Pumpkin Leaves with Coconut Cream and Thai Curry
I recently learned that pumpkin leaves are edible. This is very good news because we have a garden full of flourishing pumpkin leaves and of course, we will have to wait until Autumn for any pumpkins. So, I was very pleased to learn that I could start harvesting something from the patch. This can be easily adjusted into a yummy vegan recipe, just switch out the ground beef for cooked lentils and the beef stock for veggie stock.
This is a really fast dinner and it comes together in about 40 minutes with very little effort. It serves 2 but for the most part you can just increase everything by half per person you want to feed.
Ingredients
A slosh of oil
One onion
Ten medium pumpkin leaves
Three silver beat leaves
2 cups of ground beef
Two cups of chopped cold boiled potatoes
420g red kidney beans (about two cups).
One cup of coconut cream
4th of a cup of beef stock
Crushed cooked garlic to taste
About a tablespoon of Thai curry paste. I used red but I think green would be scrummy also.
A dash of lemon juice
Fragrant jasmine rice to serve
Instructions
In a frying pan, caramelize a chopped onion in a slosh of oil over a low heat.
While the onion is caramelizing, cut the pumpkin and silver beet leaves into fine ribbons. (See tips).
When the onion is done, add the ground beef to the pan. Increase the heat and stir occasionally to avoid burning the ingredients.
Cook until almost done (the veggies will go very quick, so it’s important that the meat be fairly well cooked before you add them).
Add the silver beet and pumpkin leaves to the frying pan
Chop the cold boiled potatoes into nice little mouth sized chunks. Rinse off your tinned kidney beans.
Add to the pan.
Add your coconut cream, beef stock, lemon juice, garlic, and Thai curry paste.
Turn down the heat. Simmer until the mixture becomes thick and fragrant. Serve with white jasmine rice.
Tips.
Pumpkin leaves have lots of texture. A bit too much texture if you ask me. So I decided to do a very fine ribbon cut on the leaves. I found the most effective and efficient way to get this done was to layer up my pumpkin leaves, roll them into a tight sausage and then slice them like a zucchini.
Regarding stock, I actually used the left-over juices from a brisket we had the previous night. I let the brisket juices go cold and then I removed the layer of white fat from the top of the mixture. That probably would have tasted gorgeous, so if you don’t mind eating animal fat, keep it. I didn’t want to eat it, so Eureka’s girlfriend (a wild tabby who lives in the back garden) ate well that night.
That left me with the gelatine from the brisket and I used that as a beef stock. It was beyond delicious, and I highly recommend it. It was really salty though, which is why I didn’t include salt in the recipe. Regular beef stock is also salty, so season accordingly.
