- Serves 4 - Ready in 1 hour (inc. 30 min oven time)- or can be left in a cooler oven for up to 4 hours-
By turning down the oven temperature, you can make this all-in-one curry dish during baby's afternoon nap time, and then leave the dish cooking slowly in the oven for up to 4 hours - so it's ready-and-waiting for you to eat for supper. It's an 'all-in-one' dish as there is no need to faff around serving rice with it - the lentils and the sweet potato within it provide the carbs.
Weaning babies (9 months+) love this dish too - chop the quorn pieces into long thin strips before serving and mash down the sweet potato chunks.
Gather together...
1 tbsp rapeseed oil / olive oil.
1 onion 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 tbsp medium curry paste (put the rest of the jar in 1 tbsp portions in the freezer on a baking tray, then once frozen put in a bag for next time a recipe requires curry paste).
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped (or 1 tsp lazy garlic).
2 medium-sized (circa 500g in total) sweet potatoes peeled and cut into bite-size pieces.
500g Quorn 'chicken-style' pieces (frozen).
1/3 cup (4 tbsp) red split lentils.
1 stock cube or 2tsp 'Marigold Less Salt Swiss Vegetable Bouillon powder' (available in bulk 1kg tubs).
300ml boiling water.
400ml can low-fat coconut milk (the low-fat milk comes out of the can more easily than the full-fat milk does).
2 handfuls of frozen peas.
2 handfuls desiccated coconut (optional).
Serve with...
6 tbsp plain yoghurt.
Mango chutney (optional).
Naan bread (shop-bought - you aren't Superwoman / Superman!).
Get cooking...
1.Boil a kettle (with enough water in to fill a large mug).
2. Heat the 1 tbsp of oil gently on the hob in a deep oven-proof, lidded pan, add the chopped onion and stir in the 1 tbsp of curry paste and the two peeled and chopped garlic cloves, heat gently for 3 minutes to infuse the flavours, with the lid on.
3. Add the 500g of sweet potato chunks, stir well and heat on a LOW hob gently (with the lid ON) for 10 minutes - stir every minute to prevent sticking / burning. You are aiming to soften them, not brown them.
4. After the ten minutes, turn OFF the hob and add the 500g of Quorn pieces and the lentils (1/3 cup) and stir to coat them.
5. Sieve in the 2 tsp of dry stock powder (to avoid unpleasant clumps), add the 300ml of boiling water and the 400ml can of coconut milk. Stir to mix.
6.(a) EITHER, pre-heat the oven to 190 C (fan 170 C) or Gas 5, if you want to eat the dish in under an hour.
6.(b) OR, pre-heat the oven to 160 C (fan 140 C) or Gas 3, if you want to make this dish ahead and cook it slowly in the oven for 1 - 4 hours.
7. Turn the hob back ON, and bring the pan to the boil, over a medium-low heat, with the lid on (this takes about 5 minutes). Stir a couple of times whilst it heats through.
8. Simmer the curry on the hob for another 5 minutes, with the lid on. Stir once, well.
9. (a) EITHER put the curry into the oven, with the lid on, for 30 minutes (if cooking at the higher temperature).
9.(b) OR put the curry in the oven for 1 - 4 hours (if cooking at the lower temperature).
10. When the curry's oven-cooking time is up, remove the curry dish from the oven and add the 2 handfuls of frozen peas and the 2 handfuls of desiccated coconut (if using). Stir.
11. Heat the curry back up to simmering, on the hob (on a medium-low heat) for 5 minutes.
12. Cook the Naan (following packet instructions) - this will only take a few minutes.
13. Serve the curry with plain yoghurt, mango chutney (optional) and naan.
14. Leftover curry reheats well in the microwave if 1/2 a cup of water is added to keep it moist during the re-heating. To make the leftover curry go further, drain and add a 250g tin of green lentils (these are ready-to-eat, the same as the expensive 'Puy' lentils, just not grown in the Puy region). You can chuck these tinned lentils into pretty much any dish (leftover or not) to pad it out a bit - I always keep a few tins of green lentils in the cupboard for last minute additions.
Adapted from this Good Food recipe, because it kept burning it to the bottom of the pan when cooked entirely on the hob. So the cooking time has increased, but it is now a dish that you can stick in the oven and forget about.