- Serves 2 - Ready in 40 minutes -
Gather together...
2 Quorn breaded / battered fillets (frozen).
1 tbsp rapeseed oil or olive oil.
3 medium-large carrots (375g), thinly sliced in rounds (no need to peel).
2 onions, roughly chopped (to save time day-to-day, I keep a big box of onions I've chopped ahead-of-time, in the freezer, so I throw in 2 handfuls of those).
1 stock cube or 2tsp 'Marigold Less Salt Swiss Vegetable Bouillon powder' (available in bulk 1kg tubs).
1.5 cups (375ml) boiling water.
1 tsp mild or medium curry powder.
1 tbsp palm-oil-free peanut butter.
1 tsp soy sauce.
To Serve...
Brown rice (75g dry-weight, per person).
Green salad leaves.
Get cooking...
1. Pre-heat the oven to 220 C (200 C fan) or gas mark 7.
2. Boil a full kettle ready for the rice (or for ease, use a rice cooker).
3. Put the rice on to cook (75g dry-weight rice per person).
4. Once the oven is at the right temperature, cook the Quorn fillets for 20 minutes. They will then happily sit in a warm oven (turned down to 100 C, or to 80 C fan) to keep warm once cooked (whilst the rice and sauce are being finished off) without drying out too much, thanks to the coating.
5. Meanwhile make the Katsu sauce - heat the 1 tbsp of oil in a large lidded pan / wok and gently fry the 3 sliced carrots on a LOW heat for 10 mins (with the LID ON), then add the chopped onions and fry for another 5 minutes - until everything is soft, but not browned. Keep stirring every couple of minutes so that the vegetables don’t burn, especially towards the end of the cooking time.
6. Boil a half-full kettle of water.
7. Turn OFF the heat under the pan of softened vegetables. Sieve-in the 2 tsp of stock powder (sieving avoids unpleasant lumps), add 1.5 cups of boiling water, the 1 tsp of curry powder, the 1 tbsp of peanut butter and the 1 tsp of soy sauce. Stir well and turn the heat ON to melt the peanut butter (this should only take 1 minute of heating).
8. Remove the pan from the heat and then VERY CAREFULLY (avoiding hot splashes) pour the vegetable mix into a tall jug and whizz with a stick blender (for about a minute) until VERY smooth. If you try and blitz up the vegetables in the original pan (to save on washing up), you won't be able to get the sauce smooth enough to be enjoyable.
9. Tip the smooth sauce back into the original pan and reheat it on the hob, gently, until just simmering. Keep the lid on or it could splash you with hot liquid.
10. Remove the Quorn fillets from the oven. Check that the inside is piping hot and slice the Quorn into strips.
11. Divide the rice between two plates then spoon the katsu sauce over the top. Share the Quorn strips between the plates, putting the Quorn on top of the sauce so the breadcrumb coating doesn’t get soggy. 12. Serve with salad leaves.
Adapted from the Good Food Magazine's Cheat's Katsu Curry recipe - the cooking time has been made a bit longer and (at my sister's suggestion) the breaded strips are laid on top of the sauce, to stop them from going soggy.