Tag Archives: nigella

Indian Potatoes Crush

Indian food…mmmm! I admit I have a crush. And it’s actually a crush on spices and enhanced flavors that I’m infatuated about. Although my eyes haven’t dropped on any reliable health claim on the methods of heating up the spices, my experience is that as long as it’s not oil & starch overloaded and of course, not in big quantities (which can be a bit tricky due to the typical thali ‘refill’ 🙂 traditional Indian food feels good in the body.

So let’s have a look at how spices can add up to such a common dish as potatoes.

First of all, any introduction to Indian cooking involves getting acquainted to chillies, onion, garlic, ginger, coconut & a lot of whole and ground spices. And subsequently to frying them at high heat in a drop of oil (not always, but most usual). The order in the pan starts with the tougher spices (cinnamon bark, star anise, cloves, black pepper, dried red chillies), followed by the seeds (mustard, cumin, fennel, coriander, nigella, etc) so by the time they start popping, they can all be incorporated with the onions (together with fresh chillies, garlic, ginger and so on). One must pay a lot of attention not to burn the spices, at least until the onions step in. The last ones to come are the ground spices, the powders (turmeric, cumin, coriander, different masalas, etc)

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Once you develop the skills, you can start playing 🙂 Here I used a combination of black mustard, cumin, fennel & nigella seeds with chilly flakes, onions, ground turmeric and cumin. When the base was getting ready – the onions turning yellowish – I added the new potatoes, previously halved and boiled in salted turmeric water. Cook everything together for another 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Now bring some European touch to it 😛 chop some fresh coriander, spinach or spring onions and peel some carrot slices to balance the taste and make it look even better!

list of ingredients

  • (new) potatoes
  • onions
  • mustard seeds
  • nigella seeds
  • fennel seeds
  • chilly flakes (fresh ones as well)
  • ground turmeric
  • ground cumin
  • cooking oil
  • salt
  • fresh coriander/ spinach/ spring onions/ carrot

Hummus + Tabbouleh = Love

Who doesn’t love hummus? This middle eastern creamy stuff makes everybody lick their fingers in amazement. And of course it goes perfect with his sister salad, the juicy tabbouleh.

P1080241After experimenting with different ways of preparing these dishes, I arrived at these basic rules:

1. the hummus

– forget about making hummus if you don’t have tahina (sesame cream) – you should always add it in generous amount – as well as a good quality olive oil

– part of the secret resides in how you boil the chickpeas. first of all, do it yourself: canned stuff won’t hold a tad of your energy :))

– always soak the chickpeas overnight (the more the better) and preferably boil it over the pressure cooker. add salt and whole spices for enhanced flavor

– keep the water in which they boiled handy and add it progressively during the preparation until you get a fluffy texture

– play around with spices: cumin, garlic, zatar, sumac, nigella seeds; I always choose to add ground cumin or crushed garlic into the composition, whereas I keep the other spices as add-ons

– balance the taste with enough lemon juice and salt, otherwise your hummus will turn out too heavy (it’s a pretty heavy dish anyway!)

– use a high power blender or your immersion blender to get the right texture; it can take in plenty of liquid (the chickpeas water & lemon juice) but make sure it doesn’t turn too watery. i’ve discovered that adding red lentils (around a quarter of the whole quantity of chickpeas) will help a lot in achieving a soft fluffy hummus.

2. the tabbouleh

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– the main ingredients should be: parsley, tomato, (cucumber), red onion, bulgur (cracked wheat), olive oil, pomegranate juice/concentrate or lemon juice

– depending on your taste, you can decide upon the quantity of each one; however, the main one is parsley and you should use it abundantly (especially because the citric acid contained in the pomegranate/lemon juice will half the initial quantity you started with)

– don’t add too much salt or you risk loosing the unique sweet & sour flavor of the salad

– alternatively, you can use buckwheat instead of bulgur. even cauliflower rice works out well, but then it’s something else than the original 🙂

– garnish it with pomegranate seeds or some nice olives

And if you don’t have bread – a good homemade bread or pita – try for once to have the hummus on spinach leaves. It could look like this 🙂

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Or you can simply go for your favorite salad as a side dish

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list of ingredients

1. hummus

  • chickpeas – soaked overnight and boiled until tender
  • tahina
  • olive oil
  • lemon juice
  • salt

optional:

  • cumin, garlic, zatar, sumac, nigella seeds

2. tabbouleh

  • parsley
  • tomatoes
  • (cucumber)
  • onion
  • bulgur / buckwheat
  • olive oil
  • lemon juice/pomegranate juice or concentrate (careful at the preservatives inside!)

optional:

  • pomegranate seeds
  • olives