Yet Another Use for Coconut Milk
24 November 2009
Well, this will be my last regular Tuesday post. No worries, my page will keep running, and I will of course keep updating it in reasonable intervals. But I suspect that my "old, new" work may not permit weekly posts, so I will have to find a new rhythm.
After about 2 years of abstence (hard to believe it’s been so long!), a good part of which I spent with Simon in Japan, I will return to my old job at an M&A boutique in Munich next week. Since I am determined to keep up my studies of Japanese, my figure skating practice, and, of course, foodmeetslifestyle.com, I have opted for a part time employment, working 3 out of 5 days a week (and I am indeed lucky to have an employer to agree to this!). Yet I can’t promise to post once a week, and certainly not on Tuesdays, as this will be one of my usual working days; I rather expect to settle for an about bi-weekly routine.
In any case, there will of course be regular news from me, so please do continue checking in!
Anyways, administrative blah aside, I also wanted to talk about my newest recipe this week. As you may have noticed, an ingredient I have been using quite a lot lately is coconut milk. I add it to all kind of things; it makes sauces nice and creamy, and gives them a special touch (a case in point is a tasty shiitake cream soup I prepared recently – details to follow shortly).
Why not adding it to something sweet? The coconut flavour is certainly a good match for fruits; and once I had mixed it into my apple sauce, my next thought was to spice it up with a bit of curry, which I often combine with coconut milk in savoury dishes. Not too much, just a little hint. Really lovely, especially in combination with soothing vanilla ice cream and some toasted almonds.
Spiced-Up Apple Sauce (on Vanilla Ice Cream)
| yields about 6 portions |
| 4 apples |
| juice of 1 lemon |
| 1 tablespoon of brown sugar |
| 1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar (1 pack) |
| 100ml white wine |
| 1 cinnamon stick |
| 1/2 teaspoon mildish curry powder |
| some powdered ginger |
| some nutmeg |
| a pinch of salt |
| 150ml coconut milk |
to combine with |
| vanilla ice cream |
| toasted almond sticks |
Peel the apples, remove the pits and chop or slice. Dress with lemon juice.
In a saucepan, gently melt the brown sugar. When liquid, pour in the white wine; the caramelised sugar will at first solidify, but dissolve again after simmering for a while. Add the cinnamon stick, the vanilla sugar and the apples. Cover with a lid and let simmer until the apples are completely soft and almost disintegrate. Remove the cinnamon stick.
With a blender, blend the apple sauce until smooth. Season with half a teaspoon of (mildish) curry powder, a pinch of freshly ground nutmet, a pinch of salt, as well as powdered ginger to your taste. Stir in the coconut milk.
To serve, heat up again, pour over a scoop of vanilla ice cream and garnish with some toasted almond sticks.