Isa and Sam's Birthday Salad [en]

[fr] Salade mêlée faite pour les anniversaires d'Isa et Sam. Tomates, oignon doux, poivron vert, piment vert, maïs, pousses de soja, feta, feuilles de coriandre, et une sauce à base d'huile d'olive et de vinaigre balsamique.

Here we go, another quick and dirty salad recipe:

  • 5 San Marzano tomatoes
  • one large sweet onion
  • one green bell pepper
  • one green chilli pepper (chopped fine!)
  • one box of fresh mung sprouts (blanched)
  • 2 tins of corn
  • 200g of feta cheese
  • a lot of chopped coriander
  • mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, poppy, flax, sesame, buckwheat — Coop sells the mix)
  • dressing: lots of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, some normal vinegar, some lime juice, mustard, tomato concentrate, pepper, salt (enough salt can make the difference between a tasty salad and an unexciting one)

Enjoy!

Salade de la mort-qui-tue [fr]

[en] Mixed salad recipe.

Allez, c’est officiel, je fais des salades de la mort-qui-tue. Par exemple:

– un concombre
– trois tomates
– une boîte de maïs
– un reste de poivron
– une barquette de feta
– un reste de fromate à pâte dure (genre Gruyère) qui traînait au fond du frigo
– 3-4 tomates séchées
– 3-4 cornichons
– 3 oeufs durs
– vinaigre, huile d’olive, sel, poivre

On coupe le tout en morceaux et on mélange.

Varier la recette au gré des envies et du contenu du frigo.

Inspiration culinaire de ce soir [fr]

[en] I threw a few things together in the pan tonight and it ended up being a very nice tomato-cream sauce. Here's the recipe.

Celui-ci, je le fais surtout pour moi, mais aussi pour vous, parce que franchement, mon improvisation culinaire tardive de ce soir est fort bonne.

J’ai fait des pâtes à  l’ail d’ours (Migros, elles sont délicieuses) avec la sauce suivante:

– une demi-boîte de tomates concassées
– un mini-berlingot de crème entière (125ml)
– un petit sachet de parmesan (50g)
– quelques giclées de jus de citron
– généreusement ajouter du poivre au citron
– un peu de bouillon de poule en poudre pour saler
– quelques fourchetées de câpres (miam!)
– un petit peu de sel d’ail et de mélange de condiments à  l’italienne

Faire chauffer la sauce après avoir tout mélangé, puis rajouter aux pâtes. Un peu trop de sauce pour une personne, mais c’est pas grave!

Aleika’s Recipe for Masoor Daal [en]

Here is the delicious recipe Aleika showed me last time I was in Birmingham to visit her. It is an indian lentil recipe.

You’ll need:

  • masoor daal (the red lentils you find at any indian supermarket near you)
  • nigellas, also called kalonji (kind of small black onion seeds)
  • onions
  • tomato
  • butter (yum!) or oil
  • a green chili if you want
  • fresh coriander leaves

First, cook the daal. You can wash and/or soak it first if you like. Basically, you cook it like rice: about a cup of daal, roughly twice that amount of water, stick in a saucepan and boil until it turns pasty (take care, it foams a lot if you didn’t wash it really well). Let’s say it takes 20 minutes or so.

Chop the onions very finely while the daal is cooking (“more onions than you would think expect”, says Aleika) — I put a couple of onions in for a teacup of daal.

When the daal is nearly done (or plain done), heat the butter or oil, drop in a teaspoon of kalonji (or half, depending on your taste — they aren’t strong) and the green chili (or not). Add the onions and fry them gently until they melt. Then add the tomato and make it melt too.

Once the tomato and onion look as pasty as the daal (well, nearly!), simply dump the daal on top of them. Re-heat if necessary, stir well, add chopped coriander leaves (or not, but it’s nicer with them), and it’s ready!

Daal is usually eaten with rice. Pour the daal on top of the rice and mix, or eat separately if you prefer.

Bon appétit!

Chick Pea Salad [en]

Whoo! I’d forgotten how nice and easy to prepare this chick pea salad was. I used to do it quite often pre-India.

Here is my no-fuss meal-for-one version of Roshi Razzaq’s original recipe. It’s “Indian” – the kind of Indian you find in western cookery books – and it’s really yummy.

First, stick the following into a tupperware (or any lid-able recipient):

  • 250g cooked chick peas (that’s about one tin)
  • 3 tablespoons of fresh chopped mint and corianders leaves
  • chilli powder (use paprika if you don’t want it strong), salt, ground cumin (the white “asian” variety) – 1/2 teaspoon of each
  • 1/4 teaspoon of pepper
  • 1 teaspoon of chopped fresh ginger (in little sticks)

Put the lid on, and shake.
Then, add about 200g of cooked potatoes (cut them up!), plus – follow your inspiration – tomato, cucumber, radish, spring onions (I usually end up with tomatos and spring onions, because I’m too lazy to buy everything).
Mix everything up together with some lemon juice – it’s ready!

You’re supposed to serve it with tamarind sauce, on lettuce leaves, with lots of fancy decoration. The tamarind sauce is really nice but a bit troublesome to prepare for one. If you have guests though, do take the trouble.

Bon appétit! – and tell me if you liked it…