously unpredictable, tending to the edges of the spectrum—either sublime or rotgut. Realistically, this little beauty from Martinez Lacuesta sits somewhere in the middle: it will neither scoop big awards nor break the bank. But, it's bloody good with this curry.
Macabeo is another grape that I think anyone who loves Indian food should consider. This is one from Flores del Campo is another number upon which I stumbled that really works with this dish.
One of the best pairings I've ever had with this dish was a gewürztraminer from Gundlach Bundschu. California? Kinda makes the vines Spanish, no?
Oh well, if we are going down this path, pick up a bottle of Ojos Del Sur Sauvignon Blanc, Patagonia 2022
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