vegan

navratan:

rajma:

Indian restaurant food uses a lot of oil and salt. Add more than the recipes call for.

Use recipes from vahchef. Veganize them. He's legit.

Soy curls are better if you mess with them a lot. For example, let's say you are adding them to a northern curru, you want something tandoor-ish. If you just throw them straight into the sauce, they will just become squishy, absorb a little sauce, and taste kind of funny from the soy oil left over from the extrusion process.

To make them have a nice flavor on the inside, a texture that seals this in, and a surface that is spiced, you've gotta do something like this:

1. Rehydrate in water.
2. Squeeze out like a sponge. It will make the water oily/milky.
3. Repeat at least once until it runs clear. Swuish out the water into the sink.
4. Soak in broth. Any broth that tastes nice to you. There are faux chicken ones.
5. Coat in starch and deep fry. This seals in the flavor and creates texture.
6. Marinate in your preferred surface flavoring.
7. Coat in starch and deep fry again. This locks in the spices.
8. Add to sauce.

You can cut out steps to save time but you will sacrifice elements. Each later step is less important than the previous one in my opinion.

One thing that makes a huge difference is fresh spices. Even if the spices themselves aren't super fresh, if you buy whole spices they degrade much slower than pre ground. A cheap coffee grinder is super handy for this. They are also cheaper. I have a bag of garam masala mix and I just grind what I need each time.

If you are comparing to restaurant food you might not be using as much fat and salt as they do. Personally I don't cook with oil but common practice is to fry the spices and aromatics a bit to help release their flavours.

Fresh onion and ginger also makes a big difference I find, and lots of it. When I make a tomato gravy I process the onion and ginger together in the food processor for the base.

Rainbow Plant Life website has a lot of good vegan Indian recipes. I’ll share some of the ones I use. I never used soy curls but baking tofu coated in a bit of flower and cornstarch mixed with seasonings gives it a chewier, meatier texture.

Curry with tofu

Naan

Malai Kofta

Red Lentil Dahl

Tofu Palak Paneer