Sunday recipe: Faux-asian stew with quorn
In its original form, this recipe harkens back to my grandmother and the sixties, a time period when “exotic”, foreign recipes started making them way into Swedish cuisine. It’s not necessarily… authentic to any specific country or region (and also contain entirely non-asian items), and mixes things no sane person should mix, but I kind of love it. Possibly because I grew up with it. Originally made with pork; if for some reason you are a carnivore and want to use that, skip the soy sauce.
Vegetarian. Can me made ovo-vegatarian by not using cream, or replacing with coconut cream or cashew cream. Total cooking time: around an hour for one person in tiny kitchen. Can be cut down to about 35-40 minutes if there’s two of you, you’re multitasking, and have a decent-sized kitchen.
1 1/2 pkg quorn tenders
oil for frying
soy sauce
1 large leek (in coins)
a couple of cloves or garlic (finely chopped)
yellow curry powder
1 large carrot or 2 small (cut in coins)
1 apple (chopped)
2 cups of veggie broth
1 can of bamboo shoots
2 rings of pineapple (cut in small pieces)
1 banana (in coins)
cardamom
rosemary
ginger
black pepper
1 tbsb cream
In a large thick-bottomed pot, heat some oil and add about 1 tbsp of curry. Brown the (thawed) quorn pieces in the oil/spice. I find that olive is a bit too flavourful and not quite matching the rest of the dish, so I use canola. You can mix in some sesame too, if you have, but beware that you’ll use quite a bit of oil (there’s no natural fat in any of the other ingredients.) Drip in a bit of soy sauce, being careful not to overdo it; the broth will make it plenty salty.
Add the garlic, leek and cardamom, ginger and more curry to taste.
Fry for a couple of minutes, adding more oil if needed.
Then add carrots, bamboo shoots, and apple, fry for a bit.
Add the veggie broth (if you’re using cubes, just break them and add the water, then mix.)
Cover and let it putter for 20-ish minutes (if using meat, make that “until cooked through”, time depending on size of meat.)
Add pineapple and banana just before serving, pepper to taste, and a little bit of cream (I use half & half, mom used cooking cream, which is in between h&h and heavy cream.)Â Serve with rice.