Jackfruit jalfrezi

Only a few months back, perhaps in the spring of this year, I ate a jackfruit jalfrezi from a street food stall. It was my first time ever eating jackfruit. The dish was very spicy and I could hardly finish it for that reason, but at the same time it was so tasty and the jackfruit was brilliant in the curry. Ever since then I obviously wanted to cook such a dish myself, as I don't have a constant access to that street food stall.

I started planning the dish and decided to keep it simple and let the jackfruit be the star. I combined it with garam masala, chilli and ginger spices and tomatoes. My own vegan jackfruit jalfrezi was much less spicy than the street food one, but still packs a punch. I really loved the colours in this dish, could it even be something for a different Christmas meal? Have a look at my recipe below.

Jackfruit jalfrezi

Ingredients

280 g / 1 can jackfruit

Vegetable oil

1 tbsp vegetable stock powder

3 onions

4 garlic cloves

2 cm fresh ginger

2 green chillies

2 carrots

1 tbsp garam masala

2 tsp turmeric

300 g tomatoes

5 tbsp tomato purée

Pomegranate seeds

Fresh coriander

1 cup brown basmati, red camargue and wild rice mix

Method

Drain and rinse the canned jackfruit and start cooking it in oil in a pan. Cook until some of the liquid has evaporated and then add vegetable stock powder and some water. Keep simmering and adding water whenever needed until the jackfruit falls apart and is softened.

Chop the onions and cook them in a covered saucepan for about 30 minutes until soft and little bit browned.

Chop the garlic, ginger, chillies and carrots finely and add them to the onions.

After a while frying, add the garam masala and turmeric followed by the chopped tomatoes.

Let simmer under lid until the tomatoes have become a sauce. Add some tomato purée to the pan as well and also the jackfruit. Let simmer further.

Season to taste and let simmer until you are happy with the flavours and textures.

Serve with fresh pomegranate seeds, coriander and rice.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog