Growing up in an ovo-vegetarian household, we were always on the hunt for vegan/vegetarian friendly protein sources, other than tofu. Luckily, we found brands like Morningstar, Boca and Quorn back then, so we could add some variety and make “rachchi” curries to eat with our Monday Puttu or Idiyappam dinners (yes, every day of the week was scheduled, and I ate like this for 18 years, and was never tired of it!).
Anyways, this curry stands to be my favorite, over any raal (shrimp) or kozhi (chicken) curry, simply because it is the taste of my childhood, which I have to say was pretty magical. I hope veg and nonveg people alike enjoy this, it truly is delicious!
Hot Dog Curry
Ingredients
- 2 boxes Morningstar Sausage Links
- 5 cloves garlic
- ½ inch fresh ginger
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 1 red onion medium
- 3 cloves
- 3 cardamom pods
- ½ tsp ground Ceylon Cinnamon
- 2 tbsp Roasted Hot Jaffna Curry Powder
- 1 cup water
- ¼ cup full fat coconut milk
- Salt to taste
Directions
- Run some warm water over the frozen sausage links, or fill the bag as shown with water and let it sit like that for 5-10 minutes. This will remove the initial frost that makes it hard to cut, but you want it to be frozen still on the very inside, to get sharp cuts so the links don’t crumble. Also, use a sharp knife, that’s a given.
- Slice your links to give you about 1 cm thick slices. Set aside.
- Chop your red onion into medium-sized pieces. Set aside.
- With a mortar and pestle, mash your garlic cloves and ginger as finely as possible (I hate biting into chunks of ginger, bleh).
- Heat your pot/pan on low. Once heated, add the coconut oil to melt.
- Add the garlic-ginger mix to the pan, stir often and ensure the heat is low enough that the garlic doesn't burn. Let this garlic-ginger mix infuse the oil for a couple minutes.
- Once the garlic-ginger starts to gain color, add the chopped red onions and mix well.
- The onions should brown slowly, and be sure the garlic-ginger doesn’t burn. To do this, make sure you are on a lower heat…slow and steady wins! Once you see some color on the edges of the onions, add the cloves, cardamom and ground cinnamon. Stir well, and bathe yourself in the deliciousness that are these spices. Let the onions and spices cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Add the sliced sausage links, add 2-3 heaping spoons (roughly 2 tbsp) of the roasted Jaffna curry powder. Stir well to make sure the hot dog slices are coated, and then add the water. Stir and cover to cook on a slow fire (simmer, not boil) for 5 minutes.
- Then: open, stir, add ¼ cup coconut milk or 2 spoons of coconut cream. Basically enough to get the color to look similar to almond skin or molasses cookies, and the taste to be a hint of coconut, not coconut milk with a side of curry (you know what I mean).
- Simmer the curry for a couple more minutes, then add salt to your taste. I never measure because it really depends on you and your sensitivity…I just add a circle using the salt sieve, but I believe this equates to about 1 tsp. Go a little time, you can always add more but you can’t fix it once you’ve dumped too much!
- Serve with whatever you’d like! I usually eat this with rice, puttu or idiyappam!
Notes
- You can sub the sausage links with soya, just be sure to soak, rinse and marinate them in the allocated curry powder beforehand, otherwise it will take much longer to mesh the flavors and you run the risk of your soya getting too mushy. So marinate.
- If you do use coconut cream instead of full-fat coconut milk (Trader Joe’s is my favorite coconut cream), you wouldn’t need more than a couple tablespoons to equate with the milk. Again, follow the color measurements I mentioned in the recipe!