The sun is out and the t-shirts are on, which means it’s time to review our eating habits if shorts or togs are to be contemplated on the beach this summer. So be very, very good and make up a big pot of tasty vegetable korma rated ‘Superhealthy, high in fibre, good source of iron’ in BBC Good Food Magazine and visualise yourself, super-svelte and jumping the waves.
Like most of the Korma dishes that we eat, it is made creamy with the addition of yoghurt. Almonds also feature and have been receiving credit as a superfood lately with many health benefits. This is a mild curry which is warming rather than hot.
So before we delve into the cooking let’s have a look at one of the ingredients – cardamom pods. Not that you really need to know, but a cardamom pod, according to the back of the jar, is “the dried, unopened fruit of a plant native to south India. It has a warm, spicy sweet flavour.”
It’s a spice that gets used quite a lot in baking sweet as well as savoury dishes. The outer layer of the pod is quite hard, shrivelled looking and husky and you need to give it a bit of a bashing to get at the seeds within. This isn’t difficult with the use of a pestle and mortar and there is no harm in adding the husky outer layers to the dish though I generally discard them.
I’m usually a chop as I go kind of cook but this is one dish where you really should do the prep. work up front.
Serves 4.
You will need:
handful flaked almonds
1 onion
half head of cauliflower
2 medium potatoes
third of a turnip or swede
4 carrots
1 courgette
3 cardamom pods
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
half tsp turmeric
1 garlic clove
thumb-sized piece ginger
1 green chilli
750ml hot vegetable stock (I made mine from 1 and a half stock cubes)
250g frozen peas
2 tbsp ground almonds
200ml low fat natural yoghurt
large handful fresh coriander
Method:
Heat the oven to 160C / Gas mark 3.
Spread the almond flakes on a baking tray and put them to toast in the oven for 10 minutes or so, until golden.
Start peeling and chopping!
Peel and finely chop the onion.
Break the cauliflower into florets.
Peel and cube the potatoes and cut the turnips into bitesize chunks.
Peel and slice the carrots and chop the courgette into chunks.
Bash the cardamom pods with a pestle and mortar and discard the outer husks.
Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and add the chopped onion with the cardamom, cumin, ground coriander and turmeric. Stir well and cook for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile peel and crush the garlic. Peel and grate the ginger. Deseed and finely chop the green chilli.
Add the garlic, ginger and chilli to the onion and spices and cook for 1 minute.
(Don’t forget to take your almond flakes out of the oven)
Add the prepared cauliflower, carrots, potatoes, turnip and courgette to the pot and stir well. Cook for a further 5 minutes stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile make up the hot vegetable stock.
Add the stock to the vegetables, bring to the boil and then reduce to simmer for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes add the frozen peas, as they are cold they will reduce the heat so bring to the boil again and then reduce to simmer for 3 minutes.
To finish the curry, take it off the heat and stir in the ground almonds and low fat yoghurt.
Serve with naan bread or rice and a generous garnish of chopped fresh coriander and a sprinkling of flaked almonds.
Enjoy!
If you read my blog last week you would have seen that I was looking forward to a trip to Belfast for the Irish Blog Awards. I was thrilled to be a finalist in the Best Irish Food/Drink Blog category (sponsored by www.bordbia.ie) and I sat there saying ‘please be me, please be me’ in my head as the winner was announced with the award going to Aoife Cox of www.dailyspud.com. My disappointment lasted a nanosecond and I can genuinely say that I am very happy to be included in the company of such talent, including the other nominees ; Aoife of www.icanhascook.wordpress.com Roseanne of www.likemamusedtobake.blogspot.com and Kristin of www.dinnerdujour.org
Til next time, Sheila.