I’m going to stop writing the super-real fields series for now. It’s still interesting me, but there are some other subjects which have been bumped up my priorities list recently that I want to learn first. I may well make some posts about them later.
Archive for October, 2005
Announcement
Wednesday, October 26th, 2005Vegetarian Mole
Friday, October 21st, 2005Yeah, I’m experimenting with the chocolate and chilli combination again. This time as a main meal. I’d recommend not telling people what’s in this until after they’ve already finished – my dad liked it, but once he realised the flavour was chocolate he found it a bit odd.
By the way, if you’re wondering why I always use red onions, it’s not because of any flavour preference. Our crop of red onions was good this year while our white onions failed rather dismally.
What I used:
Sunflower oil
2 medium red onions
2 red chillis
Lots of salt
1 tsp garam masala
1/3 cup cocoa
1/4 cup treacle
About 3tbsp brown sugar
2 cans of kidney beans
Boiling water.
What I did:
This is about as embarassingly simple as you’d expect. I chopped up the onions, fried them in sunflower oil with the salt for 5 minutes. I then diced the chillis and removed most of the seeds (I needn’t have bothered. I keep forgetting how unspicy these chillis are) and added these to the mix. I let it cook for another 5 minutes before adding the garam masala and cocoa. (I added a little bit of water as well to keep it moist at this point).
After a few more minutes I added the beans, stirred until the beans were thoroughly coated and then added the treacle and sugar, covered everything with water and transferred it to the oven. I cooked it there for about 30 minutes.
Conclusion:
I liked it. I will agree with the assessment that it was a bit odd, but I thought it worked. That being said, it probably won’t go on my list of meals to cook on a regular basis.
It could use being a bit spicier (this is a function of the chillis I used) and to have slightly less water – I didn’t think the sauce was thick enough. I served it with white rice, pan fried squash and a broccoli, chickory and sesame salad.
Pseudo-African Peanut and carrot stew
Thursday, October 20th, 2005This was (very) loosely based off this recipe.
What I used:
Lots of sunflower oil
3 small white onions (close to shallot size)
1 medium-small red onion
4 cloves of garlic
1/2 tbsp of cumin
1/2 tbsp of brown sugar
1/2 tbsp of dried crushed chilli
3 cups of salted peanuts
8 medium-large carrots
1 can of chopped tomatoes
1 kallo yeast-free vegetable stock cube
Water
What I did:
I needed to use the food processor for the peanuts anyway, so I decided to be very lazy with this recipe and use it for all my chopping purposes. So I shoved the onions and garlic in the processor, pulsed it for a bit until they were fine and started frying them in oil as per usual. I added the sugar, cumin and chilli here.
I fried them for about 5 to 10 minutes, and while they were frying I pulsed the peanuts and the carrots in the blender (seperately). I then added the peanuts, fried for a bit longer and added the carrots as well. I continued to fry this for another 5-10 minutes, then added the tomatoes, stock and boiling water to cover it.
I simmered this for about 20 minutes before deciding it wasn’t cooking fast enough. I then transferred it to the hot oven on the aga and left it for another 20 minutes. When I took it out almost all the water had evaporated, so I added a little more, stirred it and stuck it in the simmering oven to keep warm and cook slightly more. It was probably in there for 10 minutes before we ate. I served this with whole wheat African chapatis, which are like Indian chapatis except that they’re from Africa. (I’ll include a post on chapatis some time – I’m really struggling to get the damn things right).
Conclusion
I’d say this was a success. It wasn’t perfect, but it had a nice flavour to it. Simple, but slightly unusual. I’d probably use fewer peanuts in future – maybe two instead of three cups. Possibly a touch more chilli as well.
Mombasa Pumpkin Desert
Thursday, October 20th, 2005Rather than given an account of this one, I’m just going to refer you to the original recipe.
The only major change I made to this was that I added some water to it. This was a mistake – the pumpkin gives off a huge amount of water on it’s own, so this made the sauce way too watery.
That being said, it tasted quite nice. The pumpkin was overcooked when I did it, but that’s because I was trying to reduce the overabundance of liquid. I think it could use being slightly less sweet though – I’d probably use about half a cup less sugar. Alternatively, I used about a kilo of chopped pumpkin for the amount of ingredients suggested. Using maybe half again this much would probably be advisable (but given that the sweetness was in the sauce, this probably wouldn’t make it less sweet – you’d just be getting less sauce per pumpkin bit).
Butternut squash risotto
Tuesday, October 11th, 2005This is a much more basic recipe than the others I’ve been playing with, but it was really nice so I’ll include it anyway.
Vegetarian risotto has a danger of being a bit boring. The butternut squash in this offsets that nicely without adding a lot of work, making for a really nice easy dish. This follows a similar recipe in the reader’s digest “Pumpkins and squashes” cookbook.
What I used:
A cup and a half of risotto rice
Half a butternut squash
Two small red onions
A few sprigs of fresh thyme
One kallo organic vegetable stock cube
Boiling water
Olive oil
What I did:
Pretty much what you’d expect. Diced the onions, fried them in olive oil. Peeled the squash and chopped it up into cm cubes then added it to the onions along with the thyme. After a few minutes more I added the rice, stirred for a bit longer and then cover with vegetable stock and boiling water. I let the water cook off and topped it up once or twice until the risotto and the squash were both well cooked and slightly glooy.
Conclusion:
This was actually really nice. I’m sure a lot of this was that I used a good stock for it, but the combination of the risotto flavour and the butternut squash was a definite winner. The fact that this was unbelievably easy to make was a definite point in its favour as well. I’ll absolutely be making this one again. I served it with a mushroom omelette for added flavour and protein, and there were enough leftovers to have the risotto for lunch the next day as well.