Meatballs: Pork & Turkey edition

I wasn't originally planning to post these, I just wanted some meatballs. However, after they turned out rather well (Palle suggested that they are the best meatballs I've ever made), and since I did kind of scribble down the proportions as I was going along, and since it turns out they are equally delicious cold (hello, bento!), I decided to share them.

I don't make meatballs or meatloaf very often, but I do like them rather a lot, as a main course unto themselves, as part of a pasta dish, as a little protein add-on to a salady sort of meal, or as a sandwich filling. Not to mention the "on a little toothpick" hors d'oeurves application.

The meatball matrix is pretty simple: ground meat(s) of your choice, seasoning, binder, corrector, and featured ingredient (if any). These meatballs are half lean ground pork and half ground turkey breast (hence the pale colour, in case you were wondering), seasoned with salt and pepper, fresh garlic, whole fennel seed, fresh parsley, and ground oregano, bound with egg, corrected with panko, and featuring finely chopped roasted red peppers and green onions.

As with hamburger and meatloaf making, one of the keys to great texture is to avoid over-mixing or over-compressing of the meat, and that means that the best tool for the job is your impeccably clean fingers. Don't be afraid to get right in there - you will have much better distribution of ingredients that way. I am also a fan of putting everything but the meat into a mixing bowl, giving it a bit of a stir with a fork (to break up the egg), and then separating the ground meat into little clumps with my fingers and dropping the bits on top of the rest of the mixture. Once all of the meat is aerated and added to the bowl, I get my fingers in there and toss it like a salad, to avoid the aforementioned over-compression. Once everything is nicely combined, I begin shaping the meatballs. This method works wonderfully for any time you are mixing ground meats.

Pork & Turkey Meatballs
Makes 12 large meatballs

450 grams lean ground turkey
375 grams ground pork
1 large egg
1 whole roasted red pepper (such as Piquillos)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
3 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 cup minced parsley
1/2 cup panko-style bread crumbs
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Combine all of the ingredients as described in the paragraph above, separating the meat into chunks, and then mixing in the rest of the components. Fry up a tiny nub of meat until cooked through, and taste to see if you need to adjust the ingredients - more salt or fennel seed, for example. Correct the seasoning as needed.

Place, spaced out, in a 9x13" glass baking dish. Sprinkle each ball with a little Worcestershire sauce. Bake at 400 F for 40 minutes - they should be just golden brown. Use a spoon to trim any "spill" of liquid into the pan, as you lift them out, once they are cooked through. If you want a slightly browner meatball, you may wish to brush them with a little soy sauce half way through, but note that this does add a bit of extra saltiness, too. Low sodium soy sauce might be your best choice, there.

You can fry these up on the stovetop, too, of course, although the meat mixture is quite moist, and you are likely to get misshapen meatballs for your extra effort. I highly recommend the baking/roasting method - the balls keep their shape, and you can spend the time that you would have been tending to the meatballs to do something else.

As mentioned above, these are great hot (for example, beside a nice polenta, or a potato-and-vegetable salad, or cold, in your bento (beside...a potato-and-vegetable salad, perhaps...)

If you're planning to make a meatball sandwich, you'll want to have a little sauce, I'm guessing. If you have a stash of leftover sauce in the freezer, this is a great use for it. Otherwise, you can either make a simple sauce from scratch, or purchase one. Warm the sauce together with the meatballs, if you are starting with cold, pre-cooked meatballs. You may want to toast up the bun, too, to add to structural integrity of the sandwich, given how damp even a thick tomato sauce can be. If you want to make your bread garlic bread, I'm certainly all in favour of that. I tend to use Portuguese buns, because I can get good ones in my neighbourhood.

These ones don't really look cooked, but they are - they're from the same batch as the bento shown above.. This is a flaw in the lighting/photography rather than the meatballs themselves, though. Of course, pork and turkey are very light-coloured meats, and I didn't do the extra browning step.

Garlic Scape Pesto

Ah, the special treats of summer that truly are still seasonal! Seize them when you can, or wait a full year for another taste.

I encountered garlic scapes last summer, in my friend Willie's garden. He had us over to dinner, and, after remarkably little slave labour helping to pick the scapes, served us some of his famous handmade fettuccine with garlic scape pesto. He also gave us a giant bag of garlic scapes to take home and play with ourselves.

Unfortunately for all of us, the scapes had gotten a bit on the large size, with the attendant increase in fibrousness. We had to discard a certain amount of each scape, and had to sieve the two dishes that we made - a simple pesto to top pork tenderloin pintxos, and a cream soup. The flavour was wonderful, but lordy, was it work.

This year, we were fortunate to receive scapes again, younger ones this time, from our bacon-curing friend, Rodney. They were much thinner and shorter, and considerably more tender, despite having spent some quality time in the fridge before we got around to using them. We went with pesto on fettuccine, because we liked it so much the first time. This pesto recipe was likely a bit different from the first one we had, but it turned out very well. We used fresh fettuccine from The Ravioli Store, because it is lovely stuff.

Garlic Scape Pesto
Serves 4 - 6

1 cup garlic scapes, finely chopped
2 tablespoons ground almonds
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cups fresh basil
1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan Cheese

Place the finely chopped scapes into a blender or small food processor, along with the almonds and basil. Pulse a couple of times, then add the salt and olive oil. Pulse and then puree until smooth. Taste it, and see if it wants the lemon juice. If so, add the juice and pulse it through. If you are going to freeze some of the pesto, put that portion aside now. If you are using it right away, stir in the cheese and you are good to go: Add to freshly cooked, drained pasta, dab onto any savory appetizer, really, or use as a pizza sauce (that's the likely fate of the bit that's in the freezer, actually). You can also stir it into a soup (white bean, for example...ooh, now I want to try that!), or as a sandwich spread, or use it pretty much as you would use any other pesto.

Sour Cherry Soup (Hideg Meggyleves)

Revenge is not the only thing that is best served cold.

When I was visiting Hungary in 1995, I fell in love with Sour Cherry Soup. It was late July, and it was about 40℃, and I was playing air-conditioning bingo on my excursions around Budapest. I ate a lot of ice cream, and tried to figure out ways to stay cool.

Fortunately for me, I was able to connect with a former co-worker and his wife, both Hungarian Canadians, who had come home for a visit at the same time I was there. With the bonus of interpreters of both language and culture, I found myself in destinations I might not have otherwise found (caving, for example, and also some peculiarly situated wine bars), and eating and drinking things that might not have otherwise caught my eye. Sour cherry soup was a revelation for not only deliciousness, but also for its cooling properties. It was served primarily as an appetizer course, but I imagine it would do just fine for dessert, as it is on the sweet side.

I am sad to report that I misplaced my original recipe for Meggyleves - I've been making it ever since I got back to Canada, although not necessarily frequently. I've consulted the internet extensively, and cobbled together from (prompted) memory just how the version that I first made goes. I do put in less sugar these days - and I may like it all the more. I'm pretty happy with this version, so it's going in the black binder, so I don't lose it again.

You do need good sour cherries, Morellos for preference. Fresh, also, for preference. I'm given to understand that pitting or not pitting is up to the cook, but I generally pit mine (unless the cherries are likely to fall apart). When I saw these at the Farmers' Market last week, I knew just what to do:

Hideg Meggyleves (Cold Sour Cherry Soup)

Serves 6 - 8 as an appetizer

1 lb. fresh morello cherries, pitted
1 cup good red wine*
3 cups water
1 cinnamon stick
2 clove buds
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons unbleached flour, shaken with 1/3 cup water
3 - 4 strips of lemon zest
1/2 cup whipping cream

Bring the cherries, half the wine, cinnamon, cloves, sugar, lemon zest, and water to a boil, and allow to simmer gently for about 10 minutes. Add the slurry of flour and water, and stir through, heating until the soup just starts to boil a little (this will thicken the texture slightly). Add the rest of the wine, bring back to a gentle simmer, and let cook over a gentle heat for another 20 minutes.

Remove the spices and lemon zest, and allow the soup to cool before refrigerating. You can force-cool it by adding an ice pack (sealed in a bag) straight into the soup. This works even faster along with a cold water bath, and moving the soup out of the cooking pot to a large bowl or soups tureen.

Once the soup is cool enough, refrigerate until quite cold.

Stir in the cream, and serve. If you like, you can also add a splash of brandy or sherry before serving. In the picture above, I've sprinkled the soup with cinnamon, but frankly, it doesn't need it.

I'm told by a Romanian-born co-worker that a similar soup is also made using tart apples. I can only imagine how good that must be - in fact, I may need to try it. I think I would use Granny Smiths and a crisp white wine with floral notes, which would make it a little bit similar to a pork tenderloin dish from Normandy.

* A brief note about the wine: You don't want a tannic Shiraz here, or a jammy Merlot. Go for brighter wines, such as a nice Zinfandel (such as Cline or Ravenswood), a Chianti, Barbera d'Alba, or Carmenere. You don't need a fancy wine, but you want one that you will enjoy, because the flavour comes through quite strongly.

Azifa - Ethiopian Lentil Salad

Last year, I was surprised and irritated to discover one of my photos (from the era before I labeled them) was being reproduced all around the internet. Half of my irritation was at the (uncredited) misappropriation of my photo, and half was that it was being wrongly used - it wasn't Azifa at all. The photo had been taken from my old website (linked here)(Update: link has now expired, but you can find the original recipes in the comments below); there are two recipes on the original page - one for the delicious Ethiopian lentil salad called Azifa, and the other was an also fabulous Turkish lentil salad (which I believe translates as yeşil mercimek salatasi). There was only one photo, though: the Turkish salad. The photo had been mercilessly hijacked and propagated with the wrong recipe attached (or versions thereof). I figured the tomatoes in the original photo would be a dead giveaway as to which salad was pictured, but no - it turned up on a number of recipe collection sites and even once on the menu of an Ethiopian restaurant. To the best of my knowledge, those copies have now been taken down.

So now, years after posting the original article on two versions of a green lentil salad, and while I'm in a sort of mood of re-addressing old favourites, I thought I would finally give Azifa a photograph of its own. It may not be the prettiest or most colourful salad, but it is delicious! Do check out the comments of this post for the recipe - it's a fine summer dish, especially with a glass of crisp white wine, or a hoppy IPA. It also packs well for lunches (and bento!) and makes a great pita stuffer, but it also pairs beautifully with grilled salmon, or lemony yassa.

Here's a different picture, from a different batch, with different lighting:

Mango Chile Lime Paletas

Unlike the rest of North America, Summer still hasn't really arrived in Vancouver. We get occasional days where it feels like Summer is actually here, but for the most part, we are having cooler than usual temperatures, frequent rain, and even more frequently, cloud cover. Today has started off with cloud cover, and will apparently become at least partially sunny, with a whopping 21 degrees by later today.

Yesterday, however, was the real deal. Hot, sunny, and gorgeous blue skies. Perfect for a day of taking in the local festival in the park, going to the Farmer's Market (early, because I'm no fool), and lounging around on a patio eating barbeque. Also, a perfect day for Mexican popsicles, or paletas.

Paletas are essentially frozen fruit bars. They are easy to make, and they put to shame any sort of frozen juice on a stick that seems to be the mainstay of the homemade popsicle above this latitude.

Mango Chile Lime Paletas

2 medium to large Ataulfo mangos
2 tablespoons agave syrup/nectar (or honey)
1 Lime (juice only) - use two if your limes aren't very juicy)
1/4 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
1/4 cup cold water

Peel, pit & dice the mangos. In a blender or food processor (I use my mini-prep bowl that came with my immersion blender), add all of the ingredients and blend until perfectly smoothly pureed. Add a little more water if you need to. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze for a minimum of 3 hours.

I am currently thinking about experimenting with adding coconut milk, because I think that would be awesome. If successful, a report will follow...

Chicken Gold

This isn't a recipe, it's...well, it's kind of a secret. But, oh! It shouldn't be! It didn't used to be.

This is the dripping from a roast chicken. I roast my chickens in a cast iron skillet, and after the chicken comes out of the pan to rest (before carving), there's a lot of fatty liquid left behind. After the chicken has rested, and been carved, and after dinner has been finished and the plates cleared away, I do two things:

1) I take any remaining chicken meat off of the bones, and stash it in the fridge for future uses (I usually have at least a couple already in mind). The bones themselves generally go in the freezer, wrapped, to make chicken stock, if I have the room to store them.

2) I pour the liquid from under the chicken (on its carving plate) into a small, lidded container, and pour the dripping from the skillet on top of that.

The container sits innocuously on the counter until I have finished cleaning the skillet and tidying up, and by then the liquid will have magically separated out into the two layers you can (kind of) see above. I put a lid on it, label it with a sticky note, and pop it into the fridge.

Within a couple of hours, the fatty layer, which has risen to the top, becomes solid. This can be scraped off and discarded, if you are the sort of person who is frightened of a little chicken fat, or it can be used culinarily to make the best darn stew-dumplings you've ever had, or to roast up a gorgeous pan of Brussels sprouts, or even simply to fry up potatoes. But I digress. The fat is a valuable culinary ingredient, although I know not everyone in this fat-wary age is inclined to make use of it.

Underneath that layer of fat, however, is the true chicken gold. This is the distilled chickeny goodness that contains a wonderfully dense chicken flavour, as well as a rich, collagen-heavy texture. It sets up like aspic and, since the fat has risen to the surface where it can be removed, it is virtually fat free.

Think of it as a sort of chicken demi-glace. You can add it to darn near anything that needs a little punch of chicken flavour. You can save several chickens' worth and make the best chicken gravy you can possibly imagine (great with fried chicken), or dole it out by the spoonful to add a little fabulous to each soup, stew or pot pie. Diluted with a little water, it makes a beautiful, cloudless chicken broth.

Most excellently, you don't have to use it up all that promptly. The fat perfectly seals in the chicken gold and protects it from freezer burn as you stack up the little containers in the freezer (assuming you haven't just decided to use it the very next night). Once frozen, you can also slice the fatty part away from the concentrated juices, but I find it easier to just let it defrost, and scrape away as needed.

Even a generic, supermarket-type of chicken gives off excellent chicken gold, but it you go the extra mile and get a tasty organic or naturally raised bird, the results can be truly exceptional. Don't let it go to waste: you'd be pouring gold into the trash bin.

Sesame Peanut Noodles

I've made this dish before. I've even posted about it before (see post). Hmmm, that must mean that it's actually summer, not that you can tell from the weather. Still, this salad is delicious no matter what the weather.

This is a Nigella recipe, and it really only needs minor tweaks to suit my needs. You can see the official version of the recipe here, and my version below.

The first time I made this dish, I added some chicken to round it out as a meal, but in all honesty, it doesn't need anything added to it. It does make a lovely side dish, though, so if you've got a few skewers of shrimp on the grill and you're looking for a low-maintenance make-ahead side, this is definitely a great place to start.

Sesame Peanut Noodles
Adapted from Nigella Express, by Nigella Lawson

Dressing
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons sambal oelek (or sriracha)
100 grams smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons honey (use agave syrup for vegan)

Salad
125 grams snow peas, sliced thinly, diagonally
1 red pepper, julienned
125 grams zucchini, julienned
2 green onions, finely sliced
500 grams Chinese-style steam noodles

Garnish
Toasted sesame seeds
Cilantro

Directions are almost superfluous, here. Slice the vegetables, cook the noodles, and drain them, shocking them with cold water to stop the cooking process. Combine the dressing ingredients and beat until smooth, and then toss the noodles, the vegetables, and the dressing together.

You can vary the vegetables, of course. I replaced the bean sprouts in the original with julienned zucchini, and now I can't imagine making it any other way. Using a variety of peppers might add an extra splash of colour, too - combine red, yellow, and orange pepper strips for a little extra visual punch. Radish or jicama strips might also go nicely in here.

Having made this a couple of times, it should be said that you simply must use your hands to effectively combine everything. in the final assembly stage, otherwise, no matter how big your bowl and how dextrous your fork-handling, you will not get the dressing and vegetables properly integrated throughout the noodles. With fingers, though - quick business.

Another note is regarding peanut butter: use the very best tasting peanut butter, please. This is not the way to use up what my family calls "dried up wrinkly old" peanut butter, aka the desiccated natural peanut butter in the bottom of the jar, which I did in my last posting of this recipe. I'm currently raving about Nuts to You smooth organic peanut butter, which is by far the best I've ever tasted (plus, it has an awesome ingredient list: peanuts). Everything I make with that peanut butter is somehow amazing!

The salad travels well for lunches, too, although it seems to like a little extra soy sauce to perk it up a bit.

Cauliflower Mac & Cheese: smarter than the box

When Kraft came out with its plan to add cauliflower to boxed Kraft Dinner (Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, to my non-Canadian readers), it seemed like a good idea, even if I'm not a big supporter of Kraft generally. It's nothing new, in one sense, as clever parents have been pureeing vegetables and hiding them in pasta dishes for a very long time. Plus, cauliflower and cheese go so very well together, and macaroni and cheese go so very well together, so getting all three into the pot together seems fairly sensible.

The Kraft Canada website advises that there is a half-serving of vegetables in each helping (ie. recommended serving size of 50 grams, or 3/4 cup prepared) of "KD Smart." The vegetable content therefore seems pretty minimal, for all of the fuss - Yoni Freedhoff at Weighty Matters does a nutritional comparison of the "smart" version against the original product, with scathing commentary highlighting (amongst other things) the extra sodium, saturated fat, and sugar that it apparently takes to make this product.

To revisit the idea that cauliflower, cheese, and pasta should all get along, you don't need to go with a heavily processed product. You need cauliflower. It's even easy! You simply add (finely) chopped up cauliflower to the noodles in the last few minutes of their cooking time, whatever recipe you are using, and carry on. If you are determined to use a boxed macaroni, you can still add cauliflower yourself, for much lower cost and greater benefit. The absolute minimum benefit is that you can add a lot more cauliflower to each plate without having to increase the amount of cheese sauce you're using (try it - unless you're adding an entire head of cauliflower, there should be enough sauce). You can certainly make sure you're getting more than a mere half-serving of cauliflower.

Yeah, you can see (and, to a degree, taste) the cauliflower. Cauliflower is good! It's even better with cheese! You can have a larger portion of the dish because it has a lot of vegetable mass mixed right in. Because cauliflower's white surface picks up the colour of the cheese, it's a very satisfying plate to look at - even though you know there's cauliflower in there, it looks - to the quick glance, if your pieces are small enough - just like a big ol' plate of cheesy pasta.

I made this using an all-cheddar version of my Skillet Macaroni & Cheese aka "Evapomac" recipe (see recipe here). It made four generous helpings - one each for the two of us at dinner, with roasted asparagus for bonus veggie points, and one each for lunch the following day. I used about four cups of finely chopped cauliflower (half a large head), so it was well over a "serving" of cauliflower in each portion. I didn't add extra cheese or milk or anything to stretch the sauce, and I didn't need to.

This version is not really all that sneaky. You can see the cauliflower, and you can taste it, although the cheese is the dominant flavour. If you really hate cauliflower, this is not going to work for you. You could also use broccoli, but because broccoli is a little bitter, you might want to blanche it separately first, which is more work, albeit not by much. You could also use some leftover roasted cauliflower, which would likely be a little sweeter from the roasting process, and might taste a little less like the brassica vegetable that it is. If you're sensitive to the somewhat bitter aftertaste of the cabbage family, that might be the way to go.

So, thanks for the idea, Kraft. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me to try adding cauliflower to my mac and cheese before. I'm not going to buy your product, but I'm going to totally run with this idea. I may not add cauliflower every time I make my macaroni and cheese, but I'm definitely adding it to the options.

Butter Chicken Revisited

I first posted about butter chicken a few years ago (see link). Butter chicken is probably the single most popular dish in Indian restaurants in Vancouver, which is actually a little bit sad, because it means that almost every restaurant (don't worry, I do know there are exceptions) feels the need to keep one on the menu, however indifferent to it they might be. I've had a fair number of wretched ones, and almost never order it out, anymore. The good news is that it is a very easy dish to make, although the recipe looks a bit daunting. Some of that is the list of ingredients, but in all fairness most of those are spices.

I've updated and streamlined my recipe since the original one was posted on my old, non-blog recipe site (here).

Butter Chicken (2011)

Serves 4 - 6
Total Prep & Cooking time: 45 to 60 minutes

8 boneless, skinless raw chicken thighs
2 tablespoons hot tandoori masala
14.5 oz / 398 ml can diced tomatoes, with juices
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons canola oil
3 bay leaves
1 inch of ginger root, peeled
3 large cloves of garlic
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons natural cashew butter (unsalted)
1 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup cream
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
cilantro to garnish optional

Sprinkle tandoori masala evenly on both sides of the skinless chicken pieces and let them rest while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Prepare and measure out all ingredients ahead of time: this is not a chop-as-you-go endeavour. Use little bowls or plates to get organized. Items that are added at the same time can be put in the same bowl.

Ginger, garlic and onions can be finely ground together in a blender or food processor. You want them very finely minced, but not completely pureed. Scrape down the sides as necessary, to ensure a fine texture. Remove to a bowl, so they're ready to add when needed. Puree the tomatoes separately, with their liquid, and put them in a separate bowl (an immersion blender works well for this.

Heat the butter and oil in a large, non-stick skillet over medium heat, until the butter is melted and the pan is hot. Add the bay leaves, the onion/ginger/garlic paste, and fry, stirring often, until golden brown and all water has evaporated. Don't let it burn. Add the tomato puree, chile powder, salt and sugar, and fry until the water has all evaporated and the oil separates out into shiny orange-y droplets. This can take up to 10 minutes, so be patient and stir a lot. The mixture will be quite thick, almost dry.

Add the cashew paste and continue to stir and fry another few seconds, and then add the milk and water slowly, stirring the whole time, and raise the heat to bring the mixture to a boil. The sauce should be thick and almost custard-y in texture. You can always add more water later, if needed.

When the sauce has come to a boil, turn the burner to low. Shake any excess tandoori masala from the chicken, and slide the pieces gently into the pan, and spoon the sauce over each piece. Cover and simmer very gently for 25 minutes (you can also do this in the oven at 350℉, if you need the stovetop), stirring half-way through. Remove the chicken pieces carefully from the sauce and roughly chop the meat into large bite-sized pieces. Return the chicken pieces to the pan and stir into the sauce. Over medium heat, add the cream and garam masala, and cook for a further 5 minutes, until heated through. Garnish with cilantro, if you like.

I should also note that the sauce freezes beautifully, should you have any left (or if you only have a smaller amount of chicken - you can still make the whole recipe of suace, and then freeze the leftover). When you want to use it, simply defrost and heat in a skillet, slide more masala-rubbed chicken into it, simmer, and serve. Just like one of those ready-to-use sauces, but at a fraction of the cost, and much, much better.

The sauce on its own would make a pretty awesome pizza sauce, don't you think? Leftover chicken can also be mixed with rice and vegetables (curry-roasted cauliflower, for example) and wrapped in a roti or tortilla as a freezer-friendly stash of homemade goodness.

While not strictly correct, I've also had good luck substituting quality peanut butter for the cashew butter. I'm currently very impressed by the Nuts To You organic smooth peanut butter (unsalted), which may be the best I've ever had.

International Bento (India): Cauliflower & Green Bean Korma

It's bento time again! This is a big bento box for a big appetite. It's sleek, matte black, and has a built in storage compartment for your chopsticks as part of the lid in the airtight top section. We call it the Ninja Bento Box, for obvious reasons. This bento was packed after the curry had cooled, so the sauce looks thicker than it really is when it is freshly made or re-heated.

I was surprised to realize that I hadn't actually done an Indian bento yet. While this is one of the simplest types of bentos imaginable - an inelegant arrangement of leftovers, really: some rice on one side (basmati, of course - not only appropriate to the cuisine, but also our default rice), and vegetable korma on the other.

The korma recipe is one that I have posted previously here, back in 2006. I haven't changed it much, except that I now often remove the cardamom seeds from the pods before throwing them into the pan, so that I don't need to fish them out later, and I puree the sauce before adding the featured ingredient. This korma was simply trimmed and sliced green beans, and cauliflower florets, thrown in at the point where one would usually add chicken or tender lamb. You can use any vegetable you like, of course, such as this version here from 2007, which included chickpeas, broccoli, bell pepper, carrots, and homemade paneer. The sauce is just that versatile - it can be meaty, vegetably, or some combination depending on your whim (or the state of your fridge).

Cauliflower takes to curry like the proverbial duck to water. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of curry, perhaps because cauliflower is such a mellow flavour to begin with, but it soaks up any sauce you put it in like it was especially designed to do so, and it doesn't suffer from significant texture loss when you re-heat it, which is a real bonus for packing up the leftovers as lunch.

I was a little startled to discover that I've been making this recipe regularly for five years now. It's my go-to when I want a homemade curry but don't have the energy or adventurousness to try something new or tricky, or if I'm just in the mood for something dependably comforting.