This breakfast is so quick and delicious you don't even have to wait for the weekend to make it. Using dried, crumbled mint, all you need is to scramble the eggs with that and salt before pouring in a hot pan with olive oil.
Pure Levant flavors right there in the form of mint and olive oil.
Ingredients:
3 eggs 1-2 tsp dry mint olive oil salt
Method:
In a bowl, whisk the eggs, salt and dried mint powder well. Drizzle a bit of olive oil in a frying pan over medium/low heat. Pour in the eggs and cook for 3 minutes then turn the omelet over to the other side using a spatula for another 2 minutes. Serve hot with bread.
This recipe comes from the movie Chef, where Casper, played by Jon Favreau, makes a lusciously oily, garlicky pasta for Scarlett Johansson's character, Molly, during one pivotal scene.
How to Make Pasta Aglio e Olio
Cook 12 garlic cloves in extra-virgin olive oil, which serves as the flavor base of the sauce. Cook the garlic until it is light golden brown (don't let it get too brown or burn) then add a healthy pinch of red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. When the spaghetti is cooked to al dente, add it to the garlic-infused chili oil, along with pasta water to make the sauce extra silky. Once the pasta is coated in the oil, add some parsley to freshen it up and some lemon juice for brightness. Traditionally, this dish is served without cheese, but this recipe includes it. It brings a richness and layer of savory that balances everything all out.
Ingredients
1 pound dried spaghetti
¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil
12 large garlic cloves, cut into thin slivers
2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes, plus more for serving
Kosher salt and black pepper
⅓ cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, plus lemon wedges for serving
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
Directions
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and add spaghetti, cooking until al dente, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain, reserving 1 cup pasta water.
Meanwhile, in a large pan, heat olive oil over medium-low. Add garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Add crushed red pepper flakes and a healthy pinch of salt and pepper. Add drained spaghetti to pan and toss, adding pasta water, until spaghetti is thoroughly coated.
Remove pan from heat, add parsley, lemon juice, and Parmesan and toss well. Check for flavor, adding more salt if necessary. Garnish with more Parmesan, lemon wedges, and crushed red pepper flakes.
Curd rice or Yogurt rice is a simple delicacy made in South India. Cooked rice is combined with curd or yoghurt and then seasoned with chilly, curry leaves, ginger, urad dal, mustard seeds, channa dal and hing. This is truly comfort food! Curd rice from South India tastes great with just a pickle or chutney and also with a daal (lentils) or meat dish
http://www.vahrehvah.com/curd-rice
Ingredients
1 pinch chopped coriander leaves
300 ml curds
1 springs curry leaves
1 piece Ginger
1 number green chillies
1 pinch hing
1 pinch mustard seeds
1 tbsp oil or ghee
200 grams rice
1 to taste salt
1 cup sour cream or fresh cream
1 tsp urad dal
Directions
1. Boil rice, adding salt. cool slightly.
2. mix with curds
3. chop green chillies and ginger fine.
4. Heat oil. fry mustard seeds urad dal cumin and asafoetida.
5. add curry leaves and chopped ingredients. saute for 2 minutes
6. Switch off the fire and add the rice curds mixture to the pan.
7. mix well. serve with with pickles
Preparation time 10 minutes
Cooking time 30-35 minutes
Serve 2-4
Ingredients
For Marination
1 kg Mutton mince,
2 tsp Dry fenugreek leaves, crushed,
½ cup Curd, beaten,
2 tbsp fresh Mint leaves, roughly torn,
¼ tsp Nutmeg, grated, जायफल
1 ½ tsp Degi red chilli powder,
½ tsp Turmeric powder,
1 tsp Coriander powder,
Salt to taste,
Add marinated kheema and keep sauteing it for five minutes. Cover it with the lid and cook for 20-25 minutes.
Remove the bay leaf from the kheema.
For Kheema Masala
In a shallow pan, add ghee once it's hot, add onion and saute until light brown in color.
Add ginger garlic paste and saute well. Add coriander powder, turmeric powder, degi red chilli powder and saute well.
Add tomato and let it cook for 4-5 minutes. Add little water and cook on low flame.
Add tender coriander stem and mix well.
Add little water and saute well. Add sauteed kheema, water and cook for 10-15 minutes.
Add coriander leaves, mint leaves and mix everything well and cook for another 5 minutes on medium flame.
Once kheema gets cooked, switch off the flame, add green chillies and butter mix well.
Add prepared masala and mix well. Transfer it into a serving dish, garnish it with coriander sprig, ginger julienned, slice hard boiled egg, lemon wedge.
Serve hot with pav.
For Masala
In a pan, add black cardamom, black peppercorns and dry roast on low flame until the spices turn aromatic.
Transfer it into a grinder jar and grind it into a fine powder. Keep it aside for further use.
The idea of there being a single perfect formula for vegetable tagine is as absurd as there being just one way to make a good chicken casserole. A tagine is simply the name of the cooking pot in which the stews are traditionally made, rather than the name of a specific recipe (though these days, I’m assured, a saucepan or pressure cooker are more common in Moroccan homes).
And, asNargisse Benkabbouexplains in her book Casablanca,there are four popular styles, regardless of whether the main ingredient isgoat,sardinesorartichokes. These aremquallicooked with olive oil, turmeric, ginger and saffron;mhammermade with butter, cumin and paprika;mchermelcooked with chermoula, a zingy herb paste; and one made with tomato, cumin and paprika. Each, Benkabbou says, “can be customised with seasonal vegetables, dried fruit, preserved lemons, olives and nuts”.
I buy a spice mix in France which is precisely
the right flavour for this dish. In France, a tagine or a couscous are the
equivalent of Britain's tikka marsala. Everyone loves it and has a bash at
making it. I mostly agree with Felicity, but I am not keen on turnips, so I
always use parsnips, when I can get them here. I would go for a bit more veg
variety, so I would add a courgette (always found in Algerian good) some
potato, and I put sliced onions but whole shallots. For the stock, I swear by
marigold Swiss bouillon, and often meat is served with this in the shape of
Merguez spicy sausages made of lamb, but I don't eat meat and don't like fish
tagines much, so I always use vegetarian meatballs, and they soak up the
flavours perfectly.
Also, not all canned chick peas are the same.
If you come across the North African brands, go for these as they are delicious.
Recipe from Green Kitchen Stories
You can use almost any kind of vegetables in this stew, it’s perfect for emptying the fridge.
3 tbsp olive oil 1 large onion, roughly chopped 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 inch fresh ginger, minced (or 1 tsp grounded) 1-2 tbsp grounded cinnamon 1 tsp cumin salt 2-3 tsp harissa paste (or dried harissa) 2 cups canned chopped tomatoes 1 lemon, juice and zest a handful fresh cilantro 1 small pumpkin, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces 1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into 2-inchpieces 3 carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces 1 zucchini, cut into 2-inchpieces 10 dried apricots 1/2 cup chickpeas/garbanzo beans, pre boiled a handful raisins
Serve with: white quinoa or couscous, roasted almonds, fresh cilantro and fresh mint
In a tagine: Prepare the tomato sauce according to the instructions above. Transfer it to the tagine. Add the vegetables, attach the lid and put in the oven on low temperature for at least an hour. When the vegetables feel tender, add chickpeas and raisins and let everything simmer for 5 minutes before removing it from the oven.
Serve the tagine in bowls together with cooked quinoa. Sprinkle with almonds, lemon zest and fresh spices.
Preserved lemons are a great addition to tagines and vegetable dishes, and they take just minutes – plus a few weeks' patience – to make.
The golden glow of preserved lemons will light up your kitchen and your cooking. "Make a jar," Diana Henry writes in Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons, "and you'll soon be addicted to the taste, employing them not just in Moroccan tagines but in a dish of Mediterranean vegetables, with olive oil-roasted potatoes and red onions, in bowls of bulgur wheat, couscous and pulses…" All it takes is 20 minutes of slicing and squeezing, and three or four weeks' patience.
Start by sterilizing a sturdy, easily resealed glass jar – a clip-top Kilner is perfect – for 15 minutes at 140C/275F/gas mark 1. A jar between 500ml and 1 liter in capacity is a good size to begin with. You'll also need coarse salt and what may seem like far too many unwaxed lemons – between six and seven for every half-liter. You will possibly end up with one or two left over, but you may need these for topping up later – and if you can't find a use for a spare lemon you shouldn't be in the kitchen in the first place.
Once the jar is cool enough to handle, or on its way there, wash and dry the fruit, remove any stems, and slice the lemons almost in separate quarters lengthwise, stopping just short of the stem end. The aim is to leave four pieces that are still joined over a centimetre or two.
Working over a bowl, do your best to cram a tablespoon of salt inside each fruit, placing them in the jar as you go, together with any salt that has escaped. Press them down as firmly as you can. Stop just before you reach the top, add the last bit of leftover salt and release as many air bubbles as you can. With luck, all the squeezing will have liberated enough lemon juice to comfortably cover the fruit; if not, add more before sealing the jar.
And that's pretty much all there is to it. Put the jar somewhere cool and dark for at least three weeks, upending it occasionally to redistribute the loose salt, and topping up the juice if the lemons become exposed. Once your peel is soft and ready to use, move the jar to the fridge, where the contents should keep for around a year or more.
Characteristics: hardy annual; grows 12 to 15 inches tall; green paddle-shaped leaves, thick stems sometimes with a purple tinge, small yellow flower.
Purslane has been cultivated in India and China for thousands of years and currently is grown and sold by the kilo in many European, Asian and Mexican markets. The bright green, succulent leaves of this potherb do not have much odor, while the taste is pleasant–mild, slightly herby and lemony tart. The sour lemon flavor is due to the oxalic acid present in the leaves. The texture is what takes some folks time to get used to since it is both crunchy and mucilaginous-the sliminess is off-putting to some-so I use it in ways that one doesn’t notice the texture. All aboveground parts are edible; the thick, succulent stems and leaves, and small yellow flowers can be eaten raw as a salad, mixed with other salad greens or in vegetable salads. In France it is often included in a mesclun mix. Purslane is a traditional ingredient of fattoush, a well-known Mid-eastern salad. I like it especially well with cucumbers, used in tzatziki, or with tomatoes in salad or salsa. It adds a tartness and crunch to grain, potato and pasta salads.
While I welcome this weed to volunteer in the garden, I also have grown both the golden and red portulacas, which do not get as tall and foliage isn’t as large as the naturalized plants. They all pretty much have the same taste, however the, golden purslane ‘Goldberg’ has gold-tinged leaves and sort of orange-colored stems. The red one, sold as ‘Gruner Red’ has green leaves and pinkish stems.
Purslane balks with cold weather, so wait to sow it outdoors until the soil has warmed, with daytime temps of about 80ºF. For an early start, plant seed indoors for transplanting. Choose a sunny location with enriched, well-drained soil and it should do well for you. I grow mine in the vegetable garden and use wheat straw mulch. It likes hot sun and plenty of air circulation rather than shade. Portulaca is a succulent, so it holds water in its stems and leaves. It can be fairly resistant to drought once it has been established. However, drought-like conditions will slow down growth.
Throughout the growing season, harvest center leaves and tip ends to encourage growth. Or cut the whole plant back to an inch or two above the ground, making sure to leave at least a full set or two of bottom leaves. The plant will put out new growth from the cut stems. Leaves and stems wilt quickly, so gather them into a shady basket and get them inside quickly; wash them in cold water, spin dry and refrigerate until ready to use. Use new smaller leaves for salads and large, older leaves and stems for cooking.
Growing Purslane
From Stem Cuttings
It’s not only the number of seeds it produces that makes purslane such a good spreader.
Each piece of stem can create a new plant, which makes your job as a gardener easier – or more difficult, if you find you can’t keep it under control.
To propagate from stem cuttings, use a sharp knife or scissors to cut a 6-inch-long stem from the parent plant. Remove the leaves from the bottom half.
Plant the stem in potting soil with half of the stem buried underground. Place in an area with bright, indirect light, and keep the soil moist but not waterlogged.
After a week, you should notice your cutting beginning to grow, and it should hold firm in the soil when you give it a gentle tug
At that point, it’s ready to be transplanted.
You can actually get away with cutting 1-inch pieces of the stem and burying them entirely, 1/4 inch deep directly in the garden.
In a few weeks, you’ll start to see new plants popping out of the soil. I’ve yet to have a single cutting fail when I planted them this way.
When conniving Mughal upstart Aurangzeb imprisoned his father, Emperor Shah Jehan, in Agra Fort in 1657, he told him he could choose just one thing to eat every day for the rest of his life. The old man chose chick peas because the prison cook told him he would be able to make something different every day of the year.
From their small shop in Chuna Mandi near the Imperial Cinema, Sita Ram make what many Delhi-ites believe to be the perfect Chhole Bhature. Certainly many customers, including leading industrialists and movie stars, travel great distances for their daily fix.
When we arrived at about 9am, the two or three tables outside the tiny kerbside restaurant were already buzzing with customers on their way to work. We managed to put away a plate each in no time.
Every mouthful was memorable but particularly those where I managed to cram in paneer-laced bhatura, chick peas, onion and pickled carrot, all at the same time. I strongly urge everyone to do this sometime soon and take a moment to give thanks for what’s going on in your mouth. I bet those 8 years in Agra Fort just flew by.
We spoke to fellow diner, 72 year-old Gulshan Jaggi who has been coming to the shop since 1948, often several times a week, even though he no longer lives in the neighbourhood. He maintains the Chana Bhatura is as good now as it was then, “I have tasted Chana Bhatura all over Delhi,” he said. “But here the chana is unique, very delicious. They maintain the standards set down by their ancestors.”
The Great Men of Chana
After we’d polished off a third plate, Pran Kohli, the current owner, took us through the history. His grandfather, Diwan Chand, arrived in Delhi from what is now Pakistan at the time of Partition in 1947 with little more than his recipe for Chana Bhatura. For almost 30 years, he and his son Sita Ram pushed a handcart around Paharganj before moving into their present shop in Chuna Mandi.
Pran Kohli joined the business straight from school in 1984. and has done little to alter the winning formula handed down to him – if it’s not broke, don’t fix it, I say. The secret, he says, is to treat even the most humble ingredients with respect. “This is a cheap roadside dish, but we use good quality ingredients so it’s better than others. We don’t want to compromise.” The result is food infused with love and care; a perfect combination of flavours and textures which, like all of the best street food in India, is a world-class feast.
The Recipes
Chana
Soak 1kg chick peas overnight. In the morning, boil the chick peas in fresh water for 30 minutes then add 25g bicarbonate of soda (according to Pran Kohli this speeds up the softening of the chick peas and aids digestion)
Brown 300g chopped onion in oil or ghee. Add 200g yogurt, 200g chopped tomatoes and 1tsp turmeric. Cook on a low heat for about one hour until the mixture is a deep reddish colour. When the chick peas are ready, drain off the cooking water and mix with the tomato and onion gravy. Add 20g salt, 20g black pepper, 30g dried pomegranate powder (anardana) and 15g garm masala – Sita Ram Diwan Chand’s mix, which they make themselves, contains black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, mace, coriander, cumin and something called ‘sud’ which I haven’t found a translation of yet). Mix well and add 200g potatoes made as follows:
For 1 kg cooked potatoes, chop 200g onion and cook in oil with 200g chopped tomatoes and 1tsp turmeric to make a gravy then add 10g salt, 10g black pepper, 5g red chilli powder, 25g dried pomegranate powder and 20g garm masala. Cook the gravy until masala is roasted.
Bhatura
Bhatura
Mix 1kg plain flour (maida) and 1tsp baking powder with approximately 400g water (enough to make a soft dough). Knead well for 7-10 minutes or until dough is soft and springy. Put in a bowl and leave, covered with damp tea towel for at least one and a half hours.
For the bhatura stuffing, finely chop 300g of paneer and add 10g salt, 5g cumin seeds, 5g garm masala, 5g black pepper, 10g chopped fresh coriander. Press a handful of stuffing into each small ball of dough before rolling out and frying.
Sita Ram Diwan Chand’s Chana Bhatura comes with slices of onion and pickled vegetables (carrot when we visited but varies according to the season) and both play an important part in creating a perfect combination of flavours.
pickled carrots
Pickled Carrot
Wash and cut up 1kg of carrot into long chunks and steep for a few days in 2 litres of ‘sour water’ (water containing 25g black mustard seed, 10g salt, 5g turmeric). Wash the carrots, add 10g salt, 5g red chilli and mix well.
