Scientific research is showing more and more how a regular diet of real food reverses disease and how many culinary traditions contain great wisdom and healing potential. Homemade Indian food reigns queen in this department, as well as its epic flavors. However, many people think that cooking Indian cuisine is epic in a different way, as in epic undertaking (think Homer’s Iliad), with a multitude of steps that can keep you in the kitchen all day. To some extent they are right. Traditionally, Indian cooks pride themselves on the multitude of colorful dishes and condiments that can indeed take all day to prepare.
If you love the complex, aromatic and healing flavors of curry, but have never attempted Indian cooking on your own, we encourage you to try this simple, delicious fish and vegetable curry. It’s also ideal if you would like to add an uber healthy one pot meal to your repertoire. Or, for you fellow healthy hedonists out there, make it and eat it just for the taste (and smell) of it!
We highly recommend that you spring for wild, preferably local, fish. Not only is it sustainble and more humane, but farmed fish is highly toxic due to the chemicals and medications used in their highly crowded ponds and tanks. If you’re concerned about mercury, try to get fish that’s lower on the food chain, as opposed to predators like swordfish, Jaws or the Loch Ness Monster. Just sayin…
Clean, well sourced fish is an easy to digest source of protein and a lot of other good stuff, which we may know is crucial for tissue building and hormone balance, including insulin and stress hormones. Eat too little protein and see how weary, foggy and cranky you get. What many people do not realize is that proteins such as those found in fish, meat, bone broth and eggs, provide amino acids needed for stage two liver detoxification. That’s the part where toxins are actually rendered innocuous and effectively given the boot from your body. So the next time you feel dirty about eating animal protein, assuming it’s high quality and humane, then know that it’s actually helping you cleanse a little every time.
In fact, that’s why our Metabolic Reset Cleanse includes these foods (and also offers vegetarian alternatives), which are not commonly thought of in the context of cleansing and detoxification. Cleansing without enough amino acids and sulphur compounds can cause what is known as “Herxing,” or when toxins release into the blood faster than the body can expel them, resulting in a range of symptoms, such as flu like symptoms, brain fog, fatigue, rashes, fever, nausea, body pains, etc.
In short, that kind of stage one only cleansing is no fun at all! Remember, cleansing is not a punishment because you were “naughty. ” It’s an offering of nurturing and self-love. We have learned that it’s a misconception that you have to feel like poo when you cleanse. While that can happen to some degree in some cases, a crafty cleanse ideally makes you feel way noticibly better while you’re on it! That’s what clients love about the one we offer, becaue it’s a quick, palpable experience of food as life changing, powerful medicine.
Is this a shamelss plug for our Metabolic Reset Cleanse? You betcha it is! If something is this good, it wouldn’t be right not to tell folks about it!
Green is such a magical color! It’s not just the color of emeralds and leprechauns on cereal boxes, but there is a reason that it is one of the most ubiquitous colors on our planet. Chlorophyll might be thought of as how sunshine manifests in plant form. Green veggies are amazing detoxifiers. Additionally, they help balance blood sugar.
And, while they didn’t make the veg photo, carrots and cauliflower have a lot of the same properties listed above. Carrots are renowned for their carotenoids (think beta carotene and vitamin A). They are root veggies, which are seen in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda as healing to the intestines, which are our “root” where nutrients absorb. Cauliflower is a cruciferous vegetable which helps balance estrogen in the body (men and women, you know), support detox pathways and seem to help prevent and reverse cancer.
The vegetables in this curry, like all veggies, offer prebiotic fiber that feeds our good guys, the microbes that are key to our immune system, health and sanity. All good stuff.
Here’s a little culinary math:
Coconut Milk + Aromatic Spices = Healing and Heavenly
+ Tomato Paste = Ridunkulous
Coconut milk offers super healthy saturated fat and a delicious creamy texture. It’s a great substitute for anyone that has a sensitivity to dairy, but we love it in and of it’s self. By the way, has everyone gotten the memo that fat, even saturated, is not the devil, but rather an essential nutrient crucial for our brain, hormones and other tissues as well as countless body functions, including breathing? The caveat here is that we’re talking about fat that is not rancid (refined) or converted, via hydrogenation, into a weapon of mass inflammation.
The ginger, garlic, curry powder, and other spices all have medicinal properties, including but not limited to digestive, antimicrobial, antiparasitic, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, blood sugar balancing, and, as such, detoxifying. Then there’s are glorious friend cilantro, which is also detoxifying on multiple fronts , including chelation, or the removal of heavy metals from the body.
Tomatos have beta carotene, lycopene and all that jazz, but if we are honest, we put tomato paste in this recipe for purely pleasure seeking motives. Something magic when mixed with coconut milk and all the spices!
Okay, so there you have it. This is a breakdown of how just one delicious dish exemplifies food as medicine. We also snuck in why quality, like Organic, local and wild, matters so very much (you want to detox way more than you retox). Imagine if the greatest majority of your meals had similar properties how your life might change. Or, maybe you don’t need to imagine because you already eat like this and have reaped the glorious benefits.
If you live on Oahu, you can just hire our chef to whip you up a pot of this as part of your order!
Either way, let us know if you have any comments or questions. If you make this, we want to know how it goes. Drop us a line below, or contact us, if you need more info about our cleanse, courses and services.
Easy Healing Fish and Vegetable Curry
Ingredients
- 3-4 tablespoons Enough extra virgin coconut oil (or pastured ghee) to coat bottom of large soup pot
- 2 onions, diced
- 2 tablespoons Garam masala
- 2 tablespoons Curry powder
- 1 tablespoon each ground cumin, coriander and cinnamon
- 4 cloves garlic, hand or food processor pulse chopped to mince
- 2 inch Ginger root, hand or food processor pulse chopped to mince
- 1 can full fat coconut milk
- 1 jar tomato paste
- 2 carrots, chopped bite size
- 1/2 head cauliflower, cut into florets
- You will have to eyeball how much broth or water to add, but start with 1-2 cups (reminder that vegetables will give off water as they cook)
- 1 teaspoon salt or to taste
- 1/2 lb green beans (fresh or frozen), cut into bite size pieces
- 2-3 chopped jalapeño or serrano chilies(deseeded is less spicy), or to taste Optional
- 1 1/2 pounds local wild fish of choice, cut into fairly large stew size chunks (not too small as cooking shrinks it); in Hawaii, consider opah, ono, opakapaka, etc.
- 1/2 bunch kale, any kind, destemmed and finely chopped Optional
- 1 cup frozen peas, rinsed through a strainer to remove ice and initiate thawing
- 1 small or half medium bunch cilantro, chopped stems and all
Instructions
- Sautée onions in oil on medium heat until soft and golden. Meanwhile, prep other ingredients as you occasionally stir the onions.
- Add garlic and ginger. Stir about two minutes until fragrant, not too brown.
- Immediately add pre-measured spices and sautée until fragrant.
- Add opened coconut milk, tomato paste, carrots, and cauliflower. Add about 1-2 cups water or broth to thin liquid if needed. Use your judgement and think about whether you prefer a thicker or thinner curry. Keep in mind, vegetables will give off liquid.
- Salt to taste and stir thoroughly. Start with a teaspoon, then adjust as you go. More ingredients to come...
- Cover pot and bring to a gentle boil. Continue to cook over medium low heat. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add more liquid if needed, but careful not to overdo it.
- Simmer until carrots are about half cooked, around 10 minutes. Add fish pieces, green beans and chopped chiles if using. Stir gently. Cover and return to a gentle simmer. Cook just until green beans are tender and still bright green, about 5 minutes. Fish should cook in this time as well. Try not to over stir at this point or the fish will fall apart and disintegrate as opposed to staying in nice bite size chunks.
- Add the peas and kale, if using. Stir thoroughly, and remove pot from stove. Remember, the vegetables (and fish) will continue cooking in the heat of the curry when you take the pot off the stove.
- Check seasoning one more time. Adjust as needed, again careful not to stir too vigorously.
- Add chopped cilantro last, and gently stir in. Allow to sit before serving. Flavor improves overnight as spiced mellow and meld. You may set aside a little chopped cilantro for garnishing individual bowls.
- This curry freezes well and gets better the next day and the next.
Other variations
- If using chicken, cut 1 1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs into stew size pieces. Add then after you sautée the onions, allowing the meat to brown slightly before you add the ginger and garlic. If you add the chicken at the end, it won't have time to cook before the vegetables overcook, and that's no fun!
- Vegetarian option: Prepare with no meat. You may add sprouted organic tofu, if you do not have concerns about soy's estrogenic effects, such as in the case of reproductive cancer. If you are pretty darn healthy, it's probably fine.
This is a wonderful combination of flavors. I used extra virgin coconut oil instead and it’s delicious with steamed basmati rice.
It makes me so happy to see people like you educating and inspiring others to healthy living with so much devotion! I truly believe that we are what we eat and paradise is within ourselves! Namaste 🙂
Yay! We’re glad you made it and enjoyed it so much. We LOVE ourselves some basmati rice, especially with curry. Thanks for the feedback and let us know how other recipes go. Thanks for your support of and passion for for what we serve. It inspires us!