Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow

This morning I had my heart set on making pecan pie. This is not the sort of dessert my angelheart Eric would have expected on his birthday (he is of the group of humans who either wants chocolate in a dessert dish, cake or ice cream - and, often, both), but the chill in the air begged to be buffered by the richness of this buttery-tasting nut, with additional depth provided by a good Canadian or Vermont maple syrup (my preference is for the dark amber syrups). Of course, today, I could not find pecans anywhere. And in the course of shopping, I was presented with another problem - forget the cake for now, what about lunch?

Recently Lucy of Nourish Me asked her readers what they tucked into their weekday lunchboxes. This morning, a Saturday, the very same question struck me. While I do not have to worry about the constraints of a lunch box or other vessel to take to the office, I could technically make anything. That thought is overwhelming to my somewhat rigid (selectively flexible) nature - parameters are nice at times.

The luxury of weekend lunches, though, is that one has the time to cook, if he or she chooses. But what to cook? I did not really feel like cooking for any great length of time, and I had it fixed in my mind that I would not just pick something from the fridge or grab something ready to go from a bakery or delicatessen either (I'm bloody difficult at times, I know). I wandered the market aimlessly, thrown off by not achieving the only plan I had for this morning (to find pecan nuts). I halted in front of a display of shiny capsicums (bell peppers).

I love the solanaceae family, not only because the members of its clan have the coolest names in the botanical world (datura and deadly nightshade - the belladonna genus is the deadliest of the bunch with high levels of alkaloids) but because the plants that are edible produce either fruit (like capsicums, aubergines and tomatoes) or berries (such as wolfberry) - and you know of my looooooooovvvve for aubergines.

I do not like capsicums in their raw state, say in a standard salad offering, but cooked in any fashion, they impart a smoky and sweet quality to any dish. It was only a few weeks ago that I made a Moroccan salad of roasted capsicums and tomatoes (Chakchouka), and I suddenly felt like having it again. I decided on a shortcut to get around roasting the capsicums; thus, I could also work on my version of hummus - and the two would be combined in a warm pita pocket.

Stir-Fried Capsicums, Tomatoes and Capers
(adapted from the recipe for Chakchouka in Kitty Morse and Danielle Mamane's The Scent of Orange Blossoms)

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 capsicums, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tomatoes, peeled and coarsely diced
1 teaspoon sumac
1 teaspoon capers, rinsed
salt
pepper

1) In a saute pan over medium-high heat, warm up the olive oil, then add the capsicum slices.
2) When the capsicum has softened, add the garlic.
3) When the garlic is fragrant but has not coloured, add the tomatoes (the point is to warm them through).
4) Let the sumac hit the bottom of the pan for a few seconds before turning it into the other ingredients.
5) When the capsicum slices have completely softened, take the pan off the heat, add the capers and season the dish with salt and pepper

With respect to the portions of ingredients, think one capsicum and one tomato per person. The presence of sumac should be subtle, adding a slight citrus spike to the capsicum and tomatoes, heightened by the capers. Using this recipe as a stand-alone salad is a great possibility for busy gatherings, for it is traditionally served at room temperature, which allows you to get on with other things.


My version of hummus is a combination of recipes for Hummus Habb (chickpea puree) and Hummus bi Tahini (chickpea puree with tahina). It is a cinch to make and preferable to many prepared ones because the fresh citrus juice is allowed to sing beautifully, accenting the richness of the puree. Also, I have found no significant difference in making hummus from scratch with chickpeas in their raw state and soaked overnight to making it from chickpeas in a can.



Hummus
(Adapted from recipes for Hummus Habb and Hummus bi Tahini in Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food)

450g canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 teaspoon cumin, ground
1 large clove garlic, minced
juice of half a lemon
1/4 cup tahina (a paste made from hulled sesame seeds)
salt
pepper
1/3 cup warm water
3 tablespoons olive oil, approximately

1) In a blender mix the above ingredients. The liquid is to encourage the puree to become creamy. If you find the above liquid measurements do not work for you, add more olive oil (or argan oil). Add seasoning or more lemon juice to your liking.

Slice a warm pita such that you create a pita pocket, slather the internal walls with Hummus, and fill with the stir-fried goodies. Each mouthful should be warm and rich. While an incredible stomach-filler, the acidic and salty additions clear the way and encourage continued bites until one has had too much (I had two and could not bear a light dinner until very late). While this is the perfect lazy, weekend lunch for me, I hope it is not too long before I can satisfy my sweet tooth with a great pecan pie. Bring on Autumn!

(And happy birthday to my angelheart Eric.)

Labels: Capers, Capsicums, Chickpeas, Hummus, Tomatoes

Not to be confused with Hummus, Hummas is a Morrocan dish of chickpeas, turmeric and parsley (or coriander, or a mixture of both). I feel that I will be spending the next month or so informing myself of Moroccan cooking. The timing could not be better, for February is often a very warm and humid month in Auckland, and what mostly appeals to me about Moroccan food is that it is spicy but not terribly hot. This post also serves two purposes, as I not only try the combination of turmeric and parsley, but I also submit it to my good friend Susan's food event, My Legume Love Affair.

Chickpeas (also known as garbanzo beans) are grown all over the world, specifically in the Mediterranean, Western Asia and throughout India. I have made good use of them as the key protein in vegetarian curries, finding that they are ultra luxurious when coated with a thick sauce. Nutritionally, there are many benefits but most interesting is that fact that chickpeas are high in folate, which is a B vitamin necessary for creating serotonin (which makes us happy and assists in liver regeneration, amongst other things, and in this respect amongst other properties, chickpeas are also similar to spinach - no wonder I feel so good after eating both!).

In Moroccan cuisine, chickpeas are used in many a dish, most importantly Harira, a soup that is eaten to break the fasting day in the month of Ramadan. Chickpeas also feature in couscous recipes, which are probably the most familiar of Moroccan cuisine.

Turmeric is part of the ginger family, and its rhizomes are boiled and then dried in ovens before being ground into the marigold-coloured spice with which we are familiar. It is incredibly aromatic and has a mildly bitter, peppery flavour and smells like mustard. Often it is used as a colouring agent in food, but in this recipe, it not only imparts its gorgeous colouring, it also adds warmth and plays with the sweet onions and parsley, bringing out a somewhat unexpected character...

Turmeric is the only spice in this recipe, so the freshest you can find will be best. If you are going to use dried chickpeas, they first need to be soaked overnight (actually, for any recipe, you have to soak dried chickpeas in advance of preparing them). If you are using canned chickpeas, ensure that they are drained before use.

Hummas
(from Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 1/2 cups chickpeas (to be soaked overnight) or 600g/21oz of canned chickpeas
salt
pepper
1 cup parsley, chopped

1) In a large pan, heat oil and fry the onion.
2) Add garlic and stir.
3) Stir in the turmeric.
4) Add chickpeas and turn them in the onion.
5) Cover with water and simmer for 15-20 minutes if using drained chickpeas from a can. If using dried chickpeas that have been soaked then drained, simmer for 1 1/4 hours.
6) Add salt and pepper only after the chickpeas have begun to soften.
7) Add water to keep chickpeas covered, if necessary.
8) Once the chickpeas are tender, reduce the liquid until it becomes a thick sauce, approximately 20 minutes over a medium heat.
9) Stir in the parsley and cook for five more minutes.

Hummas is really what one eats when the fridge and pantry are bare, and in Morocco, it is considered a food of the poor that it is stretched by often being served with hot bread. Ms. Roden writes that this dish can be cooked using saffron instead of turmeric (and even though the two do not taste at all similar, they impart a golden colour); it can then be served as a first course. I was most surprised by the faint gingery notes because the spice smells more like mustard than it does ginger. It plays beautifully with the caramelised onions and fresh parsley, toning down the flavours of both with its warmth.

Labels: Chickpeas, Claudia Roden, Moroccan, Turmeric

This is a "kill two birds with one stone" post (never literally...after all, one uses a rifle to kill pheasant, not a slingshot). I have only ever used chickpeas either in hummus or in a Tyler Florence contorni whereby chickpeas comingle languorously on the stovetop with cauliflower, tomatoes, ginger, curry powder, and coriander (from Eat This Book: Cooking with Global Fresh Flavors). I felt it was time for me to update my repertoire. Also, it has been remiss of me not to participate in Ruth's weekly blog event Presto Pasta Nights.

This post is also a bit of a lesson. Though I have not yet acquired vast experience in the kitchen, I have developed some sensory awareness that was previously veiled (more like shut and locked away; there was a time when I actually did not want anything to do with the kitchen because it seemed most people I knew had a knack of pulling things off, and all I ever constructed was tantamount to a series of disasters). The recipe that I chose to follow looked enticing, but I never really thought about what was going into it. All I wanted to do was to use chickpeas a different way and to make a pasta dish at the same time. In hindsight, the two do not belong together, or at least not in this form.

Before this experience, I had never used a Jamie Oliver recipe, and I am not going to bite his ear off. I have to take the blame for this. I amended two details right off the mark - because I was not making a meat dish, I opted for vegetable stock instead of chicken stock, and I used small seashell pasta instead of ditalini. Combined, this is perhaps where I went wrong because the pasta and chickpeas absorbed most of the stock, requiring the addition of boiling water from the kettle (Mr. Oliver advises this might be necessary in the recipe), but there is not enough flavor in a vegetable stock. I mean, the point of vegetable stock is to be a light background note in a soup with a suspicion of the vegetables used to make it (i.e. I don't think you are meant to be able to recognize its constituent parts). This lent uninspiring blandness to the soup. Additionally, the chosen pasta may have absorbed more of the liquid on account of its greater surface size, but it does not really look that much bigger than ditalini. Now I am getting ahead of myself...

Pasta e Ceci
(From Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Italy)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 stick celery, trimmed and finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 sprig of fresh rosemary, leaves finely chopped
2 450g/14oz cans of chickpeas, drained well and rinsed in water
2 1/4 cups vegetable stock (Mr. Oliver suggests chicken stock)
100g/3 1/2oz small seashell pasta (Mr. Oliver prefers ditalini)
sea salt
black pepper, freshly ground

1) Into a saucepan on your lowest setting, put the olive oil, onion, celery, garlic, and rosemary. Cover and cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally (the aromas coming out of the pot when stirring are redolent of Spring, sadly not a harbinger of things to come).
2) When the vegetables are soft, toss in the chickpeas and cover with stock.
3) Cook for 40 minutes, still on a very gentle heat. (Mr. Oliver says 30 minutes, but in my experiece that was not sufficient time for the chickpeas to soften.)
4) Remove half of the chickpeas with a slotted spoon and put aside.
5) Blitz the soup, add it back into the pot followed by the whole chickpeas that were reserved.
6) Add the pasta and season with salt and pepper. Before adding the pasta, make sure the chickpeas are on the verge of being soft (but not mushy).
7) Once the pasta is cooked, check the water level. If the soup is too thick for your liking, add water from a recently boiled kettle.
8) Season as you please with additional salt and pepper and throw in some parsley or basil if you have some handy.

There is bland liquid somewhere in this soup, I assure you! It was not until I took my first bite that I realized all I would taste was starch. Of course. I thought at the outset that the pasta and chickpeas are both neutral ingredients needing a lot of help to eek out flavor. They both act as vessels for flavor, neither one imparting much of their own. This is a great dish if you have a cold and cannot taste anything or if you want fiber without eating spinach. Perhaps this would have been a treat, as Jamie Oliver calls it, had I followed his instructions directly, but if I just wanted an awesome broth, I would have been better off making chicken stock and knaidlach for matzo ball soup.

Sorry for the uninspiring debut, Ruth!

Labels: Chickpeas, Jamie Oliver, Pasta, Presto Pasta Nights