Red Lentil Dahl and Roasted Cauliflower
Yesterday’s lentils were bumped to today due to a delicious roast chicken getting in the way, but we got to them finally. There are as many recipes for this sort of dish as there are people who have cooked it; this one is a merging of various recipes and home-made versions that I’ve used in the past, so doesn’t claim any particular heritage:
250g red lentils (you could use different lentils, but the consistency will be different)
3 large garlic cloves, crushed or finely chopped
1 inch ginger, grated
1 medium onion, finely diced
1tsp ground coriander seed
1tsp ground cumin seed
1tsp black mustard seed (normal mustard seed will do if you have that but not black)
1/2 tsp turmeric
juice of half a lemon
salt and pepper
oil for frying
500ml water
chopped coriander leaves
Heat up some oil in a large saucepan and fry the garlic and ginger. When this has fried for a few minutes, add all the spices and stir, cooking for a further few minutes to cook the rawness out of them. Then add the onion and stir this around in the spices, then cook on a lowish heat until it has softened but not started to caramelise. Add the lentils, water, salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice. Let this cook for 20 to 30 minutes until done; you will probably need to add more water at some point so don’t let it dry out and burn. Check for seasoning and add some more lemon juice if it needs it. Stir in the coriander leaves and serve. This tends to taste better when it has cooled down a bit to allow the flavours to mellow and blend together.
We didn’t use coriander as ours had turned yellow, so I attempted to make a tarka topping at the last minute but that didn’t turn out very well. We served this with some roasted cauliflower which was very good – coat some cauliflower florets in a little oil, then season well with salt and pepper and ground spices (we used some garam masala that we had made a few weeks ago for another dish) and then roast in the oven for about 20 minutes or until done.
Thinking back to the various versions of this dish that I mentioned at the start of the post, I do remember a particularly good version which I think was Bangladeshi in origin. The recipe specified fewer individual spices (turmeric was the main one and it may have had a little garam masala too) and was cooked with a quartered lemon in the pot. It was really delicious; I shall have to see if I can find a recipe similar to that again.
Roast Chicken
We had originally decided to cook lentils this evening, but as I wasn’t feeling well Kerri decided that we needed roast chicken instead. A very good idea it was too. We do tend to have roast chicken fairly often (although not all that often recently) so do find it a little hard to think of new an interesting ways to photograph it and they often come out looking the same, which can be disappointing, but we generally get over that quite easily.
This was served with roast broccoli and cauliflower (similar to yesterday’s broccoli, except with cauliflower added), peas, sagey stuffing and of course roast potatoes and gravy. Delicious.
Smoked Mackerel Fish Cakes and Roasted Broccoli
A quick dinner today to use up some leftover mackerel I found lurking at the back of the fridge. Simply mix with some mashed potato, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, some parsley, lemon juice and a few capers and form into fishcakes. I think I had a little too much mashed potato as these didn’t crunch up that well but they were still tasty.
The brocolli was roasted in the oven with some oil, garlic and salt and pepper for about 2o minutes. A squeeze of lemon juice and a little extra oil when cooked to finish. Really tasty.
Weekend Round-Up
We were away in Kent this weekend so didn’t do much in the way of cooking but here’s what we managed to eat while we were away. We started the weekend at a beer festival, our friends bought along their portable barbecue and we ate barbecued sausages in crusty bread while sampling 40 local ales.
On Saturday, we headed down to the Oyster Festival in Whitstable where we at crab sandwiches, jellied eels and breaded prawns on the beach.
That evening, we baked some local mackerel and served it with samphire and Jersey Royal Potatoes.
Yesterday, we finished off the weekend with some barbecued hamburgers.
Today, we’ll be eating salad.
Risotto with Bacon, Peas and Sage
A fairly simply risotto this evening, this turned out to be a completely store-cupboard (and freezer for the bacon and peas) meal. Which is rare when we are trying to think of new things to do a lot of the time and often end up needing to get at least a few ingredients at the last minute.
Ingredients (Serves 2):
1 medium onion, finely chopped
100g bacon (or pancetta or lardons)
2 sticks celery, finely chopped
12 sage leaves, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Half a cup of peas, pre-cooked
1-2 tbsps olive oil for frying
1 small glass white wine or white vermouth
250g risotto rice
1l chicken stock (preferably home made, but bought is of course fine if you don’t have any)
Good handful grated parmesan (much better to grate your own from a block than to use pre-grated)
Heat up the oil and when it is hot, add the celery and onion. A minute or so later, add the pancetta and fry for a few minutes. Then add the garlic. When the onion and celery have softened, add the rice and turn up the heat. The rice should fry and go a bit translucent now, but if it starts to burn then turn it down. After a short while, add the wine or vermouth and stir while the alcohol burns off.
Turn the heat back down and when the wine has been absorbed, start adding stock a ladle at a time, stirring until it has been absorbed until it has been absorbed and then adding some more. We used some home made chicken stock for this and it does make quite a difference (all the bones from those roast chickens we’ve been eating have not gone to waste). All this stirring brings out the stickiness from the rice. If you run out of stock before the rice is cooked, then just start adding water. When the rice is cooked but still has just a little bite left to it, it is done. Shortly before it is actually done, stir in the chopped sage leaves. When it is actually done, stir in the grated parmesan and the peas and check for seaoning. Serve!
The home made chicken stock that we used was very chickeny, which resulted in a really lovely rich taste. The stock also tasted quite strongly of leeks (we must have had surplus leeks when we made it that we added into it) which went well with all the other flavours.
Lentil Lasagne
Although we cook this style of lentils a lot, we usually eat it with crusty bread or spaghetti rather than making it into lasagne. The original recipe was actually for lasagne though so I’m not quite sure why it’s taken us so long to get round to it. Still, I’m glad we got there eventually because this was really good. The bechamel sauce and the extra cooking in the oven gave the overall dish a really rounded and deep flavour.
Original recipe here, although this version has bacon and sundried tomatoes in which intensified the deep flavours.
Rajma – Red Kidney Bean Curry
Last week we had decided to cook a bean-based curry this week. Having had sausages last night for the first time in ages, we were in the mood for sausages again today, but bean curry it was. That probably wasn’t a very good place to start as our hearts weren’t quite in it, however we pressed on against the odds. We had already soaked the beans overnight anyway.
We did follow a recipe to some degree, but changed a few things along the way. What we ended up doing was something like this:
2 cans worth of dry red kidney beans, soaked overnight
cooking oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 medium-sized onions chopped fine
2-inch piece of ginger, cut into julienne strips
6 cloves of garlic minced
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 fresh red chilli finely chopped
2 tsps coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp garam masala
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
salt
pinch of asofetida
coriander leaves, chopped
First boil the soaked kidney beans hard for 20 minutes, then rinse them thoroughly under running water before simmering them until they are done. This needs to be done to remove toxins from the beans.
Heat some oil in a deep pan and add the cumin seeds. When they stop sizzling, add the onion and fry till soft. Add the ginger and garlic and fry for 2 minutes. Add the chopped chilli, coriander, cumin, turmeric and garam masala and fry for a few minutes to cook the rawness out of the spices.
Then add the tomatoes, cooked kidney beans, two cups of warm water, asofetida, salt to taste and cook for ten minutes. Mash some of the beans and stir them back in to thicken the gravy. Garnish with corainder and serve with basmati rice and salad, pickles, etc.
I quite liked this in some ways but Kerri wasn’t that keen on it. Being used to Indian dishes that are marinated for a long time or contain sauces with heavily cooked down onions, this dish with its short cooking time seemed a bit like separate ingredients combined together rather than a cohesive dish. However, that did make it fresh and interesting. And tasting some leftovers from the pot afterwards, it had taken on a little more of a combined flavour from resting.
Sausages with Roast Tomatoes and Onions
Our plans for this evening changed many times, but eventually Kerri went to the butcher and bought some lovely Cumberland style sausages (I call them “Cumberland style” rather than actual Cumberland because they are not in big coils… have had complaints about that before!). She roasted these in the oven with some cherry tomatoes, sliced red onion and garlic with some oil, balsamic vinegar and herbs. It was based on one of Jamie Oliver’s recipes.
We ate it with some crushed new potatoes. The potatoes needed a little more cooking as they were “al dente”, but otherwise it was delicious. The first time we’ve had sausages in a while I think, and well worth it.
Chorizo, Beans and Kale
A fairly quick and easy dinner this evening, which was inspired by something similar that we saw on television over the weekend and then backed up by something in a Spanish cookbook. However, these both used chickpeas and there were various other different ingredients, so we are claiming this as our own. Mostly because it turned out well; if it had turned out rubbish them I’m sure we would be disowning it and blaming someone else.
The recipe goes something like this:
100g dry haricot (navy) beans, soaked overnight and then boiled until almost cooked
400g tin of plum tomatoes or chopped tomatoes
100g cooking chorizo
1 tsp paprika (optional)
1 medium onion, sliced finely
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
Decent amount of kale leaves, or some spinach or chard
few sprigs of thyme
oil for frying
salt and pepper
250ml vegetable stock
Chop the chorizo into smallish pieces, and fry in a little oil until starting to take on some colour and crisp up a bit. After this, I tipped out most of the chorizo oil, but if you’re not trying to be healthy then leave it in there as it does have a lovely flavour. Then add the onions and stir – if you did tip out the chorizo oil then you’ll need to add some more olive oil for the onions. When the onions have softened a little, add the garlic and also the paprika if using – the chorizo does contain quite a lot of paprika anyway.
Blend the tomatoes into a passata-like consistency – we just did this with a hand blender and it worked fine. Pour that in and also add the beans, the thyme, a squeeze of lemon juice and a generous seasoning of salt and pepper. Add a little of stock if needed, and let it all heat through and cook together a bit. You don’t need to do this for very long, but we let it go for a while to cook down a bit as we tasted it and thought that it needed to.
When you are a few minutes away from the end of cooking, add the kale or spinach and let that cook through, then check for seasoning and serve! You can serve it on its own, or with some crusty bread or some rice if you prefer.
Barbecued Tandoori Chicken, Sag Aloo and Naan Bread
Having made something similar to sag aloo last week, we decided that far too much time has passed since we cooked any Indian food and decided to cook tandoori chicken again with some sag aloo and also have another go at naan bread.
Our last attempt at naan bread was pretty much a complete disaster so this time we used Heston Blummenthal’s recipe. Although well known for very complicated recipes that require lots of industrial equipment, this recipe was pretty straight forwardl. His recipe requires the use of two, square pizza stones which we don’t have so we improvised with just the one, round stone and a baking tray which worked out well. The basic principle requires heating the grill as high as it will go for 20 minutes and leaning the stone against the side of the oven, resting on the afore-mentioned baking tray. When the oven is as hot as it can be, the door can be opened and the naan bread slapped onto the side of the stone. The first one slipped down quite drastically so we discarded it and tried again. The second attempt was much better and stuck to the stone reasonably well. By the time we came to the last bread, I think we almost had it. They puffed up well and had the characteristically bubbly surface that naan bread is well known for.
The chicken was cooked to the recipe we used last time, as was the sag aloo. We replaced the spinach with some of the kale that Dan gave us last week which worked well although was obviously different to the spinach flavour.
It was all good and worked well with the tomato salad Stephen made. A simple combination of tomato, cucumber, onion, coriander, oil and cumin.
