Category: Vegetarian

Mark Bittman’s Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Garlic (New York Times)

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 4

This is an absolutely superb dish from The New York Times.

11,736 five stars and one more from me.

It is so simple. Caramelise the brussels sprouts and garlic in a completely set-and-forget manner. Transfer to the oven.

Add a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and my word, you’re plating an absolutely brilliant side.

I can not overstate how good these are. As part of an amazing Italian lunch we had late one afternoon, we agreed that this was the winning dish.

And since when have brussels sprouts beaten a porschetta pork chop or a Lidia Bastianich potato and onion gratin?!

Must be good.

Ingredients

500gm brussels sprouts
4 – 6 tbsp extra virgin oil
5 cloves garlic, peeled
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 200c. Trim the bottom of the brussels sprouts, and slice each in half, top to bottom. Heat oil in a cast iron pan (skillet) over medium-heat until it shimmers: put sprouts cut side down in one layer in pan. Put in garlic and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
  2. Cook, undisturbed, until sprouts begin to brown on bottom, and transfer to the oven. Roast, shaking pan every 5 minutes, until sprouts are quite brown and tender: about 10 – 20 minutes.
  3. Taste and season as necessary. Stir in balsamic vinegar, and serve hot or warm.

Marina Delio’s Avocado Bruschetta

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 2 – 4

Look, there is nothing special about the technique here.

A classic bruschetta is something you can do with your eyes closed. Arguably, you don’t even need this recipe to whip up an avocado bruschetta.

The reason for typing it?

We had a pile of avocados and as a starter for a casual at-home Italian lunch, I thought why not.

And why not indeed!

I’m not sure I’ll ever do a bruschetta that isn’t avocado again!

It is awesome.

Ingredients

1 baguette, sliced 1 1/2cm thick
1/4 c extra virgin olive oil, divided
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced in half
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 Roma tomato, diced
1 large avocado, peeled, seeded and diced
1 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 c sliced basil

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180c. Place the bread slices on a baking tray and brush with a little olive oil. Toast until golden brown, and then rub the sliced garlic cloves over the warm toast.
  2. In a small-medium bowl, gently combine 1 tbsp olive oil, the minced garlic, tomato, avocado, white balsamic, salt and basil. Season with more salt and/or vinegar if desired.
  3. Serve the avocado topping wth the toasted bread.

Pushpesh Pant’s Paneer Scramble (Paneer di Bhurji)

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4 – 6

Nat loves paneer and I know I have said it before, though worth saying again: make your own.

The flavour and texture is completely superior to that of store-bought paneer and it’s a pretty simple process.

This particular Pushpesh Pant dish is absolutely moorish and we loved the texture of the crumbled paneer.

We always cook at least one vegetarian dish when we pull together an Indian banquet and this is one recipe I will be requesting again!

(Have halved the quantity of cloves and added a can of cherry tomatoes; and suggest you do to.)

Ingredients

1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder
4 tbsp ghee
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 small onion, chopped
5 tsp ginger/garlic paste
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 can cherry tomatoes
1 1/2 c cooked chana dal
450gm paneer, mashed
2 green chillies, deseeded and cut into long strips
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1 tsp ground green cardamom
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground fenugreek

To garnish

1 x 4cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and julienned
4 tbsp chopped coriander leaves

Method

  1. Put the turmeric and chilli powder in a small bowl, add 2 tbsp water and mix together.
  2. Heat the ghee in a heavy-based pan over medium heat, add the cumin and stir-fry for about 1 minute, or until the seeds begin to splutter. Add the onion and fry for 5 minutes, or until it turns light golden. Add the ginger/garlic paste and stir-fry for 1 minute, or until the moisture has evaporated. Add the turmeric mixture and fry for a further 30 seconds, or until all the liquid has evaporated.
  3. Add the tomatoes and fry for about 10 minutes. Now add the chana dal and stir-fry for about 2 minutes, or until the oil separates out. Add the mashed paneer and stir, then add the chillies and season with salt. Stir-fry for about 1 minute, before adding the ground spices. Stir, then remove from the heat and adjust the seasoning as necessary. Transfer to a serving dish and garnished with julienned ginger and chopped coriander.

Jamie Oliver’s Bombay Potato Salad

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 8

For all the traditional curries and dosa we cook, we love our roadside and contemporary Indian.

Hankering for a mid-week BBQ, I nominated a leg of lamb though Nat insisted we do this remarkable Khan leg of lamb, a dish we picked up in India a few years ago.

So in keeping with the BBQ theme, we of course needed a salad and so enter this moorish Bombay Potato Salad from Jamie Oliver.

Another potato salad to rival this recent classic that has become a bit of our “everyone bring a salad” whenever we are invited over for a BBQ.

My only adjustment was the addition of a 1/4 cup of crème fraîche which in my opinion, added a lovely touch of creaminess.

Your call.

Either way, this is an excellent and equally simple salad and one that would jazz up any BBQ.

Ingredients

1.5kg salad potatoes
Extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp turmeric
1 red onion
1/4 c crème fraîche
1 lemon
2 tbsp mixed seeds (poppy, pumpkin, sesame etc)
1 bunch mixed herbs: parsley, mint and coriander
1 c, baby peas

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 190c. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil.
  2. Leaving the skins on, halve any larger potatoes, then place in the water for 8 – 10 minutes to parboil.
  3. Drain, steam dry, then transfer to a roasting tray. Crush slightly with a fork, drizzle with oil, then sprinkle over the cumin seeds and turmeric. Season, toss to coat, and roast in the oven for at least 25 minutes, or until golden and crisp.
  4. Peel, finely slice and place the onion in a shallow bowl, squeeze over the lemon juice and leave to soak for 15 minutes. Stir through the crème fraîche.
  5. Toast the seeds in a dry pan and set aside. Pick and finely chop the herb leaves.
  6. When the potatoes are ready, leave to cool a little, then transfer to a serving bowl. Add the onions, herbs, peas and a drizzle of oil. Toss to coat, then serve sprinkled with the toasted seeds.

Vefa Alexiadou’s Fried Cheese Balls from Crete

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 6 as a starter

Vefa Alexiadou’s book ‘Greece – The Cookbook’ by publisher Phaidon is the sort of wonderful cooking tome you’d expect from one of the world’s best publishers of cookbooks.

The recipes are traditional and numerous. No doubt every dish would be marvellous.

Nat served these cheese balls as a starter before a long Greek, Sunday lunch.

And what a traditional treat.

Ricotta and mint is such a great savoury combination and here you have it in spades.

It’s winter. Do a Greek lunch and start here.

Beautiful.

Ingredients

500gm anthotiro or ricotta cheese
1 – 2 eggs
4 tbsp all-purpose flour, plus extra for coating
4 tbsp finely chopped fresh mint
4 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley
Salt and pepper
Vegetable oil, for deep frying*

Method

  1. Place the cheese in a bowl and mash with a fork. Add the eggs, flour, mint and parsley, season with salt and pepper, and blend to a thick, pliable mixture. If it is soft and sticky, add more cheese.
  2. Cover with plastic wrap and put the mixture in the refrigerator until required.
  3. Heat the oil in a deep-fryer to 180c – 190c. Pinch off small pieces of the cheese mixture and roll between your palms to form balls the size of a small walnut. Coat with flour and fry in the hot oil, in batches if necessary, for 3 – 4 minutes or until golden all over. Drain well and serve immediately.

Dina Begum’s Eggs in Creamy Gravy (Dimer Korma)

.Reading time 4 minutes.

Serves: 4 as a main, 8 as a side

The latest addition to the cookbooks is Made in Bangladesh by Dina Begum, a UK cook and food writer.

It’s a lovely book of stories and recipes from a Bangladeshi home kitchen.

As part of a late week – we need to reward ourselves for a flat-chat week of work – lunch, Nat and I tackled a dish each.

This was mine.

Nat is suspicious of egg recipes like this. I suspect (know) it comes from a childhood of whole eggs in dishes, something which in fairness, would have also skewed my view of whole eggs in really any dish.

The sauce is silken with the addition of milk and yoghurt towards the end. It is aromatic and actually pretty addictive. If I had to eat this for breakfast every day, sign me up!

Paired along side this spicy beef curry, it was just excellent.

If you have the opportunity, cook both and this is a perfect late-Autumn meal. Add a red wine and now you’re talking.

Ingredients

8 large eggs
4 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, finely sliced
2 tbsp ghee
2 cloves
4 peppercorns
5cm piece of cassia bark (substitute cinnamon stick)
3 cardamom pods
1 bay leaf
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tbsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
1/2 c water
2/3 c full-fat milk
4 heaped tbsp Greek yoghurt
4 whole green chillies

For the paste

1 large onion, roughly chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2.5cm piece of fresh root ginger, grated
3 – 4 tbsp water

Method

  1. Combine the paste ingredients in a food processor and blitz until smooth, then set aside.
  2. Place the eggs in a pan of cold water over medium-high heat. Bring to the boil and boil for about 15 minutes, then remove from the water and cool under cool running water. Once cool, peel the eggs and very lightly score their surfaces lengthways. Set aside.
  3. Heat the oil in a deep, wide frying pan over medium-heat and fry the onions for about 10 minutes until golden. Transfer the cooked onion to a bowl and set aside. Add the ghee to the same pan, still over the heat. Add the hard-boiled eggs and lightly fry for 1 – 2 minutes until lightly golden. Use a slotted spoon to remove them from the pan and set aside.
  4. Next, add the whole spices and the bay leaf, along with the onion paste and salt. Stir well to combine, then cover. Reduce the heat and cook for 7 – 8 minutes, or until soft, ensuring the paste doesn’t brown. Now add the ground spices. Increase the heat to medium to cook out the spices, then add the water. Cover, reduce the heat to low and cook for 6 – 7 minutes, checking occasionally to ensure nothing is catching on the pan. Add a splash of water if necessary. Take off the heat and leave to rest, cover, for a minute or two.
  5. In a jug mix the milk and yoghurt until combined, then very slowly whisk into the pan – working slowly will help the mixture from splitting. Once you have a smooth sauce, stir in the eggs until they are coated with the sauce, then add the whole green chillies and half the fried onions. Return to a low heat and simmer, covered, for 5 minutes. Sprinkle over the remaining fried onions to serve.

Kwality’s Chana Bhatura

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4

I wrote a long post some time ago about a meal we had in New Delhi which blew our minds.

The restaurant Kwality in Connaught, New Dehli, where we had this dish of chickpeas served with fried and puffed potato bread and my goodness, wasn’t it a revelation.

The chickpeas, soaked overnight in tea, and then braised with spices is literally perfection. Throw in that oily potato bread and this is just sex.

Nat keeps going back to many of the recipes we discovered on our Indian trip and this is one I am happy to go back to. Most happy.

Served with this Bhatura (potato bread), this is just heaven.

Ingredients

1 c white chickpeas, soaked overnight with a tea bag
1/2 tsp cumin
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cm piece of ginger, grated
2 cloves garlic, grated
2 tsp garam masala
2 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp dried mango powder (amchur)
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 tbsp vegetable oil
Salt to taste
Slided red onion to serve
Lemon wedges to serve

Method

  1. Discard the tea bag and boil the chickpeas until they are soft. Drain and keep aside.
  2. Heat the oil in a pan and add the cumin seeds. When they crackle, add the onion, ginger and garlic and sauté until the onion is golden brown. Add the garam masala, chilli, mango, coriander, cumin and turmeric powders and salt and sauté for another minute. Add the chickpeas and 1 c of water and mix well. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Yotam Ottolenghi’s Char-grilled Asparagus

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 4

This is such a delightful side, showcasing how the addition of a few simple ingredients can make a vegetable side totally sing.

For a BBQ, this is the sort of dish that makes good, great.

Definitely one to bookmark.

Ingredients

2 bunches of asparagus
2 tbsp rapeseed oil, plus extra to finish
1 tsp sea salt
60gm feta, crumbled
1 tbsp capers
Grated zest of 1 lemon
Black pepper

Method

  1. Snap off the tough ends of the asparagus and discard. Toss the spears in the oil and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Lay the asparagus in a hot griddle pan, placing them perpendicular to the ridges of the pan. Cook for 6 – 9 minutes, turning occasionally, or until just al dente and lightly charred.
  2. Arrange the asparagus on four serving plates. Sprinkle over the feta, the capers, lemon zest, more pepper and a drizzle more of the oil.

Yotam Ottolenghi’s Leek Fritters

.Reading time 4 minutes.

Serves: 4

Before diving into this quite excellent recipe, it has been a few months since my last post.

It is not that we haven’t been cooking and eating well, though, since my last post, Nat and I have welcomed a little baby girl to the family: Avalon.

I can’t blame sleepless nights. Avalon has been an absolute dream and has slept from 7pm to 7am since she was nine weeks old. Though with Christmas, a few trips thrown in and all the rest of the craziness, typing up recipes has taken a back seat.

I have a real backlog of recipes to get through, though now have the joy of typing, looking at the most beautiful sister to Max, Tom and Oliver. This recipe is for Avalon.

I can’t wait to cook with her in the kitchen.

And now to these fritters.

They are superb.

Chosen and cooked by Nat as part of a bigger Yotam feast, they are so tasty and so soft. Add the sauce and serve alongside this Yotam Ottolenghi Char-grilled Asparagus, and you’ve got an absolutely wonderful weekend meal on your hands.

Ingredients

3 leeks (450gm in total, trimmed weight)
5 shallots, finely chopped
150ml olive oil
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and sliced
25gm parsley (leaves and fine stalks), finely chopped
3/4 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 free-range egg white
120gm self-raising flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 egg
150ml milk
55gm unsalted butter, melted

Sauce*

100gm Greek yoghurt
100gm sour cream
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
20gm parsley leaves, chopped
30gm coriander leaves, chopped

Method

  1. Start by making the sauce. Blitz all the ingredients together in a food processor until a uniform green. Set aside for later.
  2. Cut the leeks into 2cm thick slices; rinse and drain dry. Sauté the leeks and shallots in a pan with half the oil on medium heat for about 15 minutes, or until soft. Transfer to a large bowl and add chilli, parsley, spices, sugar and salt. Allow to cool down.
  3. Whisk the egg white to soft peaks and fold it into the vegetables. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, whole egg, milk and butter to form a batter. Gently mix it into the egg white and vegetable mixture.
  4. Put 2 tbsp of the remaining oil in a large frying pan and place over medium heat. Spoon about half of the vegetable mixture into the pan to make four large fritters. Fry them for 2 – 3 minutes on each side, or until golden crisp. Remove to kitchen paper and keep warm. Continue making the fritters, adding more oil as needed. You should end up with about eight large fritters. Serve warm, with the sauce on the side or drizzled over.

* Substitute a squeeze of lemon or lime juice if you just don’t have the time for the sauce.

Manali Singh’s Bhindi Masala

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4

I don’t know when Nat fell in love with okra, though it has become a total staple in our Indian cooking. No complaints whatsoever there!

It is a little-known vegetable in Australia and to make it sing, it does need a bit of prep.

Sans prep, it’s slimy and that isn’t going to make the cut.

Soak the okra overnight, however, and it is such a versatile and wonderful vegetable: somewhere between French beans and eggplant.

The best Indian is vegetarian and this recipe is exactly why. Served alongside this Ajoy Joshi Hyderabadi Chicken, this was such a brilliant match.

Honestly, cook these two recipes with some Jasmine rice and tell me this isn’t as good as Indian comfort food gets!

Ingredients

2 1/2 vegetable/canola oil, divided
500gm okra
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 medium red onion, chopped
3cm ginger, grated
1 green chilli, chopped
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp amchur (mango powder)
1/4 tsp chilli powder
3/4 tsp salt
Garam masala to sprinkle
Julienne ginger to garnish
Rotis/Rice to serve

Method

  1. Soak the okra overnight. Wash and pat dry each okra with a paper towel and then chop into 1cm rounds, discarding the head and tail. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan on medium heat and when hot, add the chopped okra. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently and then lower the heat for 5 minutes more. The okra should be cooked by now (15 minutes) and there should be little sliminess (!) left. Set aside.
  2. Add the remaining 1 1/2 tbsp oil on a medium heat and when hot, add the cumin seeds and let them sizzle for a few seconds. Add the chopped onion and saute for 2 – 3 minutes until soft. Then add the ginger and green chilli and cook for 1 minute. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook until soft and mushy.
  3. Add the spices and some water so that the spices do not burn. Stir well.
  4. Add the okra back in and cook together on a low-medium heat for 5 minutes, uncovered.
  5. Sprinkle with garam masala and serve garnished with julienned ginger.