Theme: Meatless Dishes Dish: Vegan Andhra ‘Kodi’ Kura Today we start Week 2 of BM# 31 and my theme for this week is ‘Meatless Dishes’. I’m a life long vegetarian, but I’ve a fascination towards non-veg dishes. I worked at a deli during my Masters and I use to loves the smell of meats cooking away in the kitchen, but luckily the smell was not strong enough to make me eat it 🙂
I’m not sure how many of you agree with me but in my opinion it is difficult to cook meat than vegetables and whoever does it well means they are really good at cooking. Here’s my explanation: different meats have to be cooked differently and knowing the right technique is really important (knowledge entirely based on watching waaaaaaay too many cooking reality shows.. thank you). What I’m trying to say is cooking meat needs greater understanding of the ingredients. Veggies on the other hand need little thinking and even if you mess it up, oh well, it’s still edible – think of mushy peas or green beans–you can still eat them. right?? So for this week’s BM, I’m taking 3 meat based dishes and making them meatless. I wanted to imitate as much of the original dishes in flavor as I can. For day 1, I made Kodi (chicken) kura without the kodi (chicken). I used Gardein chick’n scallopini or vegan chicken made with textured soy protein that looks almost like the real thing (to me at least). If anyone wants to know it is available in the freezer section of Whole Foods.
I marinated the ‘chicken’ in lime juice and spices for about 15-20 minutes and then proceeded with the curry. This made the pieces really moist and yumm!! My husband, who’s been a vegetarian for almost 5 years now, thought it tasted almost like kodi kura he remembers eating way back when.
