Ross says: “This gentle curry makes you feel better with every mouthful. Like frozen peas, frozen spinach is a truly healthy convenience food, and it seems to have been just made for the slow cooker. It can come in little frozen blocks or loosely packed. Either variety is fine. This recipe is bursting with green goodness, and comes in three easy parts: slow cook the spinach, add the curry spices, then whiz it all up and serve it with pan-fried golden paneer. For texture, I like to leave the peas a tad chunky.”

Serves 4

Prep: 15 minutes

Cooking: about 3 hours

Ingredients

750g (1lb 10oz) frozen spinach
1 cup (140g) frozen peas
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons roughly chopped ginger
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
½ teaspoon garam masala
½ teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
150g (5½oz) baby spinach leaves
2 teaspoons olive oil
400g (14oz) paneer, cubed
brown basmati rice, to serve

Method

Heat your slow cooker to high.

Combine the frozen spinach and half of the peas in the bowl of the slow cooker. Cover and cook for 2 hours, giving it a stir halfway through.

Heat the vegetable oil in a small saucepan over medium–high heat. Add the onion, garlic and ginger to the pan and cook for 8–10 minutes, until golden. Stir in the spices, then scrape into the slow cooker. Add the salt, fresh spinach and remaining peas, then cover and cook for 30 minutes, until the fresh spinach has wilted and is tender.

Use a stick blender to blitz the curry – I like to keep it slightly chunky in texture. Alternatively, transfer in batches to a food processor and process until chunky and thick, then return to the slow cooker. Turn the slow cooker down to Low and leave covered while you fry the paneer.

Heat the olive oil in a non-stick frying pan over high heat.

Add the paneer and cook for 1 minute each side until golden.

Serve the spinach and pea curry on a bed of rice, with the golden paneer on the side.

The Healthy Slow Cooker by Ross Dobson (Murdoch Books, £18.99) is out now

The Healthy Slow Cooker: 3 warming veggie meals that take the effort out of weeknight cooking