Good Old Favourites #5

I am enjoying this series. It means I get  to post all my favourite healthy family meals together in one place. I'm building a little recipe file, right here. The other night, when I couldn't find the recipe in my paper file (which freaks me out, a lot), I remembered it was here, and found it in a flash.

So this week is Quick Vegetable Korma. I think it is from Nigel Slater, and I found it on the BBC site.

Quick Vegetable Korma

3 medium onions 

3 cloves of garlic
a thick slice of butter
a thumb-sized piece of ginger
10 green cardamom pods
a tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground turmeric
2 pinches of ground cinnamon
a cinnamon stick
a good pinch of ground chilli
3 bay leaves
650g assorted mushrooms
250g spinach
handful hazelnuts
a generous handful of raisins or golden sultanas (optional)
200g plain yoghurt
150g crème fraîche

1. Peel and slice the onions and garlic. Melt most of the thick slice of butter in a deep-sided pan, reserving a little. Peel and grate the ginger and add to the pan with the onions and garlic.
2. Break open the cardamom pods, discard the green shells and lightly crush the black seeds within. A pestle and mortar is good for this but any heavy weight will do. Add the crushed seeds to the pan with the cumin, turmeric, ground cinnamon, cinnamon stick, chilli and the bay leaves.
3. Cut the mushrooms into large pieces and add to the pan together with the remaining butter (you will find the mushrooms tend to soak it up). Let the mushrooms cook for a couple of minutes, then stir and cover with a lid.
4. When the mushrooms have softened and darkened a little, add 200ml water. Stir, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, wash the spinach carefully. Cook briefly in a separate pan until the leaves have wilted but are still bright, about a minute or two. Remove the spinach and cool under running water to keep the colour bright then squeeze dry and add to the pan with the mushrooms.
6. Stir in the skinned hazelnuts and the raisins or sultanas. Gently stir in the yoghurt and crème fraîche. Warm through gently and serve, with rice or naan bread if you wish

It ticks our boxes - Good - loads of vegetables, and I love a recipe that actually doesn't have salt in it, at all.

Old - We've been making this for the better part of three years, and it's a regular. And I havent changed the recipe, just left out the hazelnuts and raisins/sultanas when I havent had them

Favourites - my kids love this one, even though it's not chicken or beef.

My ever-growing list of recipes, sorted alphabetically.

And here's last week's old favourite - Crumbed Fish and Baby vegetables.