Zombie Brains Revamped!

I made Jamie Oliver's Zombie Brains a while ago, and although it wasn't very popular I was keen to try and give it another go.  In our house we have agreed that we should try everything ten times before we decide whether we like it or not.  There is a scientific study out there somewhere which suggests that we can't actually know until we've done that.

Anyway, although I wanted to try celeriac again, and I thought the kids and my Husband should, I thought I'd need a revamp to make them interested.  

We all like curry, so it seemed sensible to mix the two.  I make my own curry pastes as a base for the curries we eat and this is another Jamie Oliver recipe, well loosely at least, I think I added some cashew nuts to the Jalfrezi paste for this one.  I love these curry pastes so much and this has encourage me to cook so much more curry than I would have done using jars from the shops.

I started by roasting the celeriac - the smell of this roasting is lovely, and it is so easy to cut once it is roasted.

Then I fried the paste and onions and added a tin of tomatoes and a good splodge of mango chutney.  I think the sweetness this provides is one of the reasons that my kids love curry.  We tried a lentil curry at a farmers market once, and they really enjoyed it despite never eating any of my previous efforts, and that one tasted sweet.  Since then I've always added a little chutney (or if I'm out of that cranberry sauce, or jam) and they have always eaten it.  I love the slight sweetness it provides too.  

Once the curry  had been simmering for a while I added half a roasted celeriac and a tin of chickpeas along with a little cream and then it was ready to serve.

The kids did eat it, though they pointed out they prefer it with other vegetables (I normally use whatever veg is unused at the bottom of the fridge, or a couple of tins of chickpeas or a cup of lentils).  I didn't tell them it had celeriac in it, but they both twigged very quickly.  I preferred  Zombie Brains this way,  and so did my Husband.  Still a few more times to taste celeriac before the kids can decide for sure whether or not they like it!  

Zombie Brains

So, we had Zombie Brains last Sunday for tea.  The recipe was from Save with Jamie and involved roasting a celeriac with thyme, garlic, seasoning and bay leaves and serving with pearl barley and a creamy mushroom sauce.

As I mentioned here, the Husband and myself are not keen on celeriac and consequently have never given it to the kids before.  The Husband would also prefer not to eat pearl barley, ever.  You can imagine how much he had been looking forward to this meal!

My son was quite looking forward to the idea of eating Zombie Brains (all in the name I think). Every time I mentioned it to my daughter she just made a face, although said she was willing to try it even if it sounded gross!  Normally when trying new things with the kids I include something in the meal that I know they will like, so in this instance I would normally have served the roasted celeriac with rice, potatoes, pasta, basically anything else. As I was pretty sure that I would never get the opportunity to try this again I just went for it.  I did however have some leftover pancakes from lunchtime and some leftover fresh pasta (not home made) in the fridge on stand by.  I was hoping their love of all things Minecraft (ie the Zombies) might see them through the tastes they were unfamiliar with or didn't actually like.

My son's reaction to the dish was  "Mummy this is definitely.  Disgusting".  So after that praise for the meal I asked my daughter.  "The best part is the celeriac, which I didn't think I would like, so I said it was horrible when I first tried it".  Mmm, so not a total hit there either then, especially when coupled with "and the mushrooms are terrible".  I did know she didn't like mushrooms, so no surprise there.  In the end both standbys were used.  I'm pleased the kids tried it and both made sure they didn't like it by having a second bite of everything.

The Husband's response was actually pretty positive "It isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be", but "we're never having this again!"

I actually quite liked it, though I think I would have preferred the Zombie Brain element as more the main part of a vegetarian roast meal.  It looked like you were carving a joint (only a lot easier).  We've been trying to work out what the roasted celeriac tasted like, and suddenly I realised it tasted a bit like Jerusalem Artichokes.

I feel bad giving a bad review for this, because we have tried a lot of Jamie Oliver's recipes and normally they are a hit with us all, which I think is why I went for it.  Our favourite being his Yorkshire Pudding recipe, which is a total hit with the kids and pretty much every friend they've had over for tea!