Curry with a Story

In 2011 I had the opportunity to visit India with my friend Ana Letícia. As we traveled to several different parts of the country, I think we can agree that one of the nicest experiences we had was a cooking class we took while in Udaipur.
That we were going to learn a lot about indian food we already knew, but we had no idea that we were about to have a lesson in culture, strength and courage from our hostess Shashi.

We were welcomed with enthusiasm by her, to her simple home, and after she placed a bindi on each of our foreheads, she started to tell us her story. She was married by her family to a complete stranger, a man that didn't even speak the same language as herself. They had two kids, and by the time the oldest one was 9, her husband died. Forced to follow his culture's costumes, disallowing her to ever remarry, she was also put through an extensive mourning period where she was not allowed to leave her house. During this period, the late husbands family constantly checked on her to see if she was doing as she was expected but never did they help her and the children, financially or in any other way.
She started doing laundry for a nearby guest house during the night in order not to be discovered, till one day the guest house owner came over to her place while she was cooking one night and ended up staying over for dinner. He loved the food and suggested that she would start teaching cooking lessons, as many of his guest always asked for it. She didn't speak English at the time and her first answer was no, but her son reminded her that she also did not speak Hindi when she first married her husband but that she later learned it.
She gave it a shot, and her first students were a couple of Australians. She had to mimic her way trough the whole thing and wrote instructions in Hindi in a piece of paper. The next day the couple came back, with the whole thing translated onto a CD, so she would only have to print out the recipes for the next students.
Today she has it translated to French, German and Portuguese. One of her students later on started her blog, by which way we found her.
Beside all this the food was delicious! Here is Shashi's curry recipe that is always a big success in my kitchen:

INGREDIENTS:

Me at Shashi's kitchen

- 2 tablespoons of oil
- A pinch of cumin
- 2 tomatoes
- 1 large onion
- A piece of ginger about 1 inch long
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 teaspoon of coriander powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of red chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- A pinch of turmeric
- A couple of vegetables of your choice, some of the most common combinations are:
*cauliflower, potato and tomato
*peas and potato
*eggplant and tomato

METHOD:

My friend Ana learning from the master

Cut the onion in half, dice one half and put the other half in a food processor with the ginger, garlic and a pinch of salt until smooth.
Add oil to a large pan over medium-high heat. Add cumin and diced onion and let it cook for a minute.
Add to the pan the food processor mixture and cook until the onion starts to turn golden.
Add coriander, red chili, turmeric and salt to the pan plus 1/2 cup of water and mix well.
Add the vegetables of your choice (but not the tomatoes) and cook for 5 minutes with the pan covered.
Add tomatoes and cook for another 3 minutes.
Check a piece of vegetable to see if it's cooked, otherwise keep on adding water little by little until it's done.
Serve with white rice.

The result - kohlrabi and potato curry with white rice. I also used the kohlrabi greens to make a side dish.
Bon appetit!