I love Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, really I do. And so, I when I came across a recipe on his website jamieoliver.com for Mushroom Curry, I decided to give it a whirl. I thought that navigating measurements in metric units would be my biggest challenge; however I have discovered that I don’t speak – and often don’t understand – the Queen’s English. Hob? Groundnut oil (according to Nigella Larson, that’s peanut oil)? 

The implementation of this recipe was a bit improvised. My local grocer did not have fenugreek or paneer. So I’ve left those out. What resulted was tasty if not true to the recipe which follows.

Ingredients

• 500 g mixed mushrooms
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 5 cm piece of ginger
• 1 onion
• 1/2-1 fresh red chili
• 500 g ripe mixed color tomatoes
• ground nut oil (I cook with coconut oil so that’s what I used)
• 1 tsp Tumeric
• 1 tsp fenugreek (left that one out)
• 1 heaped tsp black mustard seeds
• 1 heaped tsp medium curry powder
• 1 TBSP mango chutney
• 1 400 ml tin of coconut milk
• 30 g paneer (left that out)
• 400 g brown basmati rice
• 2 limes
• 1 bunch of fresh coriander

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C/400 degrees F.
2. Roughly cop some of the mushrooms, keeping the smaller ones whole and tearing up the rest. Tip into a large casserole dish and toast on the hob over a medium heat for 5 to 8 minutes until nutty and really golden. I interpreted this to mean toast in a large skillet (no oil) until the mushrooms are golden; no “hob” at this house.
3. Meanwhile, peel and finely slice the garlic, ginger and onion. Trim and finely slice the chili, then roughly chop the tomatoes.
4. Add all of it to the pan except the tomatoes, then add 1 TBSP oil and all the spices. Toss for 2 minutes or until the spices are toasted and it’s smelling lovely, stirring continuously.
5. Add the tomatoes, mango chutney, and coconut milk. Stir to combine and season well with sea salt and black pepper. At this point, I transferred what was in the skillet to a large casserole dish.
6. Top with bits of paneer and place in the oven (no paneer so I just popped the casserole in the oven). Cook for 30 minutes or until all cooked through and gnarly.
7. Meanwhile cook the rice according to package directions.
8. Taste and season as required, adding a little lime juice as needed.
9. Spoon the curry over the rice, then roughly chop the coriander leaves and scatter over the top. Cut the remaining lime into wedges for people to squeeze over the top.