vegetable hot massoela

Sun, Oct 21, 2007

my first portmanteau recipe ever, this is basically a serendipitous match of cassoela from my native Lombardia, Italy (but without the meaty stuff), and hot masala.

Ingredients:

• olive oil
• white wine
• large onions
• cabbage
• potatoes
• carrots
• swede (just because i got one in this week’s grocery box – although it sort of mixed well with the other ingredients – even if i’m not enthusiastic at all about swedes!)
• medium-hot masala sauce

preparation is straightforward – coarsely chop all the vegetables, sauté the onions in a large pressure cooker, sprinkle with a generous half-glass of white wine, keep stirring until it’s well steaming, add the chopped swedes, carrots, potatoes and cabbage, stir through to mix the ingredients well, mix in a jar of medium-hot masala sauce, add a couple of glasses of water and pressure-cook for twenty minutes.

the cabbage and the masala sauce sort of take over the other tastes, which stay in the background as mild “core” upon which the two kernels of the portmanteau build their flavour texture. which made me realise that anything soupy and orangey with a strong flavour and smell of cabbage actually tastes like casoela.

excellent with machego cheese and full bodied red wine slightly colder than room temperature.