The Accidental Vegetarian - Sweet Potato Bhaji

Never having heard of bhaji myself before I found them in the fast food isle of a supermarket, perhaps a little introduction is in order. Bhaji are Indian deep-fried onion & vegetable balls that you can eat as a snack or accompaniment to curry dishes. They're a little fatty (yum), and the supermarket version can be very dull, but when you make them yourself they're absolutely amazing. As always, this is my own interpretation, making it the simplest dish to cook, with very limited equipment needed.

The bhaji mixture and I.

Ingredients (for 12 bhaji)
1 sweet potato
1 onion
1 ten centimetre piece of fresh ginger
125 grams of self-raising flour
100 ml. cold water
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground coriander
500 ml of sunflower oil

Grate the sweet potato and ginger. If you don't have a box grater (somehow mine was misplaced during our move) just chop up the ingredients really finely. Finely slice the onion. Put all this in a large bowl and add the spices. Mix. Now add the self-raising flour and mix again. Slowly add the water, in three or four attempts, mixing carefully after each measure is added and testing the doughy mixture. Stop adding water as soon as you can shape little balls of the mixture between two tablespoons.

Heat up the sunflower oil in a wok or deep frying pan. It needs to be about 180 degrees centigrade for the bhajis to form so wait a while. Test the oil is hot by adding a piece of sweet potato and testing if it comes up bubbling right away. Once the oil is hot, shape the little balls between tablespoons and add as many of them as will fit comfortably in your pan (mine held about 6). Turn the balls after about 2 minutes and take the balls out as soon as they're golden and crispy on all sides. Put on a plate with some kitchen towels to soak up the extra oil. Enjoy, but be careful, they're hot!

Quick Spiced Egg Noodle Soup

Remember the Indonesian spiced eggs? I was feeling peckish yesterday so I made four, two to eat right on the spot and two to keep in the fridge. Today I found out what you can do with any spiced eggs leftovers by improvising the following simple soup.

Ingredients
1 Indonesian spiced egg
2 tbsp of the sauce these eggs are cooked in
The green bits of 1 spring onion, finely sliced
1/2 a chili, finely sliced
A tiny piece of ginger (half a centimeter, tops), finely sliced
1 nest of medium egg noodles
1/2 a vegetable stock cube

Boil some water. Put the (hard) egg noodles and stock cube in a bowl and add the water. Add the egg and its juice. Sprinkle over the spring onion, chili and ginger. Wait until the noodles have softened up (that takes about 5 minutes) and eat. Enjoy!

Refried Beans

I am not Mexican and have never been in Mexico. The only reasons I would be vaguely interested in Mexican cooking in the first place are twofold: first, my interest in tequila, and second, my memories of going to a Mexican restaurant which shares my name in my family's tiny Dutch home town. Both tequila and the restaurant's dishes were delicious enough to convince me to by a book on Mexican cooking a few weeks ago (Thomasina Miers' Mexican Food Made Simple, which you can buy here). So far I've tried my hand at two dishes: refried beans and quesadilas filled with said refried beans and cheese. Both were delicious! I'll give you the recipe for refried beans here. They were amazingly simple.

Ingredients
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 red chili
4 dried bay leaves
1 tbsp chopped coriander roots
(A tin of) 400 grams black beans, including their juice
50 grams butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Smash the beans in their juice with a fork until you get a paste-like structure (or use a food processor if you don't mind the extra washing up). Chop the onion and garlic finely, slice the chili thinly. Melt the butter over a high heat until it starts to bubble up. Add the onion and bay leaves and sweat until the onions are soft (about 10 minutes). Add the garlic, coriander roots and chili. Turn the heat low. Add the smashed beans, continually stirring. Season well. Let this simmer until the bean mixture has less moisture in it (the book recommends waiting until it easily falls of the back of a wooden spoon).

You can serve the beans as a dip with tortilla chips and some creme fraiche. And tequila!

The Best Sandwich

My friend and I had a little tradition going: two years in a row, we made a High Tea for Towel Day, thinking both Tea and Douglas Adams the Penultimate of Britishness. For our first get-together, I made this sandwich and it's been on my menu ever since, even though I suspect it's actually more typically American. People seem impressed - but it's simple food to cook.

Ingredients

1 avocado

Leftover roast chicken meat (dark and white, about 1 chicken breast's worth; or 1 cooked chicken breast)

100 grams thick smoked bacon
Mayonnaise

Freshly ground pepper

Good bread (I like this on multi-grain bread or bread with sesame seeds)

Fry the bacon until crispy (you don't need oil, the fat from the bacon is enough). Transfer to a plate, but leave the pan on the hob to warm your chicken meat in (and coat it in the delicious bacon juices!). Halve the avocado and thinly slice it avocado. Spread the mayonnaise on the bread. Put on a layer of avocado, bacon, and the chicken. Ground some pepper over this. Enjoy!

The Accidental Vegetarian / Mushroom & Plum Sauce Stir-fry

A nice healthy recipe to balance yesterday's chicken mania. Luckily, it's vegetarian wholly by accident, and so it contains no dried exotic pulses, fake meat, barley or condescension.

I wanted to add a picture of condescension and couldn't find one, so here are some oyster mushrooms.

Ingredients (serves 2)
4 eggs
1 orange pepper
3 spring onions
200g close capped button mushrooms
200g oyster mushrooms
200g medium thin egg noodles
2 tbsp soy sauce
4 tbsp plum sauce
A large gulp of sunflower oil

Heat the sunflower oil in a wok. Whisk the eggs with the soy sauce and pour into the oil. Wait until the bottom side of the omelet has cooked and flip. Wait half a minute more and transfer the omelet to a plate. If you're keen on reducing your fat intake, you can drain the omelet on some kitchen towels. Slice into small strips and set aside.

Cook the egg noodles according to package instructions. Drain and set aside.

Now, thinly slice the pepper, onions and mushrooms and fry in the left over oil. Stir-fry until the mushrooms have softened. Add the plum sauce and stir. Add the noodles and use tongs to mix them with the vegetables. Now take the pan of the heat and add the omelet strips. Serve and enjoy.

Fat, Salt (and Everything Nice)

I am an absolute genius. No, you can say what you like, but this meal is heavenly. It is absolutely mindboglingly amazing. I think it's all the double cream, salt and chicken fat that does it. Taste and enjoy; my boyfriend exclaimed, with the first bite he took: "I will never eat a saltless diet! Even if it shortens my life span, I want to eat this chicken." He's on to his third piece now... if I hadn't polished off the rest myself he'd probably keep eating.


Ingredients
For the chicken
Free range chicken legs and thighs (5 pieces)
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
5 cloves of garlic

For the parsnip 'hutspot' (mash)
1 large onion
1 stock cube
750 grams potatoes
500 grams parsnips
50ml double cream
Salt

In a quick Google search for fat and salt, this is the yummiest photo that came up.

For the mustard sauce
25 grams of salted butter
25 grams of plain flour
10 tbsp of the hutspot water
100ml double cream
1 tbsp dijon mustard

First, preheat the oven to 240 degrees C. Rub the chicken all over with the olive oil and place on a baking tray, skin side up. Sprinkle half a teaspoon of salt over the skin, ground some fresh pepper over all pieces. Throw the cloves of garlic around the chicken. Put in the oven and immediately turn down the oven temperature to 190 degrees C. Leave the chicken in the oven for at least 35 minutes; check whether the chicken is cooked through by pricking the fattest bits with a fork and look whether a clear liquid comes out.

While the chicken is roasting in the oven, peel your potatoes and parsnips and chop them in rough pieces. Peel away the outer layer of the onion and chop up in eights. Put the veggies on in a pot of water, add the stock cube. As soon as the vegetables are all tender (this takes 20 minutes or so), drain and mash. Add the double cream and salt (to taste).

While the veggies are cooking, quickly make the mustard sauce: melt the butter on medium heat, take the pan off the heat and add the flour. Mix until you get a doughy consistency and the butter and flour are mixed well. Add some of the veggies' cooking liquid and the double cream. You should get a silky, slightly thick consistency. Add the mustard and stir.

Serve the 'hutspot' with a piece of chicken on top and the sauce spooned around. Enjoy!

Ratatouille Pasta with Secret Ingredients

Let me just say this outright, once and for all: I don't like courgette. It has a weird texture. I don't see the point of courgette. In fact, I wouldn't mind if courgettes died out, so no one will ever again get away with serving it. Especially the vegetarians. 

So, my 'ratatouille' pasta has a different balance. The emphasis lies on the aubergine, the texture of which I do love (when it's cooked right). When stewed slowly in tomato sauce it can get a meaty, hearty, but silken texture that is to die for. It's a perfect ingredient for a Turkish or Greek stew, for an Indian curry, or even for a basic pasta sauce.

Ingredients (plenty for 4)

2 onions

4 cloves of garlic

2 tomatoes

2 aubergines

2 peppers (somewhere on the red/yellow spectrum)

200 grams of close capped button mushrooms

200 grams of chopped tomatoes (tin/carton)

A tablespoon of tomato paste

Olive oil

Italian seasoning (basil, oregano)

Half a teaspoon of salt

Pepper

500 grams of (dried) rigatoni pasta

Secret Ingredients

1 stock cube

A knob of butter

100 grams of a mixture of Parmesan and (organic) cheddar cheese

Heat the olive oil in a large pan to medium heat. Chop the onions and garlic and stew until the onions are soft and translucent. Meanwhile, chop up the (fresh) tomatoes, aubergines and peppers into 1-inch cubes. Put in the pan and add a generous helping of salt (it helps extract water from the aubergine, which makes the texture nicer), some fresh pepper and the Italian seasoning. Add some more oil and stir. Now chop up the mushrooms into quarters. Add the mushrooms, the chopped tomatoes (from your tin/carton), tomato paste and stock cube to the stew. Stir again. Turn the heat up until the sauce starts bubbling away and then reduce the heat. Let the sauce simmer for 20 minutes (or more). Drink a bottle of red. Return to your cooking. Cook the pasta with a bit of salt. Drain. Add the pasta to the sauce. Grate in the cheese. Add the butter. Stir. Serve.