Madras Cheese Cream with Carrots and Ginger

Type of cuisine: Fusion, Indian/French

Difficulty: medium

Time: 30 minutes

Cost: cheap

Availability of ingredients: medium (you might search for onion seeds in a shop or two... but it's worth it)

Yesterday evening I was planning on fixing a quick Thai meal: chicken cakes with ginger and sweet chilly sauce and maybe an Asian noodles salad. 
But I came across a Swiss foodblog http://1001recettes.blogspot.com and fell in love with this photo. 

http://1001recettes.blogspot.com


 No wonder they say that a picture tells 1000 words! 

So I decided to make Velouté de carottes jaunes au mascarpone au curry et gingembre. You can check out  the original recipe here. 

This is my version. 

I used all the ingredients from the original recipe, minus the black sesame, and I replaced the vegetable stock with the chicken stock (that's what I had) and the mascarpone cheese with 0.2% low-fat yoghurt cheese. And to make it more...Thai, I added some coconut milk. To help it set, I used a sachet of gelatin.

I know, I shouldn't have had, but nonetheless it was delicious (and I didn't feel guilty not even a bit).

Here is what you need (for 2 persons):

2 carrots

1 small onion (or half a bigger one)

freshly grated ginger

a knob of butter 

1/4 chicken/vegetable stock dissolved in 6 spoons of warm water

1/4 can of coconut milk or coconut cream

2 spoons of madras curry 

1 spoon of turmeric

1 jar/packet of soft cheese cream (mascarpone or low-fat cream)

1 sachet of gelatin

Method

In a wok melt the butter and add the freshly grated onion, carrots, and allow them a minute or two to soften. When they change colour, add the warm chicken/vegetable stock and let it simmer for 5-7 minutes.

When you see that the water reduces, add the coconut cream or milk, madras and turmeric.

Let it simmer and reduce. To make the whole cream softer, blend it. 

Turn off the gas and let the mixture cool.

In a separate bowl, dissolve the gelatin in a small amount of water.

Add the soft cheese cream and mix with a rubber spoon until the cream becomes fluffy. 

Add the gelatin and pour in 2 glasses.

To decorate, chop a spring onion and sprinkle some onion seeds or, as in the original version, black sesame.

This silky cream is great for a dinner party, to serve next to a couple of prawns on iceberg salad leaves with home-made sweet chilly sauce.

Last night my meal looked like this: 

Grilled Thai chicken cakes with ginger, coriander and spring onions and roast potatoes with a dash of turmeric (for the colour), onion seeds (for decoration) and Camargue salt with crushed curry leaves.

In another posting, I will write about Madras and how to prepare your own if you can't find it in the shop.