Quorn rendang curry

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Deena shares her best-ever recipe for the classic Malaysian dish in her Quorn rendang curry recipe. Richly spiced with lemongrass, ginger and galangal, this coconut-based curry creates a rich, thick sauce that clings to the protein-packed Quorn pieces. Vegan Quorn is now widely available in the UK, but make sure to double check the label if cooking up a vegan storm.

First published in 2015

One of the things I love about London is that pretty much any cuisine I want to explore is accessible. Some of these cuisines became regular features on my home-cooking menu such as Malaysian recipes with their fresh and sprightly flavours of lemongrass, chillies and lime leaves. Over the years I have read about the fusion of cultures that influences Malaysian cooking; Malays, Chinese, Indian and apparently even Portuguese and Dutch, and for me this makes it such a testament to the success that fusion food can deliver.

I am shameless when it comes to slurping up bowls of fragrant laksa, but the dish that has always made me most curious is rendang curry. I think it is the thick, clinging curry sauce that just makes me swoon for vegetarian alternatives to the traditional heavy meat-based versions of this recipe. The curry gravy reaches thrilling levels of wonderfulness when simmered for around an hour, making it unsuitable for vegetable-based dishes, but Quorn works well in that it just becomes tender and soaks up the flavours of the curry base over this time.

I haven’t added brown sugar, palm sugar or other sweeteners to this recipe, but what I have done is add tamarind paste and powdered some toasted coconut to give a little touch of sweetness. It has taken me about three attempts to get to a rendang recipe that I am happy with and I have to say, this one is just divine. I have served it with a really easy and colourful carrot salad and steaming hot rice.

Ingredients

Metric

Imperial

Rendang curry

Carrot salad

Method

1
Start by making the curry paste. Blitz the onion, garlic, galangal, ginger, lemongrass, chillies and turmeric to a smooth paste
2
Heat the oil in a deep pan and fry the paste until the colour darkens slightly and the paste is aromatic
3
Stir in the Quorn and fry the chunks in the paste for a couple of minutes further
4
Now add the cinnamon, kaffir lime leaves, cardamom pods and lime zest, then add the coconut milk and tamarind and season to taste
5
Cook the curry for about an hour on a low flame until the curry base clings to the Quorn
6
Meanwhile, toast the desiccated coconut on a dry, non-stick pan until it catches a golden colour then allow it to cool before grinding it to a powder. This powder will deepen the colour of the curry and also add sweetness. Add the powder after the curry has simmered for about half an hour
7
For the carrot salad, heat the oil in a pan and then add the onion and black sesame seeds and allow the onion to soften for a minute before stirring in the carrots
8
Sprinkle in the salt and turmeric and then once you have stirred the carrots, squeeze in the lime juice
9
Serve the rendang curry on a bed of white rice with the carrot salad on the side
First published in 2015

Deena is a food writer with work published in UK magazines such as BBC Good Food, Delicious, Cook Veg and Fork.

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