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What's For Dinner v.19.41: More Legumes: AI Curry Edition [1]

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Date: 2025-04-12

Yep, you heard that right. AI helped me make this curry. And it was GOOD, too.

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So let me explain myself. I had—and still have—a nice supply of various legumes from several years ago. I had had a curry idea with them rattling around in my head, but it wasn’t until a friend was asking around for help to cater for her old college choir who was on a tour. I then thought of vegetarian or vegan options. And I hit on this idea: “Hey, why don’t I make a curry with those chickpeas I’ve got and add carrots and potatoes, kind of like a Japanese curry, or in a chana masala style?” So I was set on doing this, even when the plans fell through to help out my friend.

So what I wanted was to make a nice curry, and then mix it with rice for my weekly meals. What I next needed was a good spice blend. The last time I tried making my own curry thing, I wasn’t satisfied with the flavor. And looking around at various recipes, they were all pretty general, with most using some form of curry powder. Enter the AI. I told it I was making a chickpea curry, I didn’t want to use curry powder, and gave it my ingredients by weight, and it gave me a blend. I asked more questions, tweaking what I had, and this blend here was the result. It included coriander, smoked paprika, cumin, turmeric, ginger, white pepper, cayenne, mustard, and ground thyme. I used nutmeg and allspice to substitute for cardamom, and celery seed and lemongrass (next photo) to substitute for fenugreek. And the main reason I was using the AI bot was to get not only spice suggestions, but proportions as well. For my last curry style attempt, I used what things I thought went well together and I added them by feel. That is usually very successful for me, but when trying to do something unfamiliar—make a curry blend—you can go awry quite easily. And as you will see, asking questions of the AI ultimately led to success. And I have a new spice mix I can use in addition to my barbecue rubs. So here was the curry spice mix:

So the first thing was to get my aromatics ready. I grated some garlic, some turmeric root, some ginger, and smashed some lemongrass.

In a bunch of butter, I sweated off some onions, then added the aromatics, then added the blend. The spices absorbed all that fat and liquid from the onions and butter so fast I almost wasn’t able to make sure every last grain of powder got coated in fat. It was a very thick paste that went into the slow cooker.

In addition to developing the spice mix I used, I was also asking the AI various technique questions about how different ingredients worked together. A lot of the answers were along the lines of “that’s a great sounding idea” and it would talk about why something would work, AND it would also give cautions in the same answer: “Here’s why it might not work” and things like that.

Anyway, I rinsed a bag of dried chickpeas and added it. Then I added potatoes and carrots

So one of the reasons I was using an AI was because I wanted to do a non-traditional curry. Starting out with a chickpea curry, but add features of butter chicken for a kind of hybrid curry. To that end, I then added a jar of tomato passata and a can of coconut milk. I thought I was getting full fat, but it turned out it was light. Oh well.

For the main part of the cooking liquid, I used some stock I made for my fish soup. It was a smoked fish stock made with the usual aromatics—fennel, leek, shallot, garlic, parsley stems, bay leaves—and then some smoked shrimp shells, some smoked eel heads and bones, and some smoked salmon collars. Or at least some of the collars. They were so good I ate most of them. The heads I saved for another stock. But yeah, a really tasty smoked fish stock.

I let it go for a LONG time. Longer than I thought I needed to let it go. Why? The chickpeas had been in my pantry for around 5 years or so. So without soaking, and with me forgetting to put a tiny bit of baking soda in the liquid, the chickpeas cooked very slowly, and unevenly. But it was finally done.

Then I had two more finishing touches before adding my seasoned saffron rice. Number one, I wanted more protein. So in went some shrimp.

And the final finishing touch. I said I wanted it to also be partly like butter chicken, so I emulsified in a stick of butter. Look how gorgeously red this curry is.

Then as per usual, I added in my saffron rice.

Talk about curry-licious. It was SO SO good. The heat was just right, and the spices were perfectly tempered by the butter. The potatoes were the best part. Absorbing all that flavor and yet maintaining shape AND that potato taste. This is definitely a curry I’ll make again. Instead of shrimp I might add chicken. I might add lamb. Or I might make it completely vegan. But that spice mixture really worked, so my AI experiment was a success. While an initial question may not produce the answer I would like, I can use that answer to get some inspiration and creativity. And I can ask more directed questions to make the inspiration I have take shape. I wonder if the AI bot on my computer will learn my tastes and preferences and create clearer answers that fit with that I am thinking about when I ask the question. But this is not a philosophy class. We’re cooking, and the cooking was good.

Anyway, tonight’s meal prep WFD is more mundane than an exciting curry experiment. I’m throwing together some tuna casserole—tuna, canned cream soup, frozen corn, onion, cheese, rigatoni. Easy peasy. I might even be bourgeoisie and throw in some French fried onions as well.

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