Peas with Spiced Cashew Sauce

These peas are inspired by Mahanandi, a gorgeous food blog that thrills me every single day. The recipe I made last week closely follows Indira’s amazing Matar Paneer. My adaptation this time was to make a dairy-free version appropriate for Karina (and lots of other folks) by leaving out the paneer. I doubled the amount of cashews to make up for the richness and protein of the cheese. This was easy to prepare and the heady fragrances that floated up while it was cooking just had me dancing around the kitchen and flying into the walls.

First I prepared Indira’s ginger, garlic and cilantro (GGC) paste by grinding up a bunch of cilantro with half a cup of peeled ginger and a quarter cup of peeled garlic (you can save your ginger scraps to infuse ice creams and things like that). I am glad to have it in the house. I used some in a salad of string beans with sesame oil and that was just the bee’s knees, but right now I’m here to talk about the peas.

Peas with Spiced Cashew Sauce

1 ½ cup shelled peas (from 1 pound unshelled peapods)
1 cup raw cashews (or cashew pieces)

oil
1 onion, diced

1 tablespoon ginger, garlic and cilantro (GGC) paste
4 tomatoes (20 ounces), peeled, seeded, and chopped

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 ½ teaspoon ground coriander

¼ teaspoon (generous) cinnamon

¼ teaspoon (scant) cloves
½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon turmeric
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper or more to taste

Shell the peas. Toast the cashews in an iron skillet or in the oven to a light golden color. Grind them to a powder in a processor and set aside. Heat oil in a saucepan. Add the onion and cook until translucent. Add the ginger, garlic and cilantro (GGC) paste, and cook a few seconds more. Then add the tomatoes and cook until they have fallen apart. Add the cashew powder, salt, spices, and the peas with about a cup of water. Mix and simmer covered until the peas are tender and the sauce is thick, adding water as needed.

We had this with rosemata rice (rosematta rice) the exquisite, pink-speckled rice of the Kerala region of India. It is a firm rice with a medium oval grain. I bought mine at Spice Market on Lexington Avenue and 29^th Street. Oh, I do love pink food.

Gluten-Free By The Bay will be rounding up the gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, pineapple-free, papaya free and other-allergen-free creations that the food blog-world has dreamed up for this inspiring event. Shkoyekh (thanks) Isaiah, and good health and blessings to Karina and to all of us.

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