I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

In the dead of winter, I often find myself looking for variations on a theme - the theme being winter storage vegetables. I had some cabbage that wasn't getting any younger, and some nice onions, so I considered a stir fry, but I also had some potatoes, and adding them to a stir-fry starts to move it into bubble-and-squeak territory. And I'd done that recently.

I could have opted for a simple stew, but we'd already been down that road a few times as well, so it would have been less a variation on a theme and more of the same old song. Unless ... unless ...

Curry and potatoes is a not-uncommon combination. Add some cabbage and it's a winter wonderland! Only with hot curry. And shrimp.

• 2 medium potatoes
• 1 onion
• 1/2 head of cabbage, more or less
• 4 cloves of garlic
• shrimp
• 2 cups of water
• a few Tbs of arrowroot (or corn starch)
• curry powder, store bought, or your own recipe or ...
  • red pepper flakes
  • ground cumin
  • turmeric
  • ground ginger
  • ground coriander

Cut the potatoes and onion into largish chunks. Slice the cabbage fairly thinly, but don't shred it. You want long but narrow strips. Put the ingredients into a heavy pot or casserole and dose them liberally with your curry seasoning and a dash of salt. Pour the water on, bring the dish to a simmer, reduce the heat, cover and let simmer for a couple of hours, stirring every now and then.

When the potatoes and cabbage are tender and everything is well blended, prepare the thickening agent. Mix your arrowroot powder with cold water to make a slurry. (Or use corn starch, the effect is much the same.) Mix it thoroughly into your curry and raise the heat. Add the shrimp on top. Cook for just a few minutes, stirring when you feel the urge, until the shrimp are done.

A word about the shrimp. One of the nice things about this dish is that the shrimp are added last. Which means you can use large shrimp and allocate them on a per serving basis. I used four per person on this occasion. The leftovers are therefore shrimpless. This allows one to reheat the leftovers in a pot and add more shrimp at that time. If the shrimp were in the leftovers, such harsh treatment would render them much less appetizing. The potatoes, onions and cabbage can handle the abuse fairly easily.

Addenda: For leftovers, I'll be adding coconut milk to the curry, which should mellow it a bit and add some nice flavor. Additionally, and almost accidentally, this dish is medievally Lenten appropriate.