Recipe: Aloo Sag Pie

This makes rather a lot but it is darn tasty! Our family started getting those Riverford seasonal vegetable boxes again, and I had a load of spinach, spring onions, and some tomatoes left- so I came up with this! Thats one of the things I like about these weekly veg boxes- they make me be a bit more creative with the vegetables that I have. The pie filling is rather nice by itself just as a curry really- but you know me, I like sticking things into pastry! I have served this with a cucumber raita- just some natural yoghurt mixed with grated cucumber, fresh coriander, and a little cumin. It works as a sauce essentially, and stops the dish from being too dry.

Aloo Saag Pies (makes two large pies, serves 8)

1250g potatoes, peeled and diced (about 3cm cubes)
2 tbsp olive oil
8 spring onions, chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
¼ tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp crushed ginger
3 tbsp Pataks Korma Curry Paste
100g diced ripe tomato
300g roughly chopped true spinach (or baby spinach)
2 large sheets ready rolled puff pastry
Salt and pepper to taste
Egg (for egg wash)- optional

1. Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Add a bit of salt and boil the potatoes for 15 minutes. Drain and set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 200C. In a large frying pan sauté the spring onions in the olive oil for 5 minutes. Add the cumin seeds, mustard seeds and chilli flakes, and cook for a further two minutes.
3. Add the crushed ginger, curry paste, and diced tomato, and cook for two minutes. Begin to gradually add the spinach, adding more as it continues to wilt. Cooking all the spinach until it wilts and is well combined with the rest of the ingredients usually takes about 10 minutes.
4. Take the spinach mixture off the heat and mix in the potatoes. You want to mash the potatoes a little, but you still want a few chunks of potato here and there. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
5. Lay out the two sheets of puff pastry onto separate baking trays that have been lined with greaseproof paper. Pour half of the mixture onto each pastry sheet, fold the pastry over the topping, and crimp at the edges to seal.
6. Brush with beaten egg and bake in the oven for 25 minutes. Serve with a cooling cucumber raita!

Recipe: Meatloaf

Ah, good old Meatloaf- and no I don't mean the bat outta hell kind! I've never had a go at making this, but it seems to be rather an american dinner staple, so i thought i'd have a go. This is a recipe I have just slightly adapted from Good Food magazine. The changes I made were that I turned it into 1 big meatloaf (as their recipe was for "spicy mini meatloafs"), so had to adjust the amounts and timings a bit, I did not add any tabasco, and i added a couple extra cherry tomatoes. It was really delicious, me and my brother loved it! And it was not dry atall, which is a reputation that meatloaf has seemed to have gained in the past few decades.

Meatloaf (serves 3)

500g minced beef
50g white breadcrumbs
2 spring onions, finely sliced
1 garlic clove, very finely chopped
1 egg
1 tsp ground cumin
Small handful coriander, chopped (plus a little extra for garnish)
50g sweet chilli sauce
½ tsp salt
Black pepper
8 cherry tomatoes, halved
Vegetable oil (for greasing)

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Mix all the ingredients together (except the cherry tomatoes and vegetable oil) in a mixing bowl until well combined (but do not over-mix, otherwise the meatloaf will become tough).
2. Line a non-stick loaf tin with a little oil and greaseproof paper, and arrange the halved cherry tomatoes face down. Then add the meatloaf mix into the loaf tin, making sure it is nice and even and flat at the top.
3. Bake in the oven for 1 hour. Remove, and turn the oven up to 220C. Turn out the meatloaf onto an ovenproof plate/dish- be careful when you do this, as there will probably be plenty of juices that will come out with it.
4. Remove the greaseproof paper, drain away the juices (if you are making a gravy for the meatloaf, add these juices to it) and put in the oven for a further 5 minutes, just to brown a bit. Garnish with a little extra coriander, and serve!