Indian Mushrooms and Peas in Spicy Sauce (Mushroom Mutter Chettinad)

Assemble your ingredients!

Mince the two inch piece of ginger root.

Dice the white onion.

Cut the cayenne pepper into small pieces.

Wash your hands thoroughly after handling the raw hot pepper! Even if your hands don’t burn right away, leaving pepper oil on your hands can result in hours of pain.

Add the minced ginger and white onion to a food processor with about 1/4 cup of coconut milk.

Measure out the following ingredients and blend them into the coconut milk until the cashews have been thoroughly pulverized.

4 tablespoons of cashews

6 teaspoons of minced garlic (or 6 cloves)

2 teaspoons of poppy seeds

1/4 teaspoon of sugar

1/2 teaspoons of cumin seeds

1 teaspoon of ground coriander

1 teaspoon of fennel seeds

1 teaspoon of Garam Masala

1 teaspoon of turmeric

1 teaspoon of paprika

Once the ingredients are thoroughly blended, add the rest of the coconut milk and blend again. (Adding the liquid in phases helps the blades encounter the solid ingredients faster. )

Pour the blended mixture into a pan on medium heat. Add the diced cayenne pepper and two bay leaves (whole.)

Cover the pan, raise the sauce to a boil, and simmer for five minutes. Covering the pan at this point will protect your eyes from cayenne vapors in the air.

Once they have simmered for five minutes, remove the bay leaves and discard them. This allows you to infuse the sauce with bay flavor without the rough texture of the leaves.

After discarding the bay leaves, uncover the pan and add the 12 oz of mushrooms, 1 1/2 cups of green peas, and 14.5 oz of diced tomatoes.

Raise the heat to a steady boil and stir frequently. In this step, you want to both soften the mushrooms and boil off most of the liquid in the sauce.