Wednesday 14 April 2010

Carrot & lentil soup


I have always carrots in my fridge and I must admit that my favourite soup and favourite cake are made of carrots..today is not a cake day, but instead I thought of making some soup. In fact not only "some", but in quite a large quantity, because there were so many "old" carrots in the fridge and yesterday came the organic food circle staff, including also carrots.
I thought of being creative and looking for a new recipe, but I just got lost on websites like The Carrot Museum, so after all I just picked up the good old recipe for carrot and lentil soup..originally it's from the Vegan's Cookbook (Vegaanin kasviskeittokirja), which I have had for years, but I have also made my own variations of it. Today I made it like this :)

1 big onion
a small piece of ginger (+chili, curry, garlic)
1 turnip (or 2-3 potatoes)
4-5 carrots (depends on the size, mine were huge)
2 dl red lentils
1 dl grated coconut
vegetable stock (e.g. vegetable stock cube or 1 tsp vegetable stock powder)
water
oil
salt, pepper

Chop the onion and fry it in a drop of oil. Add finely chopped ginger (and fresh chili, curry and/or garlic if you like). Chop the turnip and carrots into rather small pieces and add to the kettle. Add enough water to cover the vegetables and the stock cube or stock powder and cook for some 10-15 minutes. Add lentils and grated coconut and let it simmer until all the vegetables and lentils are soft. Whizz with a stick blender or food processor until smooth, season to taste. Enjoy with warm bread.

You can make a huge portion of this soup and freeze it - it tastes better that the ready-made portions from the supermarket :)

Thursday 8 April 2010

Baci di dama


Right now I'm involved in a translation project, which takes a lot of time and effort, but it's also nice: translating cookie recipes from all around the world :) I was working on Italian recipes yesterday: I had chosen amaretti, cantuccini and baci di dama. I was very inspired by the website of Sonia Peronaci called Giallo Zafferano (Yellow Saffron) - great recipes, clear pictures and videos, good layout..well, too bad that it's available only in Italian! Maybe the pictures help to cook and bake even if the text would be incomprehensible? :)

I just tried for the first time the baci di dama cookies and that's indeed a very good recipe, but takes some time..so don't try to make these if you are in a hurry!

I read here that they come originally from a Piemontese town called Tortona, where they have been created 1893 in Pasticceria di Zanotti, and ever since they have used the same recipe and same form for the cookies that indeed look like kissing lips :)

Baci di dama (40-50 cookies)

Ingredients:

200 g hazelnuts or almonds
200 + 20 g plain flour
20 g (1,5 tbsp) cacao powder
200g butter
200 g sugar
for the filling 200 g dark chocolate (I used around 130g plate, which was enough)

Preheat the oven to 180 C and roast the nuts or almonds for 10 minutes, let cool. Mince them in a food processor with 2 tbsp of sugar, then mix in a bowl with 200 g of flour. Divide the flour mix into two bowls and add 20 g or 1,5 tbsp of cacao powder to one bowl, 20 g or 1,5 tbsp flour to another bowl, mix well. Add 100 g of butter to both of the doughs - I added also a drop of water because the dough was dry and crumbling. After having formed two even balls of dough, chill them in fridge for at least 30 minutes. Roll the chilled doughs into long bars and cut them into evenly small pieces. Roll the pieces into small balls and place them on baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes in 180 C, let cool.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a kettle of simmering water. Fill the bacis with a drop of chocolate. Place them on a plate and let cool in a fridge before serving them.

I'll bring them to my Italian group tonight, I hope they will like them, too!

Sunday 4 April 2010

Easter food


I have been spending my Easter at my parents' as usual, and cooking some vegetarian food for myself and my family :) Here's some good stuff I tried for the 1st time: the whole family had as a starter hallomi salad with citrus fruits and some home-made herb baguette. As a main course they had some meat and I had Indian tarka dhal and potatoes. Tasty!

This recipe is originally from the Finnish household magazine (Pirkka 4/2010) but as I saw after a little searching, there are many recipes for making a halloumi salad. Halloumi, salty hard cheese from Cyprus, is really delicious when grilled and it doesn't melt too much, as feta does. This is worth giving a try, everyone liked it!

Halloumi salad with citrus fruits (5 servings)

1 grapefruit
1 orange
1 yellow bell pepper
150 g thin green beans
250 g halloumi cheese
lettuce (in the original recipe 150 g ready-made package, but I used just chopped iceberg salad, around 200-300 g)
1 dl mixed seeds (pumkin, sunflower, sesam seed, roast if you like)
(pea sprouts)

Dressing
0,5 dl olive oil
2 tbsp balsamico vinegar
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp mustard
a pinch of salt
a pinch of black pepper

Peel and section the grapefruit and the orange with a sharp knife, remove the white membranes between the segments. Cut them into small pieces. Chop the bell pepper. Boil the beans in hot water for some minutes and let cool. Tear the lettuce into small pieces. Chop the halloumi into small slices and fry on a pan in a drop of olive oil.
Mix all the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl or a jar and shake well. Place on a big platter the lettuce, citrus fruits, bell pepper and drizzle the dressing on it. Place the halloumi on top of the salad and decorate with some seeds (and pea sprouts, if you like). Serve immediately.

Very often during the Christmas and Easter meals I end up eating some sort of a "meatloaf" made of red lentils and vegetables, but now I wanted to turn the usual red lentils into something else. I searched for a dhal recipe, because I like the savoury, subtle taste of the Indian dish - or is it Indian, as I can find recipes of it also on Pakistani, Nepali and Bangladeshi websites..? Well, it seems to be most of the time a side dish, but it worked just fine as a main course too :)

I took the recipe from Indian Snacks:

Tarka dhal (1-2 servings as a main dish, 3-5 as side dish)

1/2 cup red split lentils
3 cup water
1 teaspoon level salt
1 small onion chopped
3 cloves garlic finely chopped
4 tablespoon melted ghee (or just oil)
1 pinch turmeric
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1 small tomato
2 teaspoon chopped coriander


Check the lentils for stones and wash them in several changes of water or until the water starts to run clear. Put the lentils into a saucepan with the water and salt and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and simmer uncovered for around 10-20 minutes - at least my lentils are soft quicker that in the original recipe. At the end of boiling you should have a pale mashy mixture.

While the dal is cooking fry the onion and garlic in the ghee until the onions are pale brown. Be careful not to burn the garlic as this will add a bad flavour to the dish. Add the turmeric and garam masala to the onions and cook for a few more seconds.

Stir the onion mixture into the cooked lentils. Serve hot sprinkled with chopped tomato and green coriander.

I ate this with smashed potatoes instead of usual rice, a good combination with the salad :)