Mushroom Bhaji Recipe

Bhaji is usually a fairly dry dish but with a thick sauce with vegetables cooked in spices to create a deeply flavoured dish. It's traditionally served as a side dish but you could turn this into a starter or a main course with rice or naan bread. It tends to be mildly spiced with much heat but you can adjust this by the amount of chilli used.

If serving as a starter this can be made ahead of time and reheated just prior to serving to allow your meal to come together all at once. Either place it back on the heat or can be microwaved if you prefer. 

Serves 1 person

Ingredients

100g sliced mushrooms
2 tablespoons of Vegetable oil 

1 teaspoon of mixed powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried fenugreek leaves (methi)
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon garlic/ginger paste
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

1 chef spoon of Tomato puree (watered down)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon freshly chopped coriander 

Method

Heat the oil in a pan and add the dry spices and garlic/ginger paste to the oil to fry for 30 seconds, Do not allow this to burn so keep stirring during this time. 

Add the mushroom and tomato puree and stir into the paste. if the sauce is quite thick at this stage add some water to loosen it, it resembles tomato soup thickness at this stage. Cook like this until the mushroom has become soft, top up with water if the sauce becomes too thick. 

Add the coriander and the lemon juice and simmer to reduce the sauce so that it becomes quite thick and clings to the mushrooms.

Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with some fresh coriander