Butternut squash and black bean dopiaza
Since vegetarian food is often cheaper, more environmentally friendly, and (to some) even more delicious than meat, a lot of companies are starting to feed their employees meatless meals – even if it’s just once a week, as part of the Meatless Monday initiative. One of those companies is Ovo Energy, based in Bristol, who are serving up a delicious vegetarian meal to their employees once a week from March, with the help of Friska. Their aim is to raise awareness of the effects of meat consumption vs. vegetarianism. Take a look at their infographic about going meatless – did you know that if just 500 people gave up one portion of meat each week, 5000 road miles of carbon dioxide would be saved?! Ridiculous.
Anyway, Ovo have kindly let me share one of their vegetarian recipes with you – this stunning butternut squash and black bean dopiaza – and it’s kind of making me wish I worked in an office so that I had someone to make all this stuff for me every day instead of having to do it myself.
My husband and I love Indian food, and we get an Indian take away once every couple of weeks (okaaaaay, okaay, maybe once a week), but until now I’ve not known how to recreate the thick and creamy, slightly sweet sauce that a lot of Indian curries have. I always assumed they contained heaps of double cream and maybe even some sugar, so I’ve always stuck to making tomato-based curries instead. Making curries with double cream and sugar sounds delicious (understatement of the year), but probably not the best habit to get into.
Revelation: this curry sauce contains no cream! There’s no sugar either! All it takes is a bit of coconut milk and (get this) some sweet potato, blended right up into the sauce. Complete and utter genius. The blended sweet potato adds the perfect touch of sweetness, and makes everything nice and thick and rich. This sauce is absolutely perfect, I’m telling you. The spices are spot on too – I don’t think I usually use enough spices, because it felt like there was heaps going into this, but it all balanced out perfectly.
Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients, though. If you don’t have one or two of the spices, I’m sure you’ll still end up with a delicious curry. I wouldn’t go jumping in your car just to buy half a teaspoon of onion seeds. In fact there are very few things that I would recommend going out especially for (an entire curry, yes, half a teaspoon of onion seeds, no).
As you may have noticed, I usually use tinned beans in my recipes, but since I was following Ovo’s recipe, I decided to give dried black beans a go this time. They were delicious, I’ll admit, but the sight of them bubbling away in black liquid wasn’t particularly appetising, and I did have to get out of bed the night before because I’d forgotten to put them in a pan of water to soak overnight. So, I’ll probably stick to tinned beans in the future. Yes, I’m lazy. If you’re less lazy, feel free to use dried beans. I haven’t included these steps in the recipe, but you can just soak them overnight, then boil them for about 40-50 minutes until they’re soft.
So, do you like the look of the curry? Ovo‘s chef is a genius, no?
Butternut squash and black bean dopiaza
Ingredients
- 1 large butternut squash peeled and diced
- 2 tbsp oil divided
- Salt
- Black pepper
- 1 onion diced
- 2 sticks celery sliced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- piece Small of ginger thumbnail-sized, minced
- 1/2 medium sweet potato ~250g
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 2 tsp garam masala
- 2/3 tsp madras powder
- 1 tsp chilli flakes
- 1/2 tsp onion seeds
- 2/3 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp tomato puree
- 400 ml tin coconut milk ~1 1/2 cups
- 10 cherry tomatoes halved
- 250 ml water ~1 cup
- 450 g cooked black beans ~3 cups
- Small handful fresh spinach
- Small bunch fresh coriander cilantro, chopped
Instructions
- Toss the diced butternut squash in about 1tbsp of oil with some salt and pepper, and spread it out in a single layer on a baking tray. Roast at 190°C (Gas Mark 5 / 375°F) for around 30 minutes, until soft and slightly crispy.
- Heat the remaining 1tbsp of oil in a large pan or wok, and add the diced onion, celery, garlic, ginger and sweet potato. Cook over a medium-low heat for around 10 minutes, stirring regularly, until the vegetables are soft.
- Turn the heat down to low, add the spices (ground cumin to turmeric) to the pan, and cook for a couple more minutes, stirring constantly, to toast the spices. Then add the tomato puree, coconut milk, halved cherry tomatoes, and water. Bring to a simmer, and cook for 10-15 minutes, until the tomatoes have begun to break down, and all the other vegetables are soft.
- Carefully transfer the sauce to a blender (I used my trusty Froothie blender), and blitz until smooth. Return to the pan, and add the cooked black beans and roasted butternut squash.
- When you're ready to serve, stir through the fresh spinach and chopped coriander - the heat of the sauce will wilt the spinach. Serve with rice or naan bread.
Love a curry? Here’s another option – weeknight tikka masala:
As Jane schofield said Dopiaza means “2” onions , basically in Indian curries this Dopiaza actually means adding onions twice. Your love for Indian food is just amazing. Great blog. Thank you Becca for this wonderful creamy recipe.
That’s so interesting, I’m always keen to learn more about other cuisines! Thanks for your comment :)
It’s making me hungry looking at this!
I could just eat this right now!
I don’t like cream in curries so I give this one a go
Yes, yes, yes. I totally agree, this sauce is a complete winner. I’m going to be using the sweet potato blitz method in all sorts now I know about it.
I think dopiaza means two onions. This might just be an opiaza. Still looks absolutely lovely! Will try it tonight x
Haha does it!!! I had no idea. Love your new name for it ;)
This will definitely be tried out! I actually have all the spices already. #obsessed #spiceboy
Every time I make a vegetable curry I have to ask myself why I don’t make them all the time?? This one looks heavenly, and I do love any dish that uses black beans… :)
What a lovely looking curry. Even the staunchest of meat eaters would find it hard to resist!
Looks delicious. I always soak and cook my own black beans because the canned black beans are expensive in Australia but I’ve also just started cooking the black beans without soaking after reading this article. http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/09/soaking-black-beans-faq.html
Ooooh that’s interesting! Thanks for sharing :) I love J Kenji Lopez-Alt’s articles.
Oh this looks absolutely amazing Becca, I’m with you and would love to work in an office where they served food like this:-)
This sounds so delicious – I LOVE creamy curries, especially with a sweetness to them. I can’t wait to try this. :)
I adore Indian food and frequently make healthier versions at home so naturally I love this. The idea of blending the sweet potato with coconut milk is genius! Definitely trying that!
I think, if it were me, I’d use a bought curry powder mix (plus garam masala, asafoetida, black mushroom seeds and turmeric, but then those are spice-rack basics for me).
Also, if you are making smaller quantities of this recipe, did you know you can buy coconut milk powder (look in the Caribbean section of the supermarket), which is fantastic as you need only mix a tablespoonful or so into a little water to add to your curry. My lifeline, that is!
Wish I worked in an office where food was provided – I haven’t done that since the 1970s!
Becca, I love pumkin, never tried it the Indian way though.
Indeed, the lis of ingredents is ve long; is there way I can get this simplified?
Any tip on this?
Tnak you so much!
You could use fewer spices if you like, but obviously this would affect the flavour. Perhaps using a shop-bought spice mix would be the best solution, as those contain lots of spices in one.