Sounds wonderful. Lots in common with the Zuni chicken (which also includes bittern greens, torn bread, scallions and currants, rather than raisins). Beautiful photos!
1 Like
Nominations for February are up now:
SALAD OF ROASTED CARROTS, APPLE & LENTILS WITH CHILI & PRESERVED LEMONS - ebook
Toss carrots in olive oil, salt, and pepper and roast them. Cook Puy lentils by whatever means suits you. Make a dressing of white balsamic vinegar, EVOO, garlic, ginger, and honey (vegan honey used by me). The rest of the prep is cutting tart apples into matchsticks (I used Granny Smith here), dicing some chiles and preserved lemon, juicing a lemon, and tearing up some mint and cilantro. You toss the carrots and apples together with 2/3 of the dressing, preserved lemon, chiles, and herbs and all of the lemon juice. The remaining 1/3 of the dressing, etc go in with the cooked lentils. To serve, carrots and apples are piled on top of the lentils.
This definitely seems like one of those clean-out the fridge creations. But the salad was quite good. I’m not normally a fan of roast carrots, but the dressing and the pairing with tart apple set them off to advantage. I would happily eat this again, but will I actually make it again? Probably not. Still, a nice light meal for two with no leftovers.
6 Likes
WHITE BEANS & ROASTED TOMATOES WITH CAPER, MINT & CHILI
OK, so I know LLM loves this, and that’s why it pains me to say I did not. Actually it was unanimous, as Mr. MM didn’t like it either. My expectations were high, as I like every ingredient in the dish. But the flavors just didn’t mesh. The mustard in the dressing in particular bothered me (I love mustard! I almost always include some in my vinaigrettes.). There isn’t much in the dressing, but I would say the ideal amount of mustard for this dish would be zero. Then there are the cherry tomatoes. If there was one thing that I though going in might turn me off, it would have been the cherry tomatoes. I’ve talked about it before. I think they are over-used and inappropriately used by too many authors. The skin-to-flesh ratio is too high for them to be good in most cooked applications, and this dish is no exception. I was too busy being annoyed by the mustard and the white balsamic vinegar (which was just the wrong vinegar for this, imho), but Mr. MM homed in on the cherry tomatoes and their unappealing texture. This should have served two with no leftovers, but neither of us wanted to finish it.
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Shocked and stunned! Kidding, everyone has different tastes. I looked up a picture I’d taken, and it looks like I used grape tomatoes. The vinaigrette is pretty much how I make my own, so to me it tastes just right.
3 Likes
It’s pretty much how I make it as well. Bog standard vinaigrette. I would have had no complaints about it on, say, a green salad. But for some reason I just hated it on the beans.
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CHILI-ROASTED TOMATOES w/ FETA CHEESE, YOGURT, DILL, MINT, & PISTACHIOS (p. 70)
This is delicious, but I think it is more complicated than it needs to be. You roast a bunch of halved plum tomatoes (I used Campari) in olive oil with crushed fennel seeds, red chili flakes (a lot of them - 3 teaspoons), salt and pepper, and honey. While this is cooking you make a sauce of yogurt, feta, and grated garlic. Serve the tomatoes on the yogurt with herbs (I skipped the mint) and pistachios. I’m glad I tried it this way, we all liked it, but I think it would also be wonderful without all the ruckus of the chilies, fennel, and honey. Didn’t even really need the dill (which I love) or the pistachios. I served this with roasted chicken sausages and pita.
8 Likes
WHOLE EGGPLANTS WITH SAFFRON, BLACK CARDAMOM & DATE BUTTER
Eggplant with dates? I recall an eggplant and mango noodle dish (Ottolenghi?) that people enjoyed, so sure. I love black cardamom and was interested in how it would taste ground up rather than added whole to infuse a dish.
To make this you mash together 1/4 c butter, 6 dates (she called for Mejool, but I used about 8 barhi), the ground seeds of 6 black cardamom pods, some saffron steeped in a little water, 2 crushed cloves of garlic (I grated it), a little cayenne (which I didn’t have, so used hot paprika), a generous pinch of ginger, and a little salt. I mashed all of this together in a mortar and pestle.
Meanwhile, you roast globe eggplants at 400 degrees until soft (about 40 minutes). I like a smokiness to my eggplants, so I charred two side of each on the stovetop first and then roasted them. Even though they were well-charred, they still took a full 40 minutes to roast to a pleasing texture.
When the eggplants are done, you cut them in half, mix the date butter into the hot eggplant, and top with sesame seeds and yogurt. This would not be enough of a meal for me, so I ate with a rice/quinoa blend.
I’m on day two of eating this, and I think I like it. The saffron doesn’t come through, but that and the general lack of distinct flavors may be due to them conflicting with the smokiness from the char. I made some egg bagels the other day and will try the butter on them to see what it’s like on its own. My main take-away here is that butter is quite good with eggplant, and I can see drizzling a spiced butter over eggplant in the future.
7 Likes
Diana Henry has a dish with eggplant and dates in her earlier book Simple, as well. I made it when that was COTM on Chowhound, as did several others. As I recall, I liked the flavors (I had some issues with the rice cooking, but concluded that was down to using too deep a pan).
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WALNUST-MISO SAUCE, a sub-recipe for ROASTED AUTUMN VEGETABLES WITH WALNUT-MISO SAUCE
This is an unusual sauce that I had to try in order to see if it came together into something that is more than the sum of its parts. It does not, but its parts are pretty tasty so that’s okay.
Henry has you warm up 1 1/2 c (!) olive oil, add 5 T (!) of red miso, 3 grated cloves of garlic, and some chile flakes. Once those flavors are combined you stir in 1/2 c (not enough) of walnuts you’ve partially ground.
As I suspected, the miso and the oil stay quite separate. It will take intense stirring each time I want to use a little of this to bring the mixture together. I can’t see using more than a tablespoon of this at a time on my vegetables, eggs, etc., so that’s going to be a lot of stirring.
My instinct was to adjust the amount of olive oil and miso here, but I wanted to follow the recipe in the name of COTM. If anyone else wants to make it, I’d suggest 3/4 c olive oil, 2.5 T red miso paste (or more to taste), double the walnuts, and no change to the amount of garlic and chile.
3 Likes
February voting is here:
ROASTED INDIAN-SPICED VEGETABLES W/ LIME-CILANTRO BUTTER (p. 122)
You roast a bunch of vegetables (I didn’t stick with her list, I did potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and a big turnip) that you’ve tossed with toasted cumin and coriander seeds, some turmeric, garlic, seasoning, and oil. I boiled my potatoes first, tossing the carrots in during the last minute or so (and glad I did - maybe potatoes are different in England, but potatoes take a lot longer to roast in my oven than those vegetables do). I doubled the spicing and was glad I did - it was just right for us that way. Make a butter with lime zest and juice, a chili, and cilantro. I didn’t have any cilantro so skipped it. You add a dollop of this to the vegetables when they come out. We all loved this, but didn’t think the butter was at all necessary, so I’ve saved the majority of it in case I get a nice piece of fish to add it to. I served this with fried eggs, yogurt, and chutney. The yogurt wasn’t touched, the chutney just a little. LLD (I was worried about his reaction to this dinner) loved it - said it was like having Indian flavored breakfast. No picture - it wasn’t an especially pretty dish, but delicious.
9 Likes
ROASTED CAULIFLOWER WITH PROSCIUTTO & TALEGGIO CHEESE
This is a “cauliflower steak” dish with a browned cheese and crisped prosciutto topping. My favorite part was the addition of a little creme fraiche, which kept the prosciutto moist and gave just enough tang to complement all the richness.
Henry has you cut a cauliflower into steaks, which I more or less did, and roast them under foil for 12 minutes at 450 degrees. You then lower the heat to 400, remove the foil, and roast for 8 minutes to start some color. Take out of the oven and top each piece with cheese, a slice of prosciutto, a dollop of creme fraiche, and more cheese. Roast until all browned and melty. Rather than the specified cheeses I used a Jersey Sweet Gouda from Trader Joe’s, and it worked perfectly. I also sliced a few basil leaves and had a little with each bite.
This was good and I would make it again, especially since cauliflower, odd bits of cheese and deli meats, and partial tubs of creme fraiche are all things that tend to accumulate in my fridge. This is a nice way to put them all together.
8 Likes
The day after I made this it occurred to me to balance it out with some orange zest and fresh orange juice, and that’s worked well as I eat my way slowly through all this sauce. I’d seen the red miso - orange combination idea somewhere once before, and I’m glad it came to mind again.
3 Likes
I have to add that a few days later the flavors of the butter did seem to settle well, and I could indeed taste saffron and all the elements when eating it again.
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CHICKEN w/ FETA, DILL, LEMON, & HARISSA YOGURT (p. 46)
This was delicious, although I screwed up and didn’t cook it enough. Easily fixed though. I cooked the potatoes first (as I’ve learned to do with these recipes), then followed the instructions (except for the yogurt - instead of served the yogurt with a dollop of harissa on top, I stirred it in, with a little salt - next time maybe grate in a garlic clove too). Toss the potatoes, garlic cloves, sliced red onions and seasoning with oil; add chicken thighs on top (I used boneless skinless, which worked fine) and roast. Make your harissa yogurt. Finish with lemon juice and zest, feta, and dill, and serve with the yogurt on the side. I don’t think the zest made that much difference here, and I’m a big citrus fan. This is a tasty dish.
8 Likes
Reporting thread for February:
SAUSAGES & LENTILS WITH HERB RELISH
Got one last recipe in. This was probably my favorite of everything I’ve made from this book, mainly thanks to the herb relish, which brings bright flavors to what would otherwise be a fairly bland dish. You start by browning some sausages in a skillet, then setting them aside (I used Beyond brats here). Then you sauté onions, celery, and carrot. There is supposed to be some pancetta in there as well, which I omitted. You then add lentils, garlic, and bay leaves. Add a mixture of white wine and stock, and transfer to the oven. You are supposed to add the sausages back to the pan at this time, but I held them out. After 15 minutes, you add more of the wine/stock mixture, and that is when I added the sausages. Cook for another 25-30 minutes. YMMV if using real meat sausages, but I knew that Beyond would dry out if cooked for the whole 45 minutes. While the lentils and sausages are baking, you make a relish of herbs (I used cilantro and mint), garlic, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, and olive oil. Serve with bread on the side.
Like I said, the relish really makes the dish here. The lentils and sausage are good enough, but they need that punch of bright herbs and lemon. I only cooked 4 sausages, while making the full amount of lentils. Neither Mr. MM nor I like to eat more than one sausage in a sitting, so if the lentils made four servings, as the recipe said, four sausages made sense. But we ended up getting six servings out of it, and I had to cook up a couple more sausages on the last day.
Final note on this book: I bought the ebook since my library didn’t have a copy. The ebook was annoying because the bookmarks don’t work, but I used highlights as a workaround. Generally, the food from the book was fine, but not things I’m likely to repeat. I really don’t think Diana Henry has a clue on how to build a plant-based meal, and I found myself getting grumpy when paging through the book. I’m OK with having the ebook, but it isn’t a shelf-worthy book for me.
6 Likes
Nomination time…
Come on over and nominate!
