Name: Quick and Easy Vegan Mushroom Curry with Coconut Milk
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 45 min
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients: 500 g (one 16oz package) firm, meaty mushrooms; 1/2 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp turmeric powder; 1 can (13.5oz or 480mL) coconut milk; 4 -5tbsp oil for frying; 2 onions, finely chopped; 2 tsp (generous teaspoons) coriander powder; 1/2 tsp red chili powder (I love Kashmiri chili powder); 3 green chilis, split along their length (adjust to your preference); 1/2 tsp Kachampuli - substitute with lime juice (fresh is preferable); Extra limes for serving

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Welcome to the Storied Recipe Podcast, a podcast about food, culture, and love.

My podcast guest, Kaveri Ponnapa wrote The Vanishing Kodavas to preserve the oral histories, customs, and culture of her people. This quick & easy Mushroom Curry recipe was made by the women in her family from mushrooms foraged after the monsoon season. I invite you to listen to her nostalgic memories while making her creamy Mushroom Curry with Coconut Milk.

While this is the easiest mushroom curry you can whip up, it was anything but for the women in Kaveri’s home, who first foraged mushrooms, then “set to work with a will” painstakingly cleaning them.

While we enjoy the conveniences of cleaned, packaged mushrooms, canned coconut milk, and prepared spice powders, we can still benefit from the health benefits of this naturally vegan curry and enjoy the perfectly balanced flavors in this dish.

And, we can imagine the feeling Kaveri experienced when, after the monsoons, she ventured outside with her father to find a hill upon rolling green hill covered with mushrooms as white as snow.

What To Expect (Flavor, Texture, and Look)

On the simplicity of this dish:

Kaveri says, “This dish is not garnished, it depends entirely on the flavour and fragrance of wild mushrooms for its appeal. Kodagu has excellent native limes, which are sliced and squeezed over this curry. Usually, there’s a flash of vivid green from limes sliced and placed beside the dish.”

Flavor

The flavor is perfectly balanced – smooth coconut, spicy green chili, slightly sweet ground coriander, sour lime, and earthy mushrooms.

Texture

The mushroom masala gravy is smooth and creamy from the fat in the coconut milk.
Choose firm mushrooms (more on that below) for the meatiest bites.

Shape/Look

The mushrooms will hold their shape, peeking through their creamy gravy.
The gorgeous golden color of this dish comes from turmeric, chili powder, and coriander. This is a mushroom curry without tomato sauce.

small dark wood bowl of mushroom curry with coconut milk garnished with enoki mushrooms

Best Choice of Mushrooms

Most of us can't access the types of mushrooms Kaveri and her family used in their dish. This shouldn't hinder us from making a mushroom masala curry to our own tastes and budget.
Kaveri recommends White Button Mushrooms as the best substitute for those her aunt and mother used. This type of mushroom is the cheapest and most easily available option. I found they cooked beautifully – tender but still meaty.
You can also use meatier mushrooms like Cremini mushrooms (= Baby Portabellas). Creminis are just white mushrooms, but a little more mature (yet still less mature than Portobellos). I think they look a little prettier and hold up longer.
If you use Shiitake Mushrooms, you’ll need to cook their wooden stems a bit in advance. (Or set them aside for another use.) Also, make sure you cook them thoroughly, as they can cause a skin rash if eaten raw.
After hearing Kaveri describe the hills covered with snowy mushrooms, I had to buy Enoki Mushrooms simply for the visual reference. However, these cooked down to almost nothing in the dish, so if you get them, plan on only using them for a garnish. You could fry these for a crispy topping.
If visuals are very important to you, you could also use Straw Mushrooms or Oyster Mushrooms whole to retain their shape without chopping. However, I’d add those a little later if you’re using thicker, meatier mushrooms as well.
Portobello mushrooms, although prized for their meaty texture, are not optimal for this dish. They're larger and will have to be cut multiple times into bite sized pieces. Their dark gills will also darken and dim the gorgeous golden of the turmeric powder and chili powder. Finally, their stems are woody, so those will need to be chopped finer and cooked longer or set aside for another use.

gorgeous baby portabellos with cracked tops in wooden vessel

How to Clean Mushrooms

If you forage your own mushrooms, you’ll need to clean them more thoroughly than those bought at a grocery store. Here’s a handy guide from Wine Forest Wild Mushrooms.
For the rest of us, we don’t need to overcomplicate this step!
Several bloggers recommend cleaning your mushrooms with a dry brush to prevent damaging or discoloring them. This seems needlessly fussy to me, especially since the mushrooms will be tossed in salt and turmeric before cooking, then coated with a chili coconut sauce.
Soaking the mushrooms in a bowl, and then rinsing the water is a hands-off, easy way to clean mushrooms - if you have 5 to 10 minutes to spare.
In a hurry, there's nothing wrong with spraying your mushrooms in a colander!
Dry on a paper towel after cleaning so the moisture won't splatter in the oil.

What to Serve with Mushroom Curry

Indian Bread

Kaveri says, “This curry is usually eaten with Akki Ottis (unleavened rice flatbreads).”
Puja shares a recipe for a Rice Flour Flatbread in her blog Indiaphile, although they go by a different name.
Try with my podcast guest Shakila’s flaky, soft, crispy Roti Prata/Roti Canai.
Plain paratha will work well also - here's a recipe from Dassana
Naan bread is the easiest to find in stores for a super quick dinner.

White Rice

Try this Jeera Rice (Cumin Rice) from Swasthi
This is my favorite Basmati Rice
You could up your veggie game even more with a Cauliflower Rice

Equipment

Skillet
Colander (optional)
Rustic soup bowls (optional)

Recipe Contributor:
Kaveri Ponnapa

Kaveri Ponnapa is an anthropologist and author of The Vanishing Kodavas - deep cultural study of her people group who were devoted above all else to the rolling hills and deep, dense forests of their land, Kodagu.

kaveri ponnapa author of the vanishing kodavas in a teal, royal blue, red, and gold sar

Kaveri's Memories of Mushroom Curry

A curry traditionally made with wild, foraged mushrooms which are an important part of Kodava cuisine, this dish holds layers of memories of my aunt who shared this recipe, and my maternal grandmother, who cleaned and cooked wild mushrooms in vast quantities for a houseful of daughters, husbands and their many children. The mushrooms came in by the basket-load in season, spreading their fragrance through my grandmother's wood-fired kitchen. They were covered in clinging mud, and hard to clean. Yet the women of the house and their helpers set to work with a will so that we could enjoy these fleeting, seasonal treats. This recipe also speaks of the drastic environmental changes that have taken place in Kodagu over the last couple of decades. With more aggressive farming practices—the increased use of fertiliser and pesticides, the aggressive clearing of weeds and wild plants—the quantities of wild mushrooms coming into our kitchens have reduced drastically. Wild mushrooms are emblematic of the late monsoon season in Kodagu, a season that has many cultural connotations. The wild foods we loved and took for granted are becoming elusive. With the loss of certain foods, an emotion that emerged from a particular season also fades and eventually disappears.

-Kaveri Ponnapa

Quick Vegan Mushroom Curry with Coconut Milk (Kodava Kumme Curry)