Global charity Mary’s Meals has teamed up with celebrity mums, Lorraine Kelly, Ferne McCann and Nadiya Hussain to encourage people to buy a Mother’s Day card with a difference this year.
The famous mums have each donated a special recipe to the campaign inspired by ‘The Food We Grew Up On,’ with Nadiya Hussain's ‘Mum’s Bengali Korma' inside every printed card purchased. Charging €18.50 per card – the same cost of feeding one child for a whole school year with Mary’s Meals – the campaign hopes to raise vital funds for hungry children. Click here for more information and for how you can support this important cause.
Each recipe is one that’s been passed down from their mother (or mother figure), and to this day brings sweet memories of childhood meals. Speaking about the recipe she decided to share, Nadiya Hussain said:
"The korma I grew up with had an aroma that took over the house and hit you in the face when you walked into the kitchen. This is one of the recipes that says ‘home’ to me, because nobody cooks this dish like Mum does."
Keep scrolling for the full recipe.
Nadiya Hussain's Mum's Bengali Korma
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
- 4 chicken thighs
- 4 chicken drumsticks
- 5 tbsp butter
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- One large cinnamon stick
- 3 bay leaves
- 5 whole cardamom pods
- One whole star anise
- 10 gloves of garlic
- 7.5cm piece of ginger
- 2 tsp fine sea salt
- 2 large onions
- 200ml water
- 6 green chillies
- 8 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and quartered
Method:
1. Put a large pan over a medium heat, and add the butter and oil.
2. Once the oil is hot, put in the cinnamon stick, bay leaves, cardamom pods and star anise. Heat until the spices darken slightly.
3. Peel the garlic and ginger and then blitz both in a food processor. Add a little water so that they form a paste, then add this to the pan.
4. Add the salt and cook gently over a low heat for 10 minutes.
5. Finely chop the onions and add to the pan.
6. Cook gently for another 20 minutes.
7. Add the 200ml water and continue to cook gently until the onions melt down completely. To help the process along you can use a potato masher.
8. Be sure to keep stirring and making sure the bottom doesn’t catch. What you don’t want to do is colour the onions. Add water 100ml at a time if it starts to catch.
9. Now add the chicken to the pan, cover and leave it to cook over a medium heat (this should take around 15 minutes).
10. Boil the eggs.
11. Once the eggs are boiled, put them directly in to cold water (this makes them easier to peel) and then peel and quarter them.
12. Once the chicken is cooked, add the eggs and cook for a final 10 minutes.
13. Finally, split the green chillies lengthways, remove the seeds and add to the pan.
14. Serve with hot basmati rice.
Recipe extracted from Nadiya’s Kitchen by Nadiya Hussain (Michael Joseph, €28).
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