M'chicha Wa'nazi ( Spinach in Peanut Coconut Sauce )

Here's a delicious, simple way to serve spinach. It doesn't look so flash, especially with my typical lack of presentation, but it's very tasty and a great vegetarian comfort food for a rainy day like we've been having so many of. This is dish from Tanzania I found in one of my favourite cookbooks 'World Vegetarian Classics' by Celia Brooks Brown. Firstly, I love that everything I've made from this book has been great, but it also has the benefit of featuring authentic vegetarian dishes, not just adapted meat dishes, so they really stand up on their own. It also doesn't assume you can get hold of every exotic ingredient so provides lots of more easily accessible alternatives.

700g / 1 1½ lb fresh spinach, trimmed and thoroughly washed (or the equivalent in frozen spinach)

1 tsp salt

2 Tbsp / 30g / 1oz  butter

1 large onion, chopped

1-2 fresh red chillies, deseeded if large, finely chopped

½ cup / 70 g / 2 ¾oz roasted peanuts

1 cup / 250g / 8 fl oz coconut cream

Place the spinach and salt in a large saucepan with a lid. Cover and place over medium heat. Use tongs to turn the spinach from time to time, until it is fully collapsed and wilted (or thawed, if using frozen). Drain thoroughly in a colander, then use a potato masher to push out as much moisture as possible. Cool slightly, then chop coarsely.

Return the pan to a low-medium heat and add the butter. When the butter has melted, add the onion and chillies and cook until the onion is soft and translucent.

Puree the peanuts with the coconut cream in a blender until fairly smooth. Pour into the saucepan, add a good pinch of salt and cook, stirring, until slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Stir the spinach through the sauce until piping hot, then serve. Alternatively, reheat the spinach and serve with sauce poured over. This should be eaten with some sort of African mash (see below).

My Mash with what I had on had used potatoes, sweet potatoes and red kidney beans (for extra protein) but the book pairs it with any of three mashes from Africa: 

Irio, a dish from the Kikuyu tribe in Kenya. Irio is essentially mashed potatoes with kidney beans, corn and greens mashed in. 

Matoke banana mash from Uganda: In a saucepan place 4 unripe bananas/plantains (or 10-12 matoke bananas if you can find them), peeled and broken into pieces; 1 large tomato, finely chopped; 1 medium onion, finely chopped; ⅔ cup / 150 ml / 5 fl oz water; and ½ teaspoon of salt. Simmer, uncovered, until most of the liquid has evaporated and the bananas are very soft. Remove from the heat, add 1 Tbsp / 15 g /½oz butter and mash until smooth.

Or Ugali cornmeal mash which is a staple throughout Africa south of the Sahara:

Use a ratio of 1:1½ white cornmeal to water. Combine in a saucepan with salt, bring to the boil and cook, stirring regularly, for 20-30 minutes until creamy but stiff; add butter and serve with stew.

Mushroom and Chestnut Ragoût with Potato and Celeriac Mash

Mushrooms are big around here. Well, actually, they're fairly small, the main type grown is the Paris white, known in NZ as the button mushroom. This isn't Paris so I don't know how they got that name (though I'm sure I will once I finally visit the mushroom museum) but I do know that this town /area produces 90% of France's button mushrooms.  

And are there button mushrooms in this recipe? Only if you want there to be. The recipe calls for portobello and dried porcini mushrooms but I used a mix of varieties I don't even know the names of. I just buy them at the market from the mushroom lady. So feel free, as ever, to adapt this recipe to your tastes. I reduced the cream (it called for 5 T, I felt that was too much and I think it could be lovely without any, too). Also, I had no sherry so used balsamic vinegar which I added a tiny bit at a time, tasting until I got it right. The other thing I didn't have was sweet potatoes / kumara so I made a mash using potatoes and celeriac, an idea I'd got from my husband's guy friends who cooked delicious dishes for their New Year's Party - to my surprise as I think a bunch of mates from an agricultural college in NZ probably wouldn't be so gourmet - at least not cooking for each other at a party. But that's the French for you. And of course their mash had heaps of butter. So you could follow suit and go crazy with the butter if you hold back on the cream in the ragout. But the ragout is very rich so don't over-do both!

I'm not sure what you could replace chestnuts with if you can't find any. In Australia I found them for sale in cans. Chestnuts are lovely with their distinct sweet and savoury taste and firm and sort of buttery texture. Perhaps soaked cashews could work? Other ideas?

Mushroom and Chestnut Ragoût Potato and Celeriac Mash

Recipe comes from the 'Simmer' section (so DO, don't rush it!) of the cookbook 'New Vegetarian Kitchen' by Nicola Graimes (UK book).

Serves 4

40g / 1¼ oz dried porcini mushrooms

3 T olive oil

40g / 1½ oz butter

350g / 12 oz shallots, peeled and halved with the base intact, or quartered if large

500g / 1 lb 2 oz portobello mushrooms, thickly sliced

2 tsp dried thyme

125ml / 4fl oz / ½ cup dry sherry (or an alternative. I used 2+ T balsamic vinegar)

250g / 9 oz cooked chestnuts, thickly sliced

2 Tbsp light soy sauce

a few splashes of hot pepper sauce

2-5 Tbsp double cream

leaves from a few parsley sprigs, chopped

salt and freshly ground black pepper

500 g potatoes, peeled and chopped into chunks

400 g celeriac, peeled and chopped into large chunks

(or replace potatoes and celeriac with 900g of kumara / sweet potato)

2 large garlic cloves

150 ml / 5 fl oz / scant ⅔ c milk

30 g / 1 oz butter

1 Soak the porcini mushrooms in 150 ml / 5 fl oz / scant ⅔ c boiled water for 20 mins until softened.

2 Heat the olive oil and butter in a large, heavy-based saucepan over a medium-low heat and cook the shallots for 12 minutes, stirring regularly, until softened and golden in places. Add the portobello mushrooms and cook for another 4-5 minutes until tender.

3 Strain the porcini mushrooms, reserving the soaking liquid, and add them to the pan, along with the thyme and sherry. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to low and simmer until the liquid has reduced by half and there is no aroma of alcohol.

4 Add the prcini soaking liquid, chestnuts, soy sauce and hot pepper sauce and simmer for 10-15 minutes until reduced by half. Stir in the cream and heat through gently, then season with salt and pepper.

5 Meanwhile, make the mash. Cook the vegetables (potato and celeriac, or sweet potato) and garlic in boiling salted water for 10 minutes or until tender, then drain and return to the pan. Add the milk and butter, season well with salt and pepper and warm through (or better yet, warm milk and butter before adding - but this makes more dishes). Mash until smooth, then cover with a lid to keep warm.

6 Sprinkle the ragout with parsley and serve with the mash/puree