Sweet Potato and White Bean Mild Coconut Curry

This one was dead simple.Basically add to a pot with the oil in as you chop, in the usual order - onions, celery, sweet potato etc, get the onions nicely sweated then add everything else in and top up with water to whatever consistency you desire.  I cooked it covered on a nice medium simmer for probably 20 minutes, until the sweet potato was completely tender and luscious, but the celery and fennel still had some crunch.  Back when I ate, I often made my own curry pastes and still today I will often do my own combination of spices.  But I found this nice jar of all-natural (no nasty additives) curry paste on special and gave it a try.  A bit oily but that's OK, it smells delicious.  Why curry though?   Because the spices in curry all combine to aid digestion, and balance out the creamy coconut fats.

Originally I planned for this to have chickpeas instead of the cannelini beans, but when I got to the cupboard I discovered there were none, just the cannelinis.  Never mind.  Also, I chose the fennel because it needed harvesting from the garden so I can reclaim the space to plant out some aubergines (eggplant).  If I'd had some nice leafy greens I'd have used them instead.  I'd also have used fresh coriander over dried if I had some.  This dish would be delicious served with wilted bitter-ish greens like spinach topped with wedges of preserved lemon coated in almond dukkah sprinkles.  Or the classic Indian spinach and paneer, which would add in dairy as well.  Maybe a grain dish too, but there are plenty of carbs in this as is.  Try simple rice or maybe couscous.

A note for those with high-powered blenders too (that'll be most of us) - you don't have to cook this one at all anyway.  If you're fine with raw food (and raw sweet potato, along with fennel is remarkably digestable when Vitamized), then just tip everything straight in the blender, but perhaps delete the onion.

Onion, 1 x med:  30 cal
Sweet potato (raw weight) 450g:  300 cal
Celery 200g (about 4 stalks): 30 cal
Fennel bulb, 1 x med: 30 cal
Cannelini beans, canned, drained, 240g net: 228 cal
Coconut cream, canned, 270ml: 786 cal
Curry paste, mild yellow 60ml: 184 cal
Rice bran oil, 60ml: 520 cal
Coriander, dried, 1tsp: 0 cal
Water up to 2 litres total volume.

Total volume 2 litres = 8 x 250ml servings @263.5 cal each
1.05 cal/ml
31.6 cal/oz

Smells fantastic (the curry ones usually do) and will be super-easy on my digestive system. Sure, this recipe is pretty high in fats, but remember that most of it is from the coconut cream, and 66% of that is MCT oil which does not require digestion.  If you wanted to boost the calories in this, a very easy way would be to add in say 50g of seeds, 50g of nuts, and perhaps some blackstrap molasses, or honey, or maple, or agave syrup.  None of these would thicken the blend too much but add lots of cals.  This blend pours nicely, but will need thinning by (I estimate) 15 to 20% for serving easily with a gravity bolus.  Having no grains in, and being cooked, I don't expect it will thicken much if at all when cooled.

Hope you try this one yourself. :-)

Sweet Potato and White Bean Mild Coconut Curry