Why the Cashews Need to be Soft
Sri Lankan cashew curry in the old days was made with fresh never-dried cashews harvested directly from trees, they have a soft creamy texture with no crunch. These days this soft texture has to be achieved by re-hydrating cashews and boiling them typically in a pressure cooker. The Instant Pot makes this a convenient curry – dump all your ingredients and let the Instant Pot get it to the right texture. I’ve experimented with the timing so they are soft enough to get squashed if you press them with your finger, but not overdone so they turn into paste when you stir the curry.
Instant Pot
If you’ve ever used an Instant Pot you’ve probably figured out there’s nothing very “instant” about it, I think it’s more like a souped-up pressure cooker and that’s how I use it. What’s really convenient is the ability to dump ingredients for a slow-cooking curry in and not have to constantly check a curry boiling on the stove. Mine is a 6 quart one, sort of middle-of-the road not a little 3-quart one and not a big 8-quart. Your curry may need a minute or two less if the quantities are smaller and it’s a 3-quart one maybe.
Storage
Cashew curry freezes well and is just as good once warmed up. Great to have a portion of this curry in your freezer to pull out whenever you need to make meal-time a little special.
Instant Pot Cashew Curry
Equipment
- 1 Instant Pot 6 quart
Ingredients
- 16 oz un-roasted, un-salted whole cashews (raw cashew nuts)
- 2 shallots (or medium white onion)
- 1/2 inch piece of ginger
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 serrano pepper (or Indian long green chili)
- 1 sprig curry leaves
- 1 tsp heaping spoon of curry powder (Sri Lankan Curry Powder is basically 50% ground cumin and 50% ground coriander)
- 1/2 tsp chili powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup green peas (frozen ones work great)
- 1 cup coconut milk
Instructions
- Soak the cashews overnight or about 8 hours in a large bowl of water where they can be completely submerged and have room to plump up a little to about one and a half times their size.
- Drain and rise the cashews.
- Peel and dice the shallots. Peel and finely chop the garlic and ginger. Chop the serrano/green chili into a few chunks so they are easy to avoid while eating. You can chop the green chili finely if you prefer the dish to be spicier.
- Into your Instant Pot – add all the ingredients except the green peas. The drained cashews, shallots, garlic, ginger, chopped green chili, curry leaves, chili powder, and salt.
- Add water about 1.5 cups to just about submerge the cashews, but no more. Lock the lid in place. Choose the Multi-grain setting for 14 minutes. Mine is a 6 quart pot, a larger pot with different settings may need a little tweaking on the time.
- When the Instant Pot finishes the cooking-time and gets to the natural release portion, turn it off so it releases pressure rapidly. After about 5 to 10 minutes when no steam releases from the valve it's safe to open.
- Take out a cashew nut and squash it with your finger. It should break into pieces but not become cashew-paste. That's the perfect texture for this curry.
- Turn on the Instant Pot to sauté setting and let excess liquid evaporate. Add coconut milk, salt to taste and the green peas. Cook until it thickens to the consistency you like.
- Serve warm or freeze in portions for later. Once frozen, let them defrost first. A quick microwave or stove-top warm-up and they are good to serve.
So the curry powder used here is half ground cumin and half ground coriander?
If a different curry powder was used what brand did you use or what ingredients did it contain?
Thanks so much, looking forward to trying this as soon as I know which powder to use!
Hi Erica – I used the Ma’s brand which I buy in Sri Lanka mostly. Here’s a link https://mas.kitchen/product-view/78 During all the covid lock-downs I couldn’t travel to Sri Lanka for 2 years and made my own. Basically I bought whole cumin seeds and coriander seeds from my local Indian grocery store and ground them in my spice grinder – roughly half/half of each and mixed them. If that sounds like a lot of hassle I would just get a small bottle of this McCormick curry powder or something similar https://www.mccormick.com/gourmet/spices-and-flavors/organic/organic-curry-powder-hot-madras