Stuffed mini peppers

A bit of a variation this as I’ve made stuffed peppers before. However, the slight change in the recipe has elevated these to a new level as far as hubby was concerned since he polished them off quickly and kept mentioning them all evening. The major changes are to use curry leaves and mini peppers. The mini peppers are so so cute!

I swear I took pictures of the finished article but I cannot find them in my phone or camera. So again, you will have to imagine what it looked like. I absolutely hate when recipes don’t show you what the results are supposed to look like so I apologise…next time I’ll take lots of photos and update here. The filling is cooked before hand in a saucepan, then the filled peppers are roasted in the oven.

Ingredients:

• 6-7 mini peppers
• 200g potatoes – This is the washed and peeled weight.
• 2 tbs groundnut oil
• 1 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
• 1 medium onion (dhungri) – peeled, diced very finely
• 2 inch piece of ginger (adu) – washed, peeled and grated
• 7-8 curry leaves (limda), central stalk of each leaf removed and then all chopped finely
• 1 fresh green chili (lilly murchu)
• 1 tsp salt (nimak)
• 1/2 tsp chili powder (lal murcha)
• 1/4 tsp turmeric (hurder)
• 1/4 tsp coriander cumin powder (dhana jeeru)
• 2/3 tbs olive oil

Preparation:

• Wash the peppers, then slice off the stalk end and scoop out the innards
• When I cooked them, I found the filling was oozing out of all the peppers except the one I had slit down the side by mistake. So slit each on down one side

 

• Have the  roasting dish ready with the olive oil smeared over the bottom
• Dice the potatoes and them boil to the point a knife goes through them easily but they aren’t too watery. Mash in a bowl and set aside to cool.

Cooking:

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees (160 degrees fan oven)
• In a heavy based pan, heat oil. Once warm add the cumin seeds and let them sizzle
• Add onions and cook until they are golden brown (about 5 minutes on med heat, stir often)
• Add the curry leaves, ginger and chopped chili to the mix and cook for a minute or so
• Add the spices, cook for another minute or two stirring frequently to prevent sticking.
• Take off the heat and mix into the mash. At this point taste the mixture to check seasoning. Add more salt if necessary
• Fill each pepper with 2/3 tsp of the mix and lay flat in the roasting dish. I had a few spoons left over so just rolled them into small balls and put into the roasting dish too
• Place in oven to cook. I cooked until the peppers skin starting to char but not so they were too soft (about 20 minutes in my oven). Turn each pepper half way through cooking so that both sides get charred slightly.
• Serve with rice or a salad.

 

Parsnip and potato parathas

Today is pizza night in our household. I don’t always fancy a cheesy hit so use the night to eat food that hubby isn’t into. So I cooked up my aubergine and potato shak. I usually eat that with rotlis or rice but today fancied a go at making parathas. Mum used to make a gorgeous potato stuffed one – damn I wish I had paid more attention to her cooking when she was around.

All my cookbooks are hidden in a moving box at the mo so I resorted to googling a recipe and settled on this simple Potato Paratha one. I substituted part of the potato quantity with parsnip mash as I love the creamy sweet combination of potatoes and parsnip. 150g of parsnips and 150g of maris piper potatoes (this is the washed and peeled weight). I also used a little less coriander. I found them really difficult to roll out as the stuffing kept squeezing out so in the end did it mum’s way but rolling out two rotlis, spreading out 2 tbs of stuffing, sealing the edges and cooking on the tawa.

The result was nice but didn’t really go with the shak. Whilst I was cooking them, I nibbled on the first one that I cooked. It is better without shak so I’m looking forward to tucking into a warmed up one with a sweet cup of tea for Saturday breakfast.  I wonder what other vegetables would go well?

Leek and potato soup

Just made this for lunch and as hubby said it’s probably my best soup ever, thought I’d post it up. Unfortunately, didn’t take pictures of the soup before it was all gobbled up :0)

Ingredients:

• 10 ml extra virgin olive oil
• 1 small onion finely chopped
• 1 leek, finely sliced (don’t forget to wash well to get rid of all the grit)
• 200 g new potatoes, washed, peeled and diced into 1cm pieces
• 1 inch fresh ginger grated
• 1 pint water mixed with a single of Kallo vegetarian stock
• 20 mls double cream
• 100ml semi skimmed milk

Cooking

• Heat the oil in a large pan
• Sweat the onions which takes about 2 minutes (i.e. cook until translucent but not brown)
• Add the leeks and ginger and cook for another 2 minutes stirring frequently
• Add the potatoes and again, stir for a few minutes
• Add the stock, bring to the boil and then simmer until the potatoes are soft
• Blitz with a blender so it’s all combined
• Stir in the cream and milk (do a bit at a time until you are happy with the consistency)
• Serve with cheese on toast.

 

 

Roasted veg potato cakes

These would work with left over roast veg but as I didn’t have any so roasted from fresh. Plus ideally I would have liked to bake them in the oven as it’s healthier but time was limited (tot was on way home for lunch) so I shallow fried them.  I liked them better than tot who like most [fussy] eaters of her age tends to treat all new things with a great deal of suspicion. That was was fine as it meant that I was able to scoff a load for my lunch as she nibbled on 3 for hers.

Ingredients

• 1 parsnip
• 2 medium-sized potatoes
• 1/2 carrot
• 10 g unsalted butter
• 25 g cheese
• 2 tbs plain flour
• Dash of soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp ginger powder
• Season to taste
• 2 tbs olive oil for roasting
• 2 tbs Olive oil/15g butter for shallow frying

Cooking

• Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees
• Wash then peel parsnips and carrot. Cut them into cubes of roughly equal sizes
• Today I peeled the potatoes and cut them into cubes but in future I’ll leave the skin on as somehow the taste is better methinks.
• Put into a roasting pan and pour over olive oil
• Roast until the veg are soft
• Once cooked, put all veg into a bowl and mash to smithereens ensuring it’s all well combined. (You may want to peel the potatoes first if roasted in skins)
• Mix in soy sauce, ginger powder, cheese, seasoning if using and butter. Again combine well
• Add flour. Do this a little at a time until the mixture comes together into a ball. It will still be slighty sticky
• Divide into 12 equal portions and form into little handhold-able shapes
• Shallow a few at a time in the olive oil/butter mix being careful to turn frequently to prevent burning
• Serve with your tot’s favourite dip – we had ours with reduced fat soured cream and chives dip today.

Mushroom, cauliflower and potato shak (khumbi, phool khobi and bateta nu shak)

What do you do if your supermarket delivers a cauliflower that looks promising but when your remove the leaves, turns out to have a dolly sized head? Well, first I vow not to get my caulis delivered anymore (stupid store shoppers), and then put my thinking cap on, peer into the fridge and come up with a new recipe that worked out remarkably well. I hope you enjoy it too.

The preparation of the veg looks like a faff but trust me, it took less than 5 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbs ground nut oil
• 1/2 tbs ghee (optional)
• 1 large dried bayleaf
• 1 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
• 180 g onion diced finely
• 1 tbs grated ginger
• 1 green chili chopped finely
• 6 peppercorns
• 200g cauliflower(this was my silly doll’s head. If you have a full head, use it all)
• 200 g mini new potatoes (if you don’t have mini don’t worry but do not substitute with non new potatoes)
• 200g mini portabella mushrooms (about 9 mini mushrooms or 3 large flat mushrooms)
• 1 tsp chili powder (lal murcha)
• 1.5 tsp salt (nimak)
• 1/2 tsp turmeric (hurder)
• 1 tsp cumic / coriander seed powder (dhana jeeru)
• Lemon juice to taste
• 2 firm red tomatoes cut into quarters
• Coriander to garnish

Preparation:

• Cauliflower: cut this in small florets and then blanch. To blanch you boil your kettle, fill a large pan with the boiled water and let the cauliflower sit in it for 5 minutes. This slightly softens the veg. With a spoon carefully lift the cauliflower from the hot water and put aside. Don’t ditch the water as you need for the next step
• Potatoes: Scrub your new potatoes, if they are large cut them into 1/2 inch pieces and put them into the hot water to par boil – that is they are still firm but a knife should be able to slip in easily.

• Mushrooms: wipe the dirt off and slice thinly. I wanted to remove some of the moisture so I decided to sweat the mushrooms. Pour a tsp of oil into a frying pan and then throw in the mushrooms. Keep stirring and you will see lots of water/steam start to emerge. Pour this water out and set mushrooms aside.

Cooking:

• In a large pan, heat the oil and ghee
• Add cumin seeds and bayleaf. When the seeds start to sizzle and brown slightly, add the onions and cook over a medium heat for about 5 minutes stirring frequently
• Add the ginger, chilies and peppercorn then cook for 1 minute
• Throw in the cauliflower and new potatoes. Stir for 2 minutes
• Add the mushrooms and spices. Combine all very well and then turn heat down to low, cover the pan with a lid and cook for 10 minutes. Stir every few minutes to stop it sticking to the bottom
• When the cauliflower and potatoes have softened so that you can easily slip a fork in add lemon juice to taste and the quartered tomatoes.
• Cook for a further one minute ONLY. Turn off and let it cool slightly.
• Garnish with the chopped coriander and serve with plain basmati rice

Purple mash

Not cooking at all but a review of the Purple Majesty – the new potato with lots of anthocyanins in. It’s grown in Scotland dontchaknow. We got some of these potatoes with our weekly shop this week. Last night we made sausage and mash. Two pans of mash – one with King Edwards and one with Purple Majesty.

Now idiot me forgot to take a photo. I love the novelty of the purple spud. Peeling it was just bizarre and hubby thought I was strange for sniffing them. Well as mash, the purple potatoes taste like POTATOES MASH. Yep no difference but the lilac coloured mash looked great on the plate and my tot gobbled it all up.

Can’t wait to make oven chips or aubergine and potato shak with the rest of them .. as you can tell I am very easily pleased.

Fine beans and potato curry

Sometimes it’s not possible to get to an Indian grocer so I have to make do with ingredients from the local supermarket. Today I was pleasantly surprised to see the local Co-op brim full of veggie treasures. I chose some fine green beans as I love to eat my greens! There must be loads of air miles on these as they come from Kenya (where I was born), but they are ever so tasty in a simple curry. The amounts of spice below can be increased if you fancy a hot curry but it really works with a mild amount of spice to let the flavour of the beans shine through. Also I use new potatoes as they hold their shape better but it’s fine to substitute Maris Piper or King Edwards – just cut them into bigger 2 inch cubes.

Ingredients:

• 340g fine beans – snap each bean into 3
• 450 g new potatoes – scrub and cut into 1 inch cubes
• 2 tbs ground nut oil
• 1 tsp mustard/fenugreek seeds (rye methi)
• 1 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
• 1 green chili – chopped finely
• 2 cloves garlic – chopped finely
• 1 inch ginger – grated
• 1  tsp chili powder (murcha)
• 1/4  tsp turmeric (hurder)
• 1/2  tsp coriander cumin powder (dhana jeeru)
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tomatoes – chopped very finely
• 1 squeeze lemon

Cooking

• In a large pan, heat oil then add mustard and cumin seeds. Let them sizzle and pop
• Add the garlic, chili and ginger and cook for about 30 seconds (don’t let them get overcooked)
• Add the potatoes and stir fry for about 5 minutes. The edges of the potatoes should start going translucent
• Add green beans and stir thoroughly
• Add all the spices then give it all a good stir
• Pour in water – it should not be above the level of the veg
• Bring to the boil then turn down to a simmer
• When you can push a knife through the potatoes, add the tomatoes and lemon juice. Cook for another 5 mins on low heat
• Garnish with coriander and serve with rice, rotlis or naan

P.S. These green beans go very well with broccoli and peas. My hubby isn’t keen on the latter and doesn’t know what he is missing. In the above, don’t add potatoes – add a head of broccoli (cut into spears) and a cup of frozen peas at the same time as you put in the beans. Cook until the veg are just turning tender which is usually very quick. Omit the tomatoes but add the lemon juice. Absolutely delicious.

Ringan bateta nu shak (aubergine and potato curry)

This shak is so easy to make and has very few ingredients – it’s easily cooked within 20 mins. It’s so rustic! It relies on good quality aubergines and potatotes. I prefer to use the small round aubergine sometimes called a brinjal (do a google image search to see what I mean) sold by Indian grocers rather than the long plump Dutch aubergine normally found in English supermarkets. However, if you cannot get the former, the latter is equally delicious.

Select ones that are plump, quite firm and has few blemishes on the skin. When you cut into the aubergine, the flesh should be white and there should be few seeds.

Sometimes aubergines can be bitter. To remedy this they can be salted before cooking. Wash the aubergines, cut off the stems and slice them aubergine into largish dice shapes. Then put a liberal amount of salt over them and leave for half an hour. Wash out the aubergines well (the water will run a sort of purplish colour!) before using in the cooking below.

The amounts below yield enough for 2 people. I prefer to serve this shak with fresh rotlis, sliced onions (cover with lemon juice to remove the sting!) and a sweet (in my case banana).

Ingredients:

• 3 round aubergines (or 1 large dutch aubergine) – wash, remove stem, cut into 3inch dice
• 4 small potatoes -  remove skin, cut into the dice same size as aubergines
• 3 tbs groundnut oil
• 1 tsp mustard and fenugreek seeds
• 1 chilie chopped finely
• 1 tsp salt (nimak)
• 1 tsp chili powder (murcha)
• 1 tsp coriander/cumin powder (dhana jeeru)
• 1/2 tsp turmeric (hurder)
• 1/2 cup water
• 3 tomatoes – diced finely
• Coriander to garnish

Cooking

• In a largish pan, heat oil over medium heat then throw in mustard/fenugreek seeds
• Once seeds start to pop, add chilies
• Add potatoes and aubergines
• Add all the spices and stir the mixture very well
• Cook for 2 minutes and keep stirring
• Add enough water to just cover the vegetables. Don’t be tempted to put more as aubergines already hold a lot of water. Bring mix to the boil.
• Turn down to a simmer and cook for five minutes, keep an eye on the levels and stir occasionally
• Add the tomatoes, stir and cook for a further five minutes
• When you come to serve garnish with coriander and serve with rotlis. If you don’t have rotlis, naan or rice do just as well.

P.S. Sorry I didn’t remember to take a picture of the final dish. It all got eaten very quickly!

Louisiana Sweet Potato Pancakes

I bought some sweet potatoes at the weekend. Sweet potatoes are choc full of betacarotene which boosts your immune system, vitamin c, fibre and are also a complex form of carbohydrate which is important for tots who like to run around.  The intention was to make them into a shak but today I decided to use one potato for some Louisiana Sweet Potato Pancakes.

They were delicious – both tot and hubby gobbled them up quickly with some lamb and egg. I think tot would happily have just eaten the pancakes alone which makes my veggie heart very happy (when she has meat, my heart sinks a bit but if she has something veggie it soars). I opted to have mine with a fried egg and some sour cream. I will definitely be making them again however, will use less baking powder as I was left with a bit of an aftertaste. I will also steam or roast the potato to preserve more nutrients.

I have a suspicion that these pancakes are meant for brekky or maybe a brunch and not dinner. It would be useful to have some serving suggestions.

BTW allrecipe site is BRILLIANT – very user-friendly. It can work out different quantities to cook which was good as the original recipe makes 24 pancakes which is apparently 8 servings (obviously not everyone gets the same number of pancakes). I decided to make 4 servings even though there are only 3 of us…we are greeeeeeedy! I’ll have to look at some other recipes to see how well this works as it’s not always a case of just halving ingredients blah blah.

The site also has an option for “kitchen friendly” view where you lose all the ads etc and just see the recipe. Unfortunately, there was a teeny-weeny glitch and the pancakes kitchen view was for a different recipe. Ah well.

And for those that need to know – all purpose flour is plain flour to us brits.

Valor bateta nu shak (Hyacinth bean and potato curry)

I spent quite a lot of time today trying to find the English word for “Valor”. I think it’s called Dolichos Lablab or Hyacinth bean. In some cookbooks, you will see it referred to as Walor, or even Papadi. Chances are if you have ever had a mixed vegetable curry, then you have eaten valor beans.

Green bean shaks are delicious. My favourites include valor and guar (cluster beans). This recipe works well for both though see the variation section below for some small changes when cooking guar. As many westerners may be unfamiliar with Valor, I’ve also included quite a lot of detail on how to select and prepare the beans.

Valor are very similar in appearance to runner and string beans, but the flavour is more intense. The flavour works well with both aubergine and peas but since my husband doesn’t like either of these, I leave them out.

Ingredients:

• 300g valor – see below for selection and preparation
• 350 g potatoes – peel, wash and cut into large 3 inch chunks
• 3 small aubergines (use brinjals rather than dutch) – cut in 2 inch chunks – optional
• 1 cup peas – optional
• 2 medium ripe red tomatoes (sorry I forgot to measure the quantities. I’m referring to vine tomatoes as opposed to beef, plum or cherry which do not work in this recipe)
• 5 tbs groundnut oil – yes I know it’s a lot but this shak does well if it’s a little oily
• 1 dried red chili (optional)
• 4 cloves garlic – sliced thinly or crushed
• 1 tsp rye/methi (fenugreek/mustard seeds)
• 1 tsp dhana jeeru (coriander/cumin powder)
• 1/2 lal marcha (red curry powder)
• 1/2 hurder (turmeric)
• 250ml water
• Coriander to garnish

Preparation

• You local Indian greengrocer will have these in stock
• Select green, firm beans with few blemishes. To check they are not old, try to bend the tip. If it snaps off cleanly, you are fine. If it bends, put it back and walk away.
• The beans need to be stringed. The way to do so is to snap the end off and then pull along the edge. To do the other edge, snap other end off and pull the other edge.

• Once stringed pull apart the two sides of the bean and inspect for worms. Don’t be squeamish, it’s just part of mother nature. I find the beans are lovely looking, often having a purple hue. They also smell of wonderful nature and give the shak a nutty, deep flavour
• If the beans are fine, cut them up into 3 inch pieces
• Once you have done all of the beans, wash them thoroughly

Cooking

• Heat the oil in a large, heavy based pan over a medium heat. A pressure cooker works well here. Don’t skimp on the oil as I said above, this dish works better when oily
• Drop in the dried chili if using and wait for it to turn blackish
• Throw in the rye / methi and wait for the seeds to start popping
• Add the chilies and garlic and wait until the garlic starts to brown slightly
• Carefully put in the valor (and aubergine / peas if using also) and stir fry in the oil for a few minutes.
• Add the potatoes, tomatoes and spices and combine all thoroughly. Keep turning in the heat for about 3 minutes
• Pour in water. The water should not completely cover the vegetable mix else it will be too runny. You can add more water later if you find the vegies aren’t cooking
• Turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Then turn down to a very low heat and cook for about 20 minutes. Every so often give the shak a stir. Also if the water is all absorbed but the potatoes are still hard, then add a small amount more water.
• The shak is done when the potatoes are cooked – firm but you should be able to push a fork through
• Garnish with coriander and serve with rotlis, roasted poppadums, fresh cut onions and sweets.

Variation:

Guar or cluster beans are smaller and more delicate in flavour than valor. To select them, choose beans that are green with little marking. Again you can try to snap the end off to see if they are fresh. My brother spends ages picking out young guar and makes a very delicious shak with them.

To prepare the beans, you only need to snap the ends off and cut them into small 1 inch pieces. Inspect and discard any guar with small holes (yes, dreaded insects again!)

The recipe uses less oil (4tbs only) and garlic (2 cloves only).

Also this high soluble vegetable can sometimes cause gas it is sometimes advisable to add 1/4 tsp ajwain (lovage) seeds at same stage as rye methi.