Category Archives: chickpeas, kidney beans and other legumes

Tunisian Chickpea Stew

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This is my version of Tunisian chickpea stew but what do I know- I’ve never been to Tunisia nor do I have any Tunisian friends. But the flavors are from the region and it’s quick and delicious.

1 cup chickpeas (soaked overnight and pressure cooked for 15 minutes)

1 14 oz can tomatoes (whole tomatoes puréed)

Aromatics- half an onion and half a red pepper chopped into inch cubes, 1/2 preserved lemon, 8 or so olives, parsley, 2 garlic cloves

Spices: 1 tbsp Harissa paste (I have the Trader Joe’s version) , 1 tsp cumin seeds and 1 tsp cumin powder

Heat 1-2 tbsp of olive oil, add 1 tsp of cumin seeds, let them sputter, add onions and peppers. Cook on high heat for 4-5 minutes till they brown slightly. Add 1 tbsp of harissa paste and the cumin powder, cook for a minute. Add chickpeas and salt.

While the onions are cooking, blitz the tomatoes, olives, preserved lemons and garlic in a blender. Add to chickpeas in pan.

Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes. Add parsley- serve with any grain or couscous or pasta.

Bean Broth

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Bean Broth: My recipe for the best bean broth. Use it for minestrone, a fantastic gravy base and everywhere you would use stock. It’s great plain with just rice or any other grain as the base for a brothy grain bowl. This has the mouthfeel of a meat stock, it’s the garlic and the bean liquid that make it thick. For the gravy- just add a roux.

1 cup soaked red kidney beans

2.5 cups water with 1 tsp better than bouillon vegetable base (or 2.5 cups vegetable stock) and 1 tsp salt (less if your stock has salt)

1 tbsp olive oil

4-5 cloves of garlic crushed

Heat oil, add garlic, after 1 minute, add beans and stock. Pressure cook on high for 15 min (I use my cuisinart). If you don’t have a pressure cooker, it will take 45 minutes on the stove top.

Amti (Dal) and Dumplings

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I’ve lived in the South for a long time and despite all the many many problems I faced there, I do love Southern food. Chicken and dumplings used to be a favorite. Here is my attempt to “vegetarianize”  this dish. In doing so, I have also “Indianized” it.

Dal Dhokli is a Gujarati dish with spiced dal and peanuts and noodle like dumplings (besan or gram flour and whole wheat flour and spices without any leavening). It is delicious but fluffy biscuit like dumplings work so much better with the dal than the traditional dhokli. This dish is my version of Dal Dhokli.

The base is a Maharashtrian Amti  which uses goda masala (a Maharashtrian blend – I’ll post the recipe as soon as my  mother sends it to me).  Maharashtrian food is always a blend of salt/sugar (jaggery), fat, spices(goda masala, ginger) and acid (tamarind). This is common knowledge and it may be the reason that I am the only person in the world unimpressed by Samin Nosrat (who missed the spice and the sugar entirely).

The flavored spicy dal, the pillowy biscuit like dumplings and the ghee on top- this was such a comforting dish on the coldest day in the Midwest in a generation.

Amti:

Dal : Toor Dal-  cook 1 cup of Dal with 2 cups of water and 1 tsp of salt for 10 minutes on high pressure ( I use my electric Cuisinart pressure cooker)

Tempering: Heat 2 tbsp of vegetable oil, add 1 tsp of mustard seeds, heat till they sputter- then add 2 pinches of asafetida, 1 tsp of turmeric, 2 large red dried chillies and 4-5 curry leaves.

Add Dal and 2 cups of vegetable broth ( I use better than bouillon) and 1/2 cup of uncooked peanuts.

Add the flavorings: 1-2 tbsp of crushed or finely chopped ginger, 4-6 tbsp of tamarind paste (the quantity will depend on your tamarind paste consistency and dilution),  4-6 tbsp of grated jaggery (use dark brown sugar if you don’t have jaggery) and 1 tbsp of goda masala.

Taste for salt and spice (add chilli powder for additional heat) and boil for 10 minutes

Dumplings:

I used an Alton Brown recipe for chicken and dumplings (From his brilliant book I’ll be Here for more food ) with some modifications. This uses a “biscuit method”. Handle the dough as little as possible.

Dry ingredients: 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 tsp goda masala, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 2 tsp baking soda, 1/8 tsp baking soda

Cut 2 tbsp of very cold butter into the flour till butter is at pea sized pieces

Add 1/2 cup of buttermilk (or 1/2 cup of milk with 1/2 tsp of vinegar) and mix till dough just barely comes together. Use a bench scraper to section dough into 12 parts. Roll gently into balls

Drop dumplings into dal and cook on a gentle simmer for 15 minutes giving the dumplings an occasional stir every 5 minutes

Serving: This is important! Serve with 1 tsp of ghee (heat unsalted butter till the frothing subsides and you have ghee) and cilantro.

 

A Brothy Rice Bowl

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Part soup, part rice bowl, with a different flavor in each bite, the ingredients make fantastic leftovers. The chickpeas were from dinner the day before. The rest of the meal prep and cooking took less than half hour.

The broth is inspired by a Spanish garlic soup recipe, the bean broth and the garlic and vegetable base make for a very unctuous broth- this is equal to chicken stock in flavor and consistency- very good. The toppings are inspired by the Korean bibimap- I kind of like the idea of everything in one bowl rather than the Indian way of keeping all your food items separate.

This is a no-recipe recipe.

Rice: Mixed brown and black rice

Broth: Heat 1 tbsp olive oil, add 5 large garlic cloves, add 1 cup of soaked red kidney beans (soaked for 24 hours) and add water to your pressure cooker 1-2 inches above the soaked beans. Add 1-2 tsp of better than bouillon vegetable stock base. Pressure cook for 15 minutes on high

Chickpeas: Pressure cook 1 cup of soaked chickpeas wiht 1/2 tsp of baking soda for 15 minutes on high. Drain chickpeas, add tahini sauce (1 clove crushed garlic, 3 tbsp tahini, juice of 2 limes, 4-5 tbsp olive oil, salt), crush slightly with back of spoon. Add some chickpea cooking liquid. The chickpeas need to be very very soft for this dish to work . This is basically whole-chickpea hummus.

Green beans: Heat 1 tbsp oil, add 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1 dried red chilli. Add green beans, add a it of water, cook till tender (around 6-7 minutes). Salt.

In a bowl, add some rice, ladle some broth and beans  add green beans and chickpeas. Enjoy

 

Artichoke and Chickpea Tagine

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This is a recipe modified from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. All vegetarians should have a copy of this book- it is foolproof!!.

I love artichokes but I hate fiddling with the spiky fibrous vegetable to get at the delicious heart in the center. I find these fresh artichoke hearts (Montrerey farms) at Whole Foods occasionally and when I do- I always buy 5-6 packets and freeze the rest. The flavor is exactly the same as a freshly steamed and cleaned artichoke- never watery, always delicious. I used green olives rather than the oil cured black olives Deborah Madison recommends- I’d suggest using the black olives if you have them, they add so much more flavor in these stewed dishes.

Tagine is a Moroccon dish of slowly stewed covered meat- this vegetarian version cooks much quicker and the artichokes absorb all the flavors beautifully

Ingredients:

1 packet  herbal artichoke hearts (6oz)

1 large onion- and 2 large bell peppers- 1/2 inch diced

15 oz of chickpeas (either canned or pressure cooked for 15 minutes after an overnight soak)

3 tbsp olive oil

Flavorings: 12 olives finely chopped, 1 preserved lemon finely chopped, 1 tbsp parsley, 1 tbsp cilantro

Spices: 1 tbsp Harissa paste  (1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp ground black pepper, 1/4 tsp caraway seeds, 1/4 tsp turmeric, 11/2 tsp ground red chilli powder, 1 tbsp tomato paste) and 1 pinch saffron threads (ground into a powder).

Heat oil- add onion and peppers and cook till translucent and slightly browned. Add spices or harissa. Add artichokes and saffron and cook for another 2 minutes. Add chickpeas, olives, lemon, cilantro, parsley and 2 cups of water. Simmer for 15-25 minutes till all veggies are completely tender.

Serve over couscous with chermoula sauce (4 coarsely chopped garlic cloves. 2/3 c cilantro finely chopped, 1/3 cup parsley finely chopped, zest of 1 lemon and juice of 2 lemons, 1/2 tsp cumin, pinch of cayenne pepper, 1 tsp sweet paprika, 1/2 tsp sugar and 1/3 cup olive oil). The chermoula keeps well in the refrigerator for 1-2 weeks.

Chole

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Chole is a spiced chickpea dish that is ubiquitous in India. They say there are as many chole recipes as there are North-Indian families. I’m not North Indian and I’ve been searching for a good chole recipe for a long time.

This variation of a recipe by “your food lab”- the Tasty videos of India (link below) comes very close to what I think are perfect chole. A trip to the Indian store for the spices is essential. I had to buy the Chana masala (I got the MDH brand).

Pressure cook- on high for 30 min

1 cup chickpeas soaked for 24 hours- drained

In a tea ball or cheesecloth – 1 tsp peppercorns, 3-4 cloves, 1-2 Black cardamon pods, 2 bay leaves, 1 inch cinnamon

2 tea bags

4 cloves garlic – crushed

½ cup onions- sliced

1 tsp ajwain (carom seeds)

1 tsp baking soda

Add 2 quarts of water

In a pan:

Melt 2-3 tbsp butter

Add 3 tbsp of Chana masala and 2 tbsp of cumin-coriander powder

Cook for 3 min or so

Add 1 can of tomatoes – puréed

1tbsp of ginger

Cook for 10 min or so

Add pressure cooked chickpeas with their water (removing the tea bags and the spice bouquet)

Cook for 20 minutes

Stir in 1 tsp of amchur powder (dried mango powder) and 1 tsp of garam masala and 1 tbsp of kasuri methi (crushed fenugreek)

Salt to taste – this recipe needs a lot of salt

Garnish: raw onions, chopped preserved lemon, slivers of garlic

Serve with roti or naan or rice or griddled multigrain pizza dough (store bought) which tastes a lot like naan except its whole grain.

https://m.facebook.com/yourfoodlab/posts/2002122406771755/