Friday: An oldie but a goodie

 

Cucumber-purslane salad with chickpeas and pink radish. 

This is our first purslane of the season - we like to make this cool salad with it, dressed in some lemon juice and olive oil.

Sunday: Tentacle tagine

Squid and chickpea tagine, served over couscous.

We modified this recipe from Paul Johnson's Fish Forever.  This was our first experience cooking squid at home, and we have deemed it a success.  Squid is tricky - it has a tendency to get too tough and chewy, because the proteins in the tissue can form tight bonds when it's cooked.  To compensate, Paul Johnson says you must either cook it extremely briefly over high heat (so that the tissue doesn't have enough time to toughen up) or for a very long time over low heat (so that it tightens, but then becomes soft again over a long period of cooking). 

This tagine, a North African stew, employs the second method, allowing the chopped squid to simmer until it is tender and has picked up the flavor of the spices in the tomato broth.

Monday: Emptying the winter larders

Braised celery root with chickpeas, almonds and saffron, served on basmati rice.

We supplemented this recipe with almonds, which we thought would pair well with the somewhat Mediterranean flavors of chickpea and saffron.  The saffron dyed everything a warm yellow.  These knobs of celeriac were some of our last overwintered vegetables.

Saturday lunch: Grasping the nettle

Stir-fry of stinging nettles, ramps, carrots and chickpeas, served over basmati rice.

We've seen nettles at the market over the last year or two, but we've been too intimidated to try them out - until now. Yes, they really are "stinging" nettles - if you brush against the leaves, you will get a painful sting which can linger from hours to days. According to Wikipedia, these little leafies have micro-needles which inject you with formic acid, serotonin, histamine, and a couple other nasty chemicals. Luckily, mincing (VERY fine), sauteeing, soaking or boiling the leaves destroys the chemicals that cause the sting. Humans must have figured that out pretty early on, because nettles are a rather ancient food: they are useful as yet another veggie that appears early in the season when few other things are ready for harvest.

We swiped this recipe idea from the excellent food politics blog La Vida Locavore. It's simple - which is what we wanted for our first nettle experience. You may be wondering how one prepares nettles, given that you can't touch them without being stung. The answer: latex gloves. No, seriously.


Nettle leaves separated from inedible stems

It sounds like a lot of trouble to wear gloves just to prep some greens, but these guys were really worth the fuss. They have a deep, interesting flavor once cooked (when raw they smell haylike), and they retain a pleasantly chewy texture even after sauteeing.

Monday: Pale Green Things

Methi chole (fenugreek and green chickpea curry).

Lizz's parents visited us in New York this past weekend, and since they had a car, we took advantage of the opportunity to stock up on Indian groceries in Jackson Heights.  In addition to two gigantic ten-pound bags of Lal Qilla brand deradunhi basmati rice, tons of dal, and a block of jaggery (more on that later), we brought home a lovely harbinger of spring: fresh green chana in their shells! 

These little guys are only available in the springtime at Indian grocery stores, though the frozen and shelled version is widely available.  They are fresh, only partially mature chickpeas, and they grow in cute little pods that look like green peas:

Also like peas, they have a "green" note and a slightly sweet flavor, and cook very quickly - more like a fresh vegetable than like a dried legume. 

This recipe pairs the chana with fresh methi - fenugreek greens.  These are the greens of the same plant that gives us fenugreek seeds (the source of fake maple sugar flavor, and a frequent component in curry powders).  The flavor of methi is hard to describe, but the greens are noticeably fragrant and herbal - in fact, the dried version is used as a flavoring in some other Indian dishes.  We highly recommend trying them out if you've never had them: they're easy to wilt into vegetable or legume dishes of many kinds.

Sunday lunch: Is it spring yet?

Fried chickpeas with spices and sauteed pea shoots.

We got these pea shoots fresh, not frozen, from our CSA - it was great to have an early taste of spring. Our usual fried chickpeas served as an accompaniment.

Saturday: Vegetarian Chili

Vegetarian chili with smoky paprika.

Lizz is down with flu-like symptoms, so dinner tonight was this very simple chili.

Tuesday: Kasha with mushroom and chickpea

Kasha with mushroom and chickpeas, served with carrot-parsley salad.

What is kasha, you ask? Well, you may also see it called "toasted buckwheat groats," but somehow that doesn't have much of a ring to it. Like quinoa, buckwheat is actually not related to wheat at all, but rather is a seed that bears some resemblance to other grains. You might encounter it in gluten-free versions of products typically made with normal wheat - but we know it best as the main ingredient in Japanese soba noodles. Kasha has an earthy, nutty flavor that melds well with mushrooms, chickpeas, and lightly caramelized onions in this dish.

Thanks to our two CSAs, we currently have more carrots than we know what to do with. We made this quick carrot-parsley salad (in a simple lemon juice-olive oil marinade) to add some fresh veggie flavor and a texture contrast to the main dish.

Meanwhile, check out the gams on this carrot:

Friday: Kala Chana

Black chickpea-potato curry, served with watercress and garlic cucumber pickles.

Black chickpeas (aka kala chana) are relatives of the usual tan-colored variety, but they are a bit smaller and have more texture, along with a subtly more interesting flavor. In this dish they are cooked with potatoes in a sauce that starts with a base of pureed ginger-garlic-onion paste. They are seasoned with asafoetida, some spices, and several tablespoons of either tamarind paste or lemon juice. Here, we've served them with pickles. This is actually the way legume dishes are usually served in many parts of India, although the pickle would likely be something other than cucumber - perhaps lemon, watermelon rind, cauliflower, carrot, etc.

Tuesday: A late meal

Okra and chickpeas in tamarind sauce, on basmati rice.

This is a sweet-and-sour combination from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East. It's a favorite winter dish of ours because it can be made with ingredients that we almost always have on hand: frozen okra, canned chickpeas, garlic, and tamarind paste. (The dish is even better with curry leaves, but sadly those are harder to come by outside of Queens.)

Tuesday: Aloo gobi chaat

Aloo gobi chaat.

We've already blogged about chaat - an Indian snack food that can serve as a quick weeknight dinner. This was more or less a reprise of our previous chaat, but with the substitution of a small head of purple cauliflower for the tomatoes (no longer in season, sadly).

To save time, we once again used pre-cooked canned chickpeas instead of dried black or green chickpeas. Since the taste of canned chickpeas leaves something to be desired, we followed Madhur Jaffrey's method for quickly improving their flavor: drain and rise the chickpeas, then simmer for five to ten minutes in water to cover with whole spices (a bay leaf, cumin, coriander, cloves, or whatever you like) in a tea strainer or tied up in a little cheesecloth sachet. Although we don't use this technique every single time that we use canned chickpeas, it can really make a difference for dishes like chaat where the chickpeas are to be eaten whole without any additional cooking.

Wednesday: Squash salad

Warm butternut squash and chickpea salad with pita.

Before this year we actually didn't cook much with butternut squash, despite it being the most common winter squash in grocery stores. At most, we'd make a Thanksgiving squash puree as a side dish. We're still exploring the higher culinary potential of the humble butternut, and this recipe was another nice addition to our repertoire. The only tricky part is trying to make homemade tahini by grinding toasted sesame seeds with some water.

Quick Saturday Lunch

Fried spiced chickpeas and roasted acorn squash.

This is a slightly odd pairing, but it made for a nice quick lunch. Sometimes we make fried chickpeas to supplement a meal that needs a protein: it's basically a quick curry. Just heat a little peanut oil in a skillet; add whole cumin seeds and let them brown; then add ground coriander and stir for a second; next add a can of well-drained chickpeas along with a little bit each of turmeric, cayenne, and amchur (powdered dried sour mango - use lemon juice to substitute). Then stir and fry the chickpeas until they are looking slightly crisp and are warmed through. They'll reduce a tiny bit in size when they're done.

These chickpeas are crispy and nice as a side dish or on top of a salad.

D4SA Dhaba

Sunday night dinner: Aloo chaat.

Chaat is a category of Indian "snack" food that has many different variations. It typically includes cooked potato and chickpea (usually black or green chickpea, though we used normal ones today), a yogurt sauce, a tamarind sauce, cilantro, and various spices which generally include cayenne and black salt. In India, it's a street food - but here you can find it at some small Indian sweet shops. If you're in Boston, we recommend the chaat at the cafe in the back of Shalimar in Central Square; in New York, Rajbhog Sweets in Jackson Heights is a good bet.

The chaat we made basically followed the above formula, though we also threw in some chopped heirloom tomatoes for seasonal flavor. Yummmm.

Tuesday: Yogurt with chickpeas and tomato

A quick-and-easy weeknight meal: Madhur Jaffrey's yogurt with chickpea and tomato.

This dish reminded us of chaat - in particular, the chaat made at Punjabi Dhaba in Cambridge, MA. What is chaat, you ask? Stay tuned...

Tuesday: Baingan Chole

Baingan chole - Punjabi-style eggplant and chickpea. We got this recipe from a blog we've mentioned before - the lovely Mahanandi.

Eggplant and chickpea is a classic combination; there are also similar Moroccan-style tagines which are just spiced differently. If you think you don't like eggplant, then you might want to try buying some fresh from a farmer's market. Eggplant gets bitter quickly when stored, and the big dark purple grocery store varietal just really isn't the best one, so it doesn't really compare with all of the interesting types you can find now in the market. They range from tiny to huge, from round to long, and come in colors including white, light purple, dark purple, green, and even bright orange.

Fun fact: the varietal of eggplant which was originally popular was a small, oblong, white type that looked much like an egg - thus the name.

Sunday polenta

Polenta with heirloom tomato sauce and mixed bean salad.

You may have noticed that we often make a quick bean salad to accompany dishes that take a little more thought (like polenta, which does require a little stirring when made from real cornmeal rather than an instant mix). We generally use canned beans for these salads, for convenience's sake. We've found that adding a couple tablespoons of vinegar (balsamic, white or red wine vinegar - whatever you have around) to the standard olive oil and lemon dressing really brightens the flavor and pulls a bean salad together.

The nice thing about these quick salads is that you can use up whatever you have on hand. Tonight we combined white beans and chickpeas, and added some extra dill and scallions that didn't end up in last night's dinner.

Monday: purple "green" beans

Green bean-chickpea salad with pita.

As you will no doubt have noticed, things just improved markedly in the photography department here. We have a new digital camera, which means no more blurry, dark, or muted pictures. In fact, these were even taken on manual settings (well, ok, aperture priority for any photo geeks out there).

And in case you didn't believe us about the purple green beans - yes, they really were purple. Sadly, they lose their color as soon as you cook them:



But don't they look pretty beforehand?

Monday: Stuffed Squash

Cousa squash stuffed with a mix of squash innards, quinoa, millet, chickpeas, dill, paprika, and Parmesan cheese. (Cousa is a Middle Eastern variety of summer squash.)

Dinners this week

Pardon the prolonged absence, faithful readers. We've been too busy cooking up a storm to actually... update the blog about our cooking. Here's what we've cooked in the past week:


Monday, 7-6-09: White bean croquettes with mashed purple heirloom potatoes




Tuesday 7-7-09: Fresh fava beans sauteed with thyme and sardine-caper toast




Wednesday 7-8-09: Hake with red chard and couscous


Thursday 7-9-09: Curry of golden beet, red cabbage and adzuki beans




Friday 7-10-09: Garlic scape omelettes with a purslane, arugula, and chickpea salad




Saturday 7-11-09: White bean salad with red quinoa and sauteed field mustard greens




Other miscellaneous cooking: a purslane frittata, a blackcurrant cake (sort of a coffee-cake style recipe, using no leavening), and a green gooseberry crumble. Lots of baked goods lately for all of the sour berries that are in season - we have been using local stone-milled pastry flour from Wild Hive Farm.