recipe: fresh spring veggies!

since i'm blogging again, i might as well write the recipe for this down here. i find that, with my limited culinary skillz, most vegetables tend to turn out quite unlike how i expect them to. even vegetables i like. i love green beans, but i can never get them just right. i really dislike squeaky beans, i do. even crunchy ones. so no green bean salad for me. ugh. but even the cauliflower sometimes fails me by taking either too long to soften and become delish in a torkaari, or charring to cinders when roasting in the oven.

the only veg dish i've consistently been able to get right is a sort of mushroom and baby corn brothed in coconut milk. i always use shiitake for this, because the one time i tried it with chanterelle, it didn't quite turn out as well as i'd expected. but then i was using dried chanterelle. shiitake just feels meatier and more earthy, i think. i switch the other veggies around, and sometimes use red or rice wine vinegar instead of coconut milk. but with leeks, i think coconut milk really is the ticket, because of its sweetness, otherwise there's a slight bitterness to the leeks that pervades the whole dish and somehow doesn't quite make you feel full and replete. i've realised that zucchini and leeks go really well, but then you need to have them with either toast or some kind of bread, and not rice, which is my usual carb and more likely to be available in the kitchen rather than any wheaty thing. i have substituted leek for onions in the mushroom-baby corn recipe i started out with, but i hadn't done all four together before today. today, they went really well together, and i'm going to keep making this over summer. nothing like a freshtastic hearty veg dish that makes one feel like spring and sunshine. :)

ingredients:

half a cup of sliced leek.
1/4 of a cup of sliced red pepper.
5 oz sliced shiitake.
a handful of baby corn, maybe 12? halved.
half of a small zucchini, sliced in half moons.
1 heaped teaspoonful of whole cumin.
half a teaspoon of turmeric.
about an inch and a half of ginger.
1 habanero pepper.
4 springs of coriander.
2 tablespoons of coconut milk.
the juice of half a lime.

i add the cumin to the hot oil first, and then very quickly, all the vegetables, except the shiitake. i let the leek, baby corn and zucchini soften a little, and then add the turmeric and cover up for a bit. then go the shiitake, salt, ginger and habenero. i don't bother to deseed the habanero, just slit it down the middle, because too much handling just leaves my fingers with hours of afterburn. the salt makes everything wilt and cook through very quickly while releasing all the juices. i add the coconut milk at this point, cover and simmer on low for maybe 30 seconds, and then add the coriander and lime juice last. awesomesauce in a bowl with enough brothy goodness to go over plain rice.