Tomato and peanut curry with mustard greens

Another delicious vegan-to-carnivore curry from Southern Africa's Eastern Seaboard. This easy recipe includes both a vegan version with black eye beans and the more widely cooked chicken version, making it ideal for groups with mixed dietary requirements—apart from those with nut allergies, obviously.

Chicken or egg?

This tomato and peanut curry with mustard greens is another one of those great dishes that is essentially vegan until you add seafood or chicken, the latter being the most common version. Because of it's cooking method, it's an excellent option for mixed groups of diners since you don't have to cook an entirely separate meal for vegans and vegetarians.

This is a curry that I encountered, with little variations, in various places in South Africa and Mozambique. I simply assumed that it was another great product of the Indian Diaspora to Africa's southeastern shores. It wasn't until years later, in Madagascar, that I began to wonder about its true origins.

Madagascan cooking has it's own "classic quartet" of flavours that reoccur in many dishes: tomatoes, chillies, peanuts and ginger. And, those are the key flavours in this dish, which got me wondering. Was this a malagache recipe that travelled west, or an African Indian dish that travelled east? Perhaps we will never know since Malagassy culture was one of Africa's original melting pots. The earliest settlers arrived from Indonesia and integrated with a later wave of Bantu settlers from the African mainland, while Arab and Indian traders had a presence for centuries before the Portuguese began to exert their influence from their base in Goa in the early 16th century. All that before the French arrived in the 17th century, eventually colonising the island in the 19th century and subsequently ruling up until independence in 1960. And, as with all other places with such a rich history of migration and conflicts, that melting pot of cultures quite literally ends up in the pot.

I encountered a simplified version of this dish—without the additional spices used in the African mainland versions—in numerous places in Madagascar. Unlike the unofficial Madagascan national dish Romazava, it was almost always vegan except in a couple of coastal locations where shellfish were added. But, the one thing that was always included were particular greens, either mustard greens called "anatsonga" or a kind of wild spinach ("anamafaitra"), both of which have a slightly sharp and bitter taste.

And, since the "Indian" versions from Southern Africa also always included some form of fairly bitter greens—most often spinach beet, morogo ("African spinach") or chard—I thought there might be a connection because these vegetables are more commonly served as side dishes in a lot of African Indian cooking, seldom within a curry itself.

Only food academics might know where it actually originated. The point of all of this was to stress that the mustard greens are really important to the flavour of this dish.

Colonel Mustard in the kitchen...

Mustard greens are a tricky thing. They are widely available in some places, but are one of those "heritage" vegetables that are yet to be taken up as a fashionable trend—with the concomitant price hike—by national supermarket chains in the UK and Europe, as we have seen with kale.

And, speaking of kale, it is actually not a good substitute in this dish if you can't get your hands on mustard greens. Its flavour is to "muddy" and its texture remains too "chewy" for what you want in this recipe. The best alternatives are chard, including the stalks, or spinach beet. But, since neither of these have that slightly "spiky" flavour of mustard greens, add an additional ½tspn of amchoor powder at the appropriate stage in the cooking.

The fact that I'm using purple (aka "red") mustard greens here is purely coincidental: that's what was at the market. The more common green varieties are what are usually used in this dish.

Similarly, this is a recipe that uses a lot of very ripe, fresh tomatoes. It is essential that they are very ripe, even on the cusp of turning squishy. It doesn't really matter what kind they are, but they should not be tinned tomatoes. The tomatoes need to be finely chopped, skins on and with the pips and natural juice. Yes, you can do this by hand but it's a lot easier with a food processor/mini-chopper. You want something that is a bit like a "lumpy pulp", but not fully puréed.

The vegan version here is with black eye beans, not entirely dissimilar to the Northern Indian dish Lobia Masala in appearance, but different in flavour and cooking method. See below ("Alternatives") for other vegan options.

Use vegetable stock if making the default version. But, if you aren't catering to vegans and vegetarians, opt for chicken stock.

In these quantities, this is a fairly spicy dish. Reduce the number of dried chillies and amount of chilli powder it you prefer it milder

This version is for 3 to 4 diners. Scale quantities as needed. Please note that the images are indicative, since I'm using the basic quantities to create both a vegan version and the chicken version.

3 top tips to get this recipe right:

• The sparing amount of coconut used in this dish is important. In this curry, it acts as a background flavour. So don't be tempted to use more if you love coconut. Naturally it will be delicious if you do, but it will be delicious in a way that is more like a South East Asian curry.

• You can roast your own peanuts if you want to make it truly "authentic", but after years of testing and experimenting, I've concluded that good old-fashioned salted peanuts make it taste just as good and reduce the need to add salt. Furthermore, the smaller, cheaper salted peanuts actually work better than the giant beauties because they get ground

• This dish uses lemon, not lime. Trust me, I have tried both. Again, it's not that lime produces an unpleasant flavour, it simply becomes more Thai and less African. Like the coconut, the lemon here is a background flavour, but lime tends to elbow its way to the front of the queue. And, I would go as far as to say that the lemon has a notable impact on the subtle flavours of the mustard greens that lime does not

Shopping list

for tomato and peanut curry with mustard greens

• Enough skinless chicken per diner; a large breast fillet or approx 2 boneless thighs per diner, cut into bite-size pieces

• 2 large onions, (red or brown); sliced

• 900g very ripe, fresh tomatoes, finely chopped, skin on and with their juice

• Mustard greens, preferably 1 whole plant; leaves roughly torn, stalks chopped

• 1 fesh green chilli; deseeded and sliced

• 3 cloves of garlic, grated

• 2 "thumbs" of fresh ginger, peeled and grated

• 1 cup toasted (salted) peanuts, ground into small pieces in a mini-chopper or with a pestle and mortar

• 2tbspns sunflower oil (or peanut oil)

• The juice of 1 fresh lemon

• 500ml vegetable stock (or chicken stock)

• 2 dried red chillies

• 2tspn chilli powder

• 2tspns turmeric

• 2tspns garam masala

• ½tspn ground fenugreek

• ½tspn ground cumin

• ½tspn ground amchoor

• ½ a cinnamon stick

• 1tspn whole cloves

• 5 or 6 green cardamom pods

• Mild dried chilli flakes (optional)

• 2tbspns Demerara sugar (or other coarse brown sugar)

• 2tbspns distilled malt vinegar (or other clear vinegar)

• 100ml coconut milk (or equivalent in diluted creamed coconut)

for the sides and condiments

• Rice or naan breads

• "klapper met piesang" — banana slices and desiccated coconut in a little milk

• Mango, chilli and pink pepper chutney—or any other fruit chutney

  
  

Cooking Method

the tomato and peanut curry with mustard greens

1. Heat the oil on a low-medium heat. Add the dried red chillies and all of the dry spices except the amchoor and only half of the garam masala. As soon as the aromas are released, add the onions, garlic, ginger and sliced fresh green chilli, stirring in

2. As soon as the ingredients show signs of sticking, add approx. 50ml of the stock to the pot. Stir, cover and sweat the ingredients until the onions become soft (approx. 7 to 8mins), adding little dashes of stock if needed to keep the mixture moist

3. Add all of the tomatoes and their juice and stir in. Increase the heat and bring to a vigorous simmer. When the tomatoes bubble, add the lemon juice and stir in and cook for another 5mins, adding stock if necessary to prevent sticking

4. Pour in the rest of the stock and the coconut milk. Stir and bring to a healthy simmer. Cook for about 10mins

5. Once the curry has notably reduced, add the crushed peanuts and stir in. Cover and simmer for another 5 or 6mins

6. The peanuts should help the sauce thicken—simmer for a further 5mins if needed. Add the mustard greens and stir in. Cover and simmer for another 5mins. Add the sugar and the vinegar, one at a time, stirring in and simmering for about 5mins each time. Add the remaining garam masala and the amchoor, cover and simmer for an additional 5mins or so, until the sauce is suitably thickened. Remove from the heat but keep covered to keep it warm

7. In another suitably deep pan, brown the chicken, seasoning it with a little garam masala, black pepper and dried chilli flakes. Cook it perhaps longer than you might with other curry dishes—this won't "finish" in the sauce. When the chicken is cooked pour a suitable amount of the curry sauce into the pan, stirring and simmering until piping hot. Cover and keep warm

8. For the vegans and veggies, add the drained black eye peas—keep about half of the water from the tin to one side—to the main pot, turning up the heat so it bubbles vigorously. Ensure the black eye beans are piping hot and integrated into the sauce. If it becomes too dry at any point, add dashes of the water from the tin—this will also help reduction—and stir in until you achieve the the perfect consistency.

9. Plate or take to table in serving dishes and serve with desired condiments and rice or naan breads

Alternatives

As mentioned at the outset, this is a great vegan-to-carnivore recipe. The recipe for the vegan version with black eye beans is detailed above. But, there are also other great vegan versions. Substitute the black eye beans with red kidney beans, cooked chickpeas or tofu cubes, all of which I have tried and tested. And, while I'm not a huge fan of "fake meat", Quorn "chicken" cubes do work very well in this recipe.

As also mentioned, I've had great pescatarian versions of this recipe, mostly with prawns, shrimp, octopus and langoustine in lieu of the chicken.

I've never encountered carnivore versions with other types of meat and nor have I ever experimented with them. I can vaguely imagine that it might work with beef and once had a fanciful notion that it would be good with rabbit, but never got around to actualising it. Let me know if you get anywhere with that.

Pairings

Like many curries, this dish works well with both beer and wine. I must confess that I'm partial to pairing it with with Camden Hells Off Menu IPA though I've loved it most with a Canadian craft beer Peanut Butter Dead Don't Die by Third Moon Brewing for perhaps obvious reasons though they sadly don't seem to do it anymore.

On the wine front I inevitably head in the direction of those South African chenin blancs with peppery muscles or for a young, stroppy pinotage if I'm in a red mood. But, above all else, I recommend you try it with this Portuguese number: Quinta do Crasto, Crasto Branco. It shouldn't really be a surprise. Remember who ran the transcontinental spice trade all those centuries ago...

That said, yours truly usually ends up having this dish "on the wagon". And, on that front there's nothing better than mixing lemon juice and pulp and mineral water and chilling it fiercely; a drink and a palate cleanser in one.