Thursday 7 April 2011

Lenten Food!

For lent James (my boyfriend) and I have given up meat, junk food and caffeine!

We are a couple of weeks into it and the usual ideas of quorn chilli and potato curry were getting a bit old.

So I wanted to try something new. I am a bit weary of using quorn chicken pieces without masking them in a heavy sauce as I think in previous experiences it has not taken on the flavour of the spices and herbs at all and seemed bland.

I came up with this and think it was really nice!
The taste was kind of like a schezuan flavour.

1/2 bag of quorn chicken pieces
1 medium onion
1 red pepper
1 small sweet potato
1 can chopped tomatoes
1tbsp tomato puree
2 cloves of garlic
1 medium red chilli chopped
1 inch sq of ginger
1 tsp star anise
1 tsp ground chilli powder
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tbsp vegetable oil

1. Grind the garlic, salt, fresh chilli, ginger and stir in half the oil. Chop the sweet potato into small chunks and add to a saucepan of boiling water. Dice the onion and pepper.
2. Put the rest of the oil in a saucepan on a medium heat. Sauté the onion and pepper until softened. Add the spice and oil mixture to the pan and turn down the heat.
3. Once the sweet potatoes are soft enough to cut easily, drain them and add them to the sauté pan. Add the quorn pieces, tomato puree, chopped tomatoes, star anise, ground chilli and pepper. Leave to simmer with the lid on, on a low heat for 30mins. Remove the lid and simmer for another 10mins.

Serve with rice or noodles

Enjoy :)