Curry Favour

My dear friends Peter and Jenny back in Ferndown were entertaining a friend who happened to be vegetarian. They cooked her a curry from one of Meera Sodha's books. 

It was so good that they sent me a copy of the recipe. Bob and I really enjoyed it [Paneer is one of the cheeses I can eat] 

Roasted Paneer Aloo Gobi [serves 4 - or 2, two nights running]

• 100ml rapeseed oil
• 2½ tsp ground coriander
• 2½ tsp ground cumin
• 2tsp Kashmir chilli powder [I substituted smoked red pepper]
• ½tsp garam masala
• 1½tsp salt
• 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2cm ginger, peeled and grated
• 2 red onions, halved, cut into 1cm wedges
• 225g paneer cut into 2cm cubes
• 1 medium cauliflower [600g] broken into florets
• 300g potatoes, peeled, cut into 2cm cubes
• 500g vine tomatoes, roughly chopped
• lemon wedges, fresh coriander to serve

1. Preheat oven to 200°, line two large baking trays with foil
2. Make the marinade - in a small bowl mix oil, spices, garlic and ginger. Set aside
3. Place onions and paneer on one tray, potatoes and cauliflower on the other. Pour an equal amount of dressing over each tray, scraping out every last bit. Rub with your hands till all veg are covered. Place onion and paneer tray at top of over, potatoes/cauli tray in the middle. Roast 25mins till cauli and potatoes are tender and blackening. Remove both trays, cover potato tray with foil to keep warm.
4. Add chopped tomatoes to the onion tray and return to the over for a further 15 minutes. Now remove from the oven, tip the potatoes and cauliflower into the tomato tray, mix, taste, add more salt if needed.
5. Sprinkle with chopped coriander, squeeze over the lemon, serve with yogurt and naan breads.

It tasted delicious! 

I forgot to buy any naans, so I quickly made some uttapam from Meera's book "Fresh India" [omitting the tomato topping. [recipe here] 

We were both very hungry, and ate more than half of the dish. We thought that if we reheated on Day2 it would dry out. Bob had the inspired idea of adding a can of baked beans in tomato sauce - which worked perfectly.

Thank you Peter and Jenny - and Meera -for such a delicious recipe!

[Meera says she developed this recipe because she wanted a curry she could leave to cook in the oven when she was busy in the early days of parenthood!]