Vegeree or Veggie Kedgeree!

I’ve been scouting around recently for a decent recipe for a fishless Kedgeree; sadly, the main recipe on the net was Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall’s offering (you may remember HFW upset me greatly a year or so ago when he went half-heartedly veggie for a few months, purely in order to sell more books – I now refuse to cook anything of his!) plus others which seemed to have an awful lot of ingredients which rather negated the simple feel of the original Kedgeree. I had to come up with my own.

It was a nice easy dinner and you could easily substitute any veg you have to hand. Yes, I know kedgeree was originally eaten for breakfast, but a curried rice dish really doesn’t do it for me at 8am, I’m afraid – I’m more of a porridge fan, myself – however, the same dish at 8pm for dinner is a different matter entirely.

Mr Simply Veg had the traditional topping of boiled egg quarters with his, but although I can just about manage an omelette, I can’t cope with anything that looks quite so overtly eggy so I topped mine with tomato wedges. It occurred to me a little too late (we’d already eaten it!) that some toasted cashews scattered over the top would be a tasty addition. Next time, maybe…

1 tbsp vegetable oil
4 shallots
2 tsp curry powder
½ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground cumin
175g baby sweetcorn
250g basmati rice
500ml water
1 bay leaf
150g frozen peas
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp chopped coriander

1 egg per person
(or a tomato in my case…)
lime wedges

Fry the finely chopped shallots in the oil in a lidded frying pan until translucent, then stir in the curry powder, cumin and coriander and allow to cook for a minute or two. Add the sweetcorn, cut into 2-3cm chunks, and the rice followed by the water and the bay leaf; stir well and bring to the boil then turn the heat down to a simmer, put the lid on and leave to cook for 10 minutes.

Put the eggs into a pan of cold water and bring to the boil; simmer for 5 minutes then run them under cold water and peel.

Stir the peas into the rice and cook for a further 2 or 3 minutes by which time all the water will have been absorbed. Leave the lid on and allow to stand for five minutes before mixing in the chopped herbs.

Serve with a quartered egg (or tomato) and lime wedges. Oh, and don't forget to remove the bay leaf before serving, as I did!

Serves four 

Thai Green Curry

It seems ages since I last posted; I wouldn’t like you to think we've been fading away and not eating at all for the last three weeks or so, it's just that I haven't been cooking anything new and have just stuck to easy-peasy stuff that I can do with my eyes closed and which doesn’t require much thought.

I did manage to make some more chutney, though, using all the remaining fruit from the garden, I’ve also made loads of plum compote and I have six jars of Christmas mincemeat maturing quietly in the pantry, so I haven’t been entirely idle.

 

Before my recent cooking slump I had finally tracked down some Thai green curry paste. I’d been after some for ages, but trying to find one that's veggie was a bit like searching for the holy grail. Waitrose, god bless ‘em, came up trumps so a few weeks ago I added tofu, assorted veg, coconut milk and palm sugar to some of the paste and made what can only be described as a very mediocre meal…I was so disappointed; best thing I can say is, it was OK...ish.

Undaunted, I ventured into the kitchen on Friday to have another go; instead of tofu I used paneer (I seem to be off tofu at the moment for some reason) I also upped the ration of curry paste to give it a bit more zing, I changed the mix of veg and added loads of chopped coriander and a good squeeze of lime juice. This time it wasn’t mediocre, it was bloody brilliant! You will see at the end of the recipe that I’ve said it serves four…well, it would have done if the two of us hadn’t eaten it all!

 

1 pack of paneer
1 tbsp vegetable oil
125g sugar-snap peas, halved
125g baby corn, halved
150g small broccoli florets
1 red pepper, chopped into largish pieces
3 kaffir lime leaves, chopped
2 tbsp Thai green curry paste
1 tsp palm sugar
1 400g tin of coconut milk
handful of coriander, chopped
juice of half a lime

 

Chop the paneer into little batons (about half the size of your little finger) and fry in the vegetable oil in a large pan until golden on all sides; drain well and set aside on kitchen paper whilst you cook the curry.

In the same pan, in the residual oil, cook the baby corn, red pepper and broccoli for a few minutes, add the lime leaves, curry paste, palm sugar and coconut milk. Stir well and bring to a gentle simmer then immediately add the sugar snap peas and the cooked paneer; simmer for a few minutes (you want the veg to still have some ‘bite’). Stir in the coriander and lime juice and serve with rice.

 

Serves 4 (or two very greedy people!)

Spring Vegetable Lasagne

Sorry about the poor quality of the picture, but I had to take it using my phone; the quality of the dish however was brilliant!

My lovely sister served us this gorgeous lasagne when we went to them for lunch yesterday. She and her husband aren't veggie but she always makes the effort to accommodate my dietary choice; I know I’m lucky and I'm very grateful.

This unusual spring veg lasagne is a veggie take on a Jamie Oliver recipe. I don't have the book but I think it originally had fish of some description as one of the ingredients. (Do you have any idea why anyone would want to put fish in a veggie lasagne? Nope, me neither!) Anyway, having tweaked and changed the recipe somewhat, this has now become my sister’s recipe which I have shamelessly appropriated for future use!

1 tbsp olive oil

1 bunch of spring onions, trimmed and chopped

3 cloves  garlic, chopped

1 bunch asparagus, reserve tips and cut stalks cut into 2cm pieces

2 mugs of frozen broad beans (or you could use edamame beans)

2 mugs of frozen peas

Grated rind of 1 lemon

1 tbsp freshly chopped mint

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

250ml single cream

Freshly ground black pepper

1 pack fresh lasagne sheets

500g plain cottage cheese

150g grated Bookham’s veggie ‘parmesan’

Heat the olive oil in a large deep frying pan and sauté the spring onions and garlic for a couple of minutes. Add the chopped asparagus stalks, broad beans and peas; cook over a medium heat for three minutes then add the lemon rind, mint and thyme; mix well then add the single cream and allow to bubble for a couple of minutes. Season well with plenty of black pepper then turn off the heat.

To assemble the lasagne (this sounds worse than it really is!):

Put a large flameproof dish or tin – sis used a roasting tin – on a low heat and assemble the lasagne whilst it is still over the heat; this will help soften the pasta sheets while you do the assembling.

Put a quarter of the veg in the tin, cover with a layer of lasagne then sprinkle with a third of the parmesan; add another quarter of the veg, cover with another layer of lasagne then spoon over half the cottage cheese; add another quarter of the veg, another layer of lasagne and another third of the parmesan; finally, add the last of the veg, cover with lasagne and the second half of the cottage cheese, arrange the reserved asparagus tips on top then sprinkle with the remaining parmesan. If there are any creamy juices left in the frying pan, pour them carefully around the edge of your assembled lasagne. Phew!!

Put the whole thing on a baking tray, place on the middle shelf under a pre-heated grill and leave for about 8-10 minutes until golden and bubbling.

Serve with a mixed salad and warm ciabatta.

Serves 6.

Paneer and Peas

I'm just going to have a little moan about something that's been giving me the pip for a while now.

It used to be just the overpaid cheffy types on TV, but I see the media has now taken up the ‘cooking from scratch’ mantra and I keep seeing people on food forums banging on about it as well; it seems to have become the new foodie religion and woe betide you if you don't join in. Don't get me wrong - I cook every day and I very rarely buy ready meals or convenience foods, but I don't get hung up about making absolutely everything myself. However, an awful lot of people would have you believe they grow their own wheat, mill their own flour and churn their own butter with the milk from the cow they keep at the end of the garden! They're almost evangelical in their self-righteous fervour and they're getting right up my nose!

On a forum the other day somebody mentioned a jar of *shock…horror* curry sauce which he'd found very tasty. Well, the 'knit your own broccoli' brigade came down on him like a ton of bricks - you'd have thought he'd committed some heinous crime when, actually, all he'd done was cook himself a nice curry.

Now, I'm partial to a nice curry myself but I don’t keep umpteen different Indian spices in the pantry, all lovingly ground by my own fair hand, because to be perfectly honest I can’t be bothered. I use a reliable good quality curry paste and I don’t feel in the slightest bit guilty about it; only, keep it to yourself for God's sake or I'll have the food police beating a path to the front door!!

Right, now I've got that off my chest....back to last night’s dinner; this is my take on Paneer and Peas, which is a great dish in its own right, but I had some mushrooms and spinach hanging around in the fridge so I threw those in as well. It was one of those ‘clear out the veg drawer’ meals but it worked really well – I make no claims about its authenticity but it tasted pretty damned good!

small knob of butter
2 onions, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
1 largish potato, peeled and chopped
1 tsp black onion seeds
1 heaped tbsp Patak's Tikka Masala curry paste
1 tin chopped tomatoes
100ml water
220gm pack of paneer, chopped into 1cm cubes
200gm frozen peas
3 good handfuls of baby spinach
1 tsp Garam Masala
small bunch of coriander, chopped

Saute the onions and garlic gently in the butter in a large pan for 5-10 minutes. Add the black onion seeds and potatoes and saute for a further 5 minutes. Add the curry paste, tomatoes and water, stir well and bring to the boil then cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the paneer, peas and Garam Masala, simmer for 5 mins then add the spinach and allow to wilt. Take off the heat and stir in the chopped coriander just before serving. Garnish with extra chopped coriander and serve with rice.