Last night’s dinner: Egg curry

I suppose it doesn’t sound particularly wonderful. A simple egg; that generic, catch-all term ‘curry’. Hmm.

My desire to make an egg curry, however, goes back to the mid ’90s when I received a ‘curry’ recipe book that featured one. I have no idea why I never got round to making it. And the book? I’ve no idea where it is.

Which means I had to make up a recipe for this protein rich, filling dish. The ‘curry’ is in fact a basic dhal that we then perked up with some extra ingredients on top. For our basic dhal recipe, see here.

I think dhal plus a boiled egg could be a little cloying on its own, so to balance the flavours we added some tangy sweetness in the shape of some cherry tomatoes, and some savouriness in the form of crispy fried onions. The eggs were boiled, straightforwardly, and have of them added to the dhal, half reserved for the top. The dish is finished with a little chopped coriander.

It’s the balance of those added extras that makes this work. And, after 17 years of waiting, I really rather enjoyed it.

Last Night’s Dinner: Veggie burgers

…otherwise known as lentil, quinoa and halloumi burgers. These are our latest version of the humble veggie burger and they’re pretty good. Puy lentils and quinoa mean they’re packed with protein and therefore avoid the failure of many a sad veggie burger that comes out of the pan as a dull, soft mush of mashed carbs.

We experiment every time with these so I’ll just outline the recipe. The idea, of course, is to make a small pattie that will hold together in a frying pan and in the bread that will surround it. That means combining your cooked, cooled ingredients with egg and flour in a mixing bowl and forming the patties with your hands before frying. The amount of egg and flour you need will be dependent on how much mixture/patties you want to make. The mix should not be too dry and crumbly, but not oozily wet either. Once you get the hang of this part of the pattie-making process it becomes really easy to judge. You might have a few failures along the way.

Our ‘veg mix’ combines savoury flavours and textures. Puy lentils, simmered for 25 minutes in veggie stock, add an earthiness and some bite. Some handfuls of cooked quinoa add a mealiness and up the protein levels. Lightly fried halloumi, chopped into 0.5cm dice adds some fat, a bit of chew and requisite saltiness. A chopped and lightly fried onion adds savouriness.

When all of these are cooked and cooled, tip them into a large mixing bowl and add one beaten egg and a sprinkle of plain flour. Mix well. Now you’re into the pattie-making zone and need to carefully add a little more flour, or another egg, until that consistency starts to come together. I like to let the mixture sit in the fridge for 30 minutes after mixing as it seems to help the patties stick together. Then form the patties in the palm of your hand and fry in small batches in a little olive oil for around 5 minutes a side. We like to serve them in a bun with some cheddar and a dollop of kick-ass homemade chilli sauce. Rustic and good.

Last night’s dinner: Mushroom, chestnut and cavolo nero casserole

Casserole? Well, you could call it a stew. I was intending to cook this (mostly) in the oven, as you should with a casserole, but I didn’t. I was hungry. I cooked it on the hob. It was quicker. It was still good. There.

First, in a deep, wide saucepan or frying pan I fried a sliced onion in a little olive oil until it softened. I then added three sticks of celery, cut into 1-inch pieces. Then I added lots of mushrooms – a supermarket tub each of button, chestnut and oyster varieties, the larger ones being halved or even quartered. Don’t try and get them all the same size however; it’s nice to have them varied. Cook the mushrooms on a medium heat for 15 minutes while they release heir juices and then soak them back up again.

As the mushrooms are cooking, boil a cupful of green lentils (not Puy) until tender in a small pan of vegetable stock, with a bay leaf. When they have finished cooking, drain, removing the bay leaf, but retaining a little of the stock.

Now, take 150g or so of vacuum-packed or tinned, cooked chestnuts and chop them coarsely. Add to the mushroom mixture. Then add the lentils. Then pour in 100ml of sour cream and stir well. If the mixture could do with a little more liquid, top up with any reserved stock.

From here you can continue to cook on the hob for another 15 minutes. While you’re doing so, blanche a few handfuls of cavolo nero or savoy cabbage in boiling water for 4 minutes. Drain immediately and rinse under cold water.

When the mushrooms finish cooking, add the cavolo nero and another 100ml of sour cream. Simmer for another 3-4 minutes. Before serving, add a handful of chopped chives and a handful of roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley.

Serve with crusty bread and, if you like, an extra dollop of cream.

Last Night’s Dinner: Ella’s Shepherdess Pie

Well, it might have been last night’s dinner; it certainly was recently and no doubt it soon will be again. When winter is here, a plate of filling, hot comfort food is a must. Ella’s go-to recipe is this Shepherdess Pie, which our friend over at rather non-veggie The Chilli Source site might call “a plate of sense”.

Sherpherdess Pie? A Shepherd’s Pie without the meat, of course. Over the years we’ve tried many savoury vegetarian options under the pillow of mashed potato and I think Ella’s recipe with Puy lentils is the best.

First, bring a pan of water or, preferably, vegetable stock to the boil and simmer enough Puy lentils to make a inch-deep layer in your oven dish/pie tin when cooked (they’ll take around 20-30 minutes and should retain a little nutty bite). As they’re simmering, finely chop a large onion and fry it in a little olive oil for 10 minutes.

Along with onion, we like to pimp the savouriness of the lentil base by adding a little bit of vegetable variation. So, dice a carrot, or a red pepper, or some button mushrooms – or all three and, like the onion, lightly fry in olive oil for 10 minutes.

Actually, you have some options here: the veg can be fried separately as above (best), or added in with the onion (okay) or you can even skip the frying bit and dump it in with the simmering lentils (lazy). They will all work, but the first option will provide the greatest differentiation between flavours.

When the lentils and veg are cooked, drain the lentils and mix them all together in the pan before spreading into the oven dish. Set aside.

Now for the mash. Do I need to explain mash? I hope not. But keep don’t make it too soggy or buttery – this isn’t a Michelin-star-abused side-dish.

Spread the mash over the lentil base and rough up the top slightly with a fork. Bake in the oven at 190 degrees for 40 minutes and, if you like, grate some Cheddar or Gruyere cheese over the top before returning to the oven for a final 10 minutes. The trick is to get a crisp, almost crusty top to the potato. It’s a texture thing.

Serve with seasonal greens.

Last Night’s Dinner: Stuffed tomatoes and quinoa

I must admit that stuffed vegetables rarely inspire me. Ella makes a fine, chilli-enlivened stuffed pepper (with tomatoes and mozzarella), but too often stuffed veg means simply a bit of veg with some other veg piled on top. In my book that’s not good enough.

However, for some reason, I fancied stuffing some veg the other day. I wanted a tomatoey dish, sweet and tangy, but for other flavours and textures to be involved too. Something hearty and warming perhaps.

Some Puy lentils seemed like a good idea, cooked until tender, with a little olive oil and red wine vinegar, and added to the halved and hollowed out tomatoes. These were then baked in the oven on a low temperature – around 120C – so that the tomatoes almost dry out and intensify in flavour rather than cooking to a mush. Timings are approximate here: 1 hour? At the end of the process we added some crumbled feta cheese on top and served on a bed of quinoa. And very tasty it was too.

Last Night’s Dinner: Roast aubergine with tomato and pine nuts, Puy lentils and a yoghurt dressing

We’ve been mentioning chef Denis Cotter rather a lot recently, partly because we’re working our way through some of his recipes in his latest book. In it, at one point, he eulogises the aubergine and sets a challenge: take an aubergine or two, find some other ingredients lying around the fridge and store cupboard, and make a meal of them. That’s right, like an aubergine-based Ready Steady Cook from TV.

This was our first attempt. We had two aubergines, some cherry tomatoes, pine nuts, some herbs, lentils, a little yoghurt, a few other ingredients too… so, what to do? To make a hearty supper we decided to base the meal around Puy lentils, with a contrasting topping.

First get the lentils going, enough for each person in some vegetable stock. Simmer until tender but still slightly nutty (around 30 minutes?), drain and then add 2tbsp of red wine vinegar, stir through and set aside.

While the lentils are cooking, top and tail the aubergine (you’ll need one per person) and slice it from top to bottom to get four lengths of equal thickness. Place them in a single layer on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil and roast for around 20 minutes until golden and softened. Alternatively, brush them with olive oil and griddle them for a nice charred effect.

Next, half a couple of handfulls of cherry tomatoes. Half them again lengthways to make little segments. Then scrape out the seeds and excess juice. Place in a bowl and add a pinch of salt and pepper and a chopped red chilli (to your taste). Stir in and set aside.

Then toast a couple of tablespoons of pine nuts in a dry frying pan for a couple of minutes until slightly browned – take care not to burn them. Finally, in a small bowl, take 150ml of Greek yoghurt and add a little olive oil, the juice of a lemon, a clove of crushed garlic and a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir. If it isn’t the consistency of double cream, add a little milk or a little extra olive oil, or both.

When the aubergine is cooked and cooled slightly they can be stuffed. Add the pine nuts to the tomatoes and mix through. Now take a dessert spoonful of the mixture and place it on one end of an aubergine slice and roll up. Do the same for the rest. Place the lentil rolls into a medium oven to warm through.

Chop some fresh parsley, or a little coriander or mint, and stir it into the lentils and place back on a low heat.

When the lentils and aubergine are warmed, plate up: lentils on the bottom, aubergine rolls on top and a drizzle of yoghurt sauce all over. Smashing, smoky, tangy and wholesome, warming fresh and good. With a tiny chilli kick.

Last Night’s Dinner: Spiced halloumi with a warm Puy lentil, spinach and beetroot salad

Warm salads are the perfect choice for months when the seasons are changing. Maybe it’s the ability to take some veg from one season and lighten it up, or load it down, with some from the next.

This salad – I say salad, though it’s almost a stew, is a Denis Cotter recipe from For the Love of Food – a book we’ve used a few times in this blog. See it here, it’s great. Oh, and go and visit Denis’s restaurant in Cork – it won’t let you down. Have a look, here.

So, I won’t give the recipe in full but, basically… the slices of halloumi are marinated briefly in chillis, cumin and lime zest; the beetroot roasted, with a sprinkle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar; the lentils cooked with sprigs of thyme and garlic; serve with lentils on a bed of spinach with the halloumi on top.

And can you spot our variation? Yep, we had no spinach so we steamed some greens and ran them through the lentils. Twas fine indeed.

Last Night’s Dinner: Puy Lentils with Roast Courgettes, Green Beans and Parsely

Sunday 7 August

Courgettes are everywhere in early August and, I confess, it’s only in the last couple of years that we’ve really taken to eating them. Earlier this year we tried them as fritters, rather like the corn ones in the post before this. The courgette fritter recipe is here.

This Sunday we wanted a fairly hearty supper with some summery flavours to boot and this was a simple solution.

First, for two people, slice 2-3 medium courgettes into thumb-sized batons. (What? Okay, halve the courgettes lengthways, then halve them across their middles, then halve them lengthways again.)

Place the courgette batons in an ovenproof dish, lightly toss them with some olive oil and some salt and pepper and place them in a preheated oven until they’re golden of flesh but not completely browned.

While you’re doing this, in a large saucepan boil around 2 cups of puy lentils in vegetable stock until they’re tender – about 25 minutes. Also, very finely slice a large onion and fry until translucent in a little olive oil.

Next, roughly chop some fresh green beans – we had a mix of runner and french beans (okay, and some yellow and black skinned beans too) – and steam them for 4 minutes before refreshing them under a cold tap.

When the lentils are cooked (drain them if there is much water left and return to the pan), add 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, stir and leave for 2 minutes. Then stir in the onion. Next stir in the courgettes.

Finally, stir in the chopped fresh parsley, season if needed, and eat.

Last Night’s Dinner: Moong dhal with browned onion with chickpea flour pancakes

Wednesday 8 June

For my birthday last month, lovely cousin Ruth got me a selection ‘East End’ treats for the kitchen. These included some amazing dried chillis, an assortment of spices, a rather lovely pan and the 100 Essential Curries book by Madhur Jaffrey (you can order it here). I’d really rather forgotten about Madhur Jaffrey – it seems an age since she was the only person cooking non-European food on TV in the UK. The little book is really rather good. We fancied a dhal and something to go with it. As I had half a bag of chickpea (gram) flour in the cupboard these pancakes (properly known as tameta kandana poora – chickpea flour panckakes with tomato and onion) really fit the bill. Really easy to make – like all pancakes – and a nice change from rice or bread. No recipe – as it’s not mine you’ll need to buy the book. There’s meat in the book, but plenty of vegetarian options. Worth it.

Last Night’s Dinner: Kedgeree

Tuesday 10 May

Kedgeree? I hear you gasp? Fish?

Not a chance, mate. Kedgeree (khitchri, kitchari etc, to many people throughout culinary history, was never about smoked haddock or salmon – or even tuna. It was a rice and lentil (moong) dish, eaten throughout the Asian subcontinent, often for breakfast. Rice and peas, basically. This is where our take on kedgeree takes off. It’s so easy to do but does involve a few different pans.

The first pan is used to cook basmati rice until it’s tender but nutty. Once cooked it’s flavoured with dried spices – a little cumin, a little paprika, a little smoked paprika and a little cumin. The second pan is to boil some puy lentils until, again, tender but nutty. The third pan is to fry some halloumi – which for us replaces the smoky fish in most modern kedgeree recipes. The last pan is to hard boil a couple of eggs. If you don’t want to cook all these at the same time, start with the lentils, then the rice, then the eggs, then the halloumi.

Once everything is cooked, combine it all together in a large pan, chopping the egg and halloumi into small pieces. Mix it all through with a fork and then add some chopped flat-leaf parsely.

Finito!