Someone said the other day that preserved lemons were out of fashion. They might be, but not in my kitchen. It is harder to find really good ones, tho, so it is a boon to make your own.
Some dishes need a tangy dressing – salads appreciate it, and Brussels Sprouts really pick themselves up when they come within cooee of a tangy dressing.
We roast Brussels Sprouts and serve with a dressing with preserved lemons and spring onions. If it is the season, we toss in cumquat juice and peel. This salad is AMAZING.
Another wonderful dish from #PlantBasedIndia. No pic, unfortunately - I am cooking later and it is too dark and too hurried for pics.
So Marcha nu Shak, Capsicums in a peanut-sesame-chickpea crumble. Oh my! First a mix of well-crushed peanuts, whole sesame seeds and chickpea flour is toasted till darken. Then bite-sized capsicum pieces are sauteed until soft and browning. Finally spices and the peanut mixture is added with a little water so that it clumps and becomes like a crumble.
Today I have a variation on sautéed or stir fried okra for you. It is a dish heavy with coriander leaves that lightens the deep flavours of onion, ginger and garlic. It is delicious – something that can accompany other Indian dishes, or can be eaten as a delicious mid-afternoon snack.
The Shahi Gobi - royal cauliflower in a rich tomato base - was also delicious, although the pic in the book is quite different.
Roasted cauli is mixed with a spicy tomato-onion base, some more spices and cashew-almond cream that has saffron and rosewater in it. More of the cream over the top and some herbs.
and instead of the capsicum dish I made rasam with the horse gram I sprouted overnight. The sprouts are cooked first (best to cook horse gram sprouts), and I used the #InstantPot for that. Then most are blended with spices to make a paste. Than they are all cooked together with other spices, tamarind, curry leaves etc. Horse gram makes dark dark coloured dishes. Very earthy in tasted. Delicious. Very healthy.
We love our salads and often they are made using whatever is on the kitchen bench. Here it was snake beans (simmered till tender), quarter of a fennel bulb, a couple of radishes, quarter of an onion, fresh dill, some daikon radish shaved thinly, and 4 or 5 spring onions. They are scattered with nigella seeds.
At these times we like to add a delicious dressing. Once you have a few dressing recipes under your belt they can be thrown together very quickly. This one is a yoghurt based dressing that is gorgeous for salads like this. It can be spread over the vegetables, or the veg can be dipped into the dressing.
I adore dishes that can be made in 10 mins or under. This is an easy pasta dish – delicious – that is the perfect week night dish. It is great for lunches too, if you are at home. Put the pasta on to cook, dice the avocado, make a herb-garlic oil, mix all together and serve.
I got the dish made today that I wanted to make, and oh my goodness it was kinda exceptional.
I made Indian Coriander leaves and Mint chutney, and then Date chutney. Meanwhile par-boiled potatoes were roasting till crispy.
The potatoes were drizzled with yoghurt, the two chutneys and garam masala. Then they were topped with coriander leaves, diced carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, red capsicum, onion, radishes, pomegranate kernels and beans sprouts (that I made yesterday).
Finally, a sprinkling of chaat masala and lots of thin sev.
The tastes of Indian street food, and so many textures and flavours. Plus the roasted potatoes were uber uber good.
One of the most wonderful tastes on this planet is the tangy spice, chilli and tamarind mix of Indian street food. It is glorious, addictive, and quite mind blowing. The flavours have a party in your mouth. No, truly! If you are doubting me, head off to your nearest good Indian restaurant and try Pani Puri, or Samosa Chaat – any chaat for that matter – and even Rasam will give you a sample of the hot and sour tastes that make up Indian food.
This recipe from #Ottolenghi's #PlentyMore takes the notion of the hot, sour, salty and sweet flavour mix and stuffs it inside a potato cake made from mashed potatoes. It mimics the Aloo Tika and Potato Cutlet snacks of India, Podimas recipes of South India, and more recently I saw a fabulous BALL of mashed potato full of North Indian street-food flavours.
A few things from the weekend cookup. First, Rajma, a kidney bean curry. This was so awesome that I'll make it again soon. Not usually a great fan of kidney beans, this dish might have changed my mind.
I cooked the kidney beans in the #InstantPot, so easy and convenient, and perfectly cooked.
Gujarati Dal, another great dal from this book, made with toor dal. Again, the dal was cooked perfectly in the #InstantPot, to the point of disintegration - just how to cook it for Indian dishes as it develops s silky smooth texture at that point.
I cooked enough toor dal to put some in the freezer.
Once the lentils were cooked, the dish came together pretty easily with a tadka made first, then the lentils added
A nice crispy element to add to the others - Roasted Bhinda. Split in 4 without cutting through, they are partially roasted before being tossed in spices, ginger and garlic, then roasted again. Really lovely and an alternative to deep fried battered okra (which I love).
And finally, as well as plain rice, there was Kothmira rice (Chutney Pulao) which is a stunning rice dish made with peas and a coriander leaves-chilli fresh chutney. This has become a firm favourite.
From #PlantBasedIndia by #DrSheilShukla - Rasavala Potatoes with Greens. Rasavala means "prepared in gravy".The greens are from the garden, and I cooked it in the #InstantPot. I could have made the sauce more elegant, but time is always a pressure. Yummy though. Lots of coriander. Spicy.
Poha! Just with chillies, spices, curry leaves. A simple dish.
Poha (aka pohe, aval, pauwa, sira, chira, chivda, avalakki, and other names) is Indian flattened rice.
Rice is parboiled before flattening so that it doesn't require a lot of cooking.
It is particularly delicious and can be used for savoury and (more rarely) sweet dishes.
This isn't the real thing, or not quite the real thing. I make it with 3 ingredients - pasta, butter, parmesan - gloriously mixed together. For other recipes you almost need a chef's training to get the consistency right. I just mix the butter and parmesan with the pasta and a little pasta water.
This gorgeous and quick pasta dish of 3 ingredients – so unusual in today’s current fashion of long ingredient lists - is often called Fettuccine Alfredo, although it’s original name was Fettuccine al Burro.
Traditionally this dish did not include cream – the sauce was an emulsion between butter and parmesan. However, of course, the American version is made with cream, butter and cheese. Choose which ever version you prefer. But look for simple recipes, not ones that have, say, cornflour in it 😶
It is said that in the 1020’s Alfredo, a restaurateur, was trying to find a dish that his pregnant wife, who had lost her appetite, would eat. He added cheese to a simple pasta-and-butter dish and she loved it. When he introduced it to his restaurant it became popular around the world.
I think every country person of my era grew up eating junket as cows were aplenty and therefore milk was abundant. How easy to make a dessert with a couple of cups of milk, a junket tablet and some sugar? Easy, mostly healthy, cheap.
When I made this, it was decades since I ate junket and, to be honest, I didn’t know if the supermarket would still stock the tablets. But they did, to everyone’s surprise! Junket is a little like custard, a little like flan filling, a little like sweet tofu, but it is none of these. It is a milk-based dessert, made with vegetable rennet, usually sweetened and flavoured. Here I topped it with some macerated strawberries and passionfruit.
Did you know that junket actually used be served to the sick in hospitals? It is nutritious and easy to digest, so it was perfect hospital food. Why have so many hospitals changed to unhealthy desserts these days?
The name of junket comes from the fact that it used to be made in a rush basket, the Medieval Latin word for which is iuncāta, the French jonquette and the Middle English jonket.
Aaaand, good morning on this stinker of a day. 40C predicted, and winds picking up during the day. Almost the worst combo for bush fires (dry lightening being the worst). All Aussies hold their breath on days like these.
I'll be getting things done this morning and will be as inactive as possible during the afternoon.
Take care if you have hot temps too. Please hydrate.
When rice forms a major part of a cuisine then there are infinite recipes using rice. Contrast this with cuisines in which it isn’t so important.
When growing up, rice was used mainly for rice pudding and an even rarer rice salad. Apart from that it was unusual to have rice with a meal. I guess my mother bought rice only when she wanted to make a pudding – whereas I keep the pantry stocked with several different types of rice. Sticky rice, black and/or red rice, basmati, short grain rice, risotto rice and perhaps pongal rice are fairly standard pantry items.
These days I love rice cooked with spices and a vegetable or with lentils. It forms a great addition to any meal, especially Indian meals. It is also a great way to use up any vegetables sitting at the bottom of the fridge on a Friday night – prior to doing the next week’s shopping.
Peas Pulao or Matar Pulao is a popular dish which is made especially during the cooler months in northern parts of India.
It can be made in a pressure cooker or rice cooker as well as stove top.
I am making a Cabbage Thoran from #Paachakam today, and it is a very unusual recipe (at least to me). Rather than the cabbage being quickly stir-fried, as is the manner in most thorans, here the cabbage is left to sit for several hours with coconut, onion, chillies, lime juice and a pinch sugar. Then a simple tadka of brown mustard seeds is added.
So the cabbage is sitting/marinating/curing now, and I will be interested to see how it turns out - whether the lime wilts the cabbage. I might just add to heat a little before the tadka anyway.
I have another big picking of rhubarb, so it will be jam today or tomorrow. The recipe is from an ancient magazine I used to subscribe to. It had some great jam recipes.
More deliciousness with the Woollahra Hotel’s 30-Minute Vegetarian Hokkien Noodle Stir-Fry - just add seared tofu and chopped peanuts for extra goodness.