Maroi Bori Thongba

Chives stand in for onion and garlic entirely, and the protein is sun-dried lentil nuggets.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 150 g bori, sun-dried lentil nuggets
• 150 g maroi nakuppi, garlic chives
• 500 g potatoes, in large dice
• 2 green chillies, slit
• 2 teaspoons heiribob, dried citrus peel, or the peel of 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 3 tablespoons mustard oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 700 ml water

Method

1. CHIVES STAND IN FOR ONION AND GARLIC ENTIRELY, AND THE PROTEIN IS SUN-DRIED LENTIL NUGGETS. Its article is careful about both. On the alliums: the dish is prepared with a LARGE QUANTITY of maroi nakuppi, chives used in Meitei cooking AS A SUBSTITUTE for onion and garlic -- and the word maroi can mean several different alliums, garlic chives or Allium hookeri among them. So this is not a curry with chives in it; it is a curry built on chives where another would have an onion base. And the bori are small nuggets of soaked, ground and sun-dried lentil, which is where the substance comes from in a dish with no meat.
2. A HUNDRED AND FIFTY GRAMS OF CHIVES IS NOT A GARNISH. Chopped and added in two goes -- most early so it cooks down into the gravy, some at the end.
3. THE BORI ARE FRIED FIRST AND THEN SIMMERED. In the mustard oil until they colour, which takes two minutes and stops them turning to paste in the gravy. Dropped in dry they swell and disintegrate.
4. THEY ARE SUN-DRIED LENTIL, NOT A SOYA NUGGET. Its article says soaked, ground and sun-dried. Soya chunks are the thing most people will reach for and they behave quite differently -- spongier, and they take up far more liquid.
5. THE POTATOES ARE CUT LARGE. In a dish where the other solid is a small nugget, large dice keeps the two distinct.
6. THE CITRUS PEEL GOES IN NEAR THE END. Same as in Nga Thongba, as on its own page: boiled long, it turns bitter.
7. NO ONION AND NO GARLIC GO IN, AND THAT IS THE POINT. If you cannot get maroi, say what you have substituted rather than quietly adding an onion -- the dish is named for the allium it uses.
8. IT IS A THIN CURRY EATEN WITH RICE. Seven hundred millilitres of water, simmered twenty-five minutes until the potato is soft and the bori have swollen.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

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