Pea, onion and carrot pakoras

I've had a hankering for pakoras for a few days and though I've not cooked them before I decided we'd have them for lunch.

I used Jeena's recipe for Onion Bhajis as a basis because she uses an oven rather than deep frying. I deep fry so rarely that I find doing it for anything small a pain -- particularly the amount of oil it uses that then needs to be disposed of because it won't get used anytime soon. While I'm not entirely convinced that cooking with oil in the oven is any healthier than deep frying[1], I can vouch for the recipe tasting delicious.

My alterations were to add a half teaspoon of amchoor to the onion spice mix, some peas and some grated carrot.

[1] If you deep fry in small batches at a high temperature, little oil gets absorbed. I'm not saying that they're fat free by any means, but fried food is often demonised when in reality the problem is more about balanced diet and proper technique.

Houmous

On Friday we had friends over for dinner. As part of things I bought some houmous, kicking myself for not having had the forethought to make some before hand. Dried chickpeas are cheap and, more importantly, home made houmous is better than much shop bought stuff.

So anyway, yesterday I soaked some chickpeas and today I've made up the houmous. My recipe is based partly on instinct and partly on checking online recipes and coming up with a derived version.

2 cups of chickpeas, soaked overnight, boiled, then simmered for 90 minutes
1 cup tahini
a few cloves of garlic
1 tsp cumin, roasted and ground
a few tbsp extra virgin olive oil
a few tbsp lemon juice (actually I used the liquid from preserved lemons)
black pepper
salt (I skipped this given the preserved lemons were salted)
water to thin

Blended for several minutes in a food processor, it made about 1.5L of houmous, most of which I have put in the freezer.

The photo is hardly a thing of beauty but the taste certainly is.

Spice Collection

I have quite a large spice collection. OK, let's not beat around the bush: I have a larger spice collection than most supermarkets. I gleefully count them, quietly hoping that they'll fit through the eye of a needle. I sniff them from time to time. And in the most part, I use many of them when ever I cook. But I must admit there are some that haven't exactly reached indispensible status.

Take Amchoor for example. It's dried mango powder. It has a sour flavour and is an important spice for giving a bit of sharpness to Indian dishes. Perfect. I can imagine using that a lot. But in the time sinc I've bought it I've not got around to actually cooking with it. So today I finally cooked something that called for it: Paneer Shashlik, or grilled marinated Indian cheese. Cumin, coriander seed, fenugreek leaves (kasoor methi), vinegar, yoghurt[1], ajwain, kalonji, turmeric[2], and the star of the show: Hang on... after all of this preparation I don't actually have amchoor. I've succeeded in looking at it in spice shops many times without succumbing to buying it on a whim. I assume I must have bought it by now, but no. It's the proverbial one that got away. The result is I had to use lemon juice instead. The moral of the story for me? If it's a spice or a herb and I see it I should just buy it. I do get around to using them really and if I don't buy it I may find I don't have it when I need it.

Now to find something to do with this powdered sun-dried lime I found in an Iranian supermarket in 1999...

[1] Heat a pint of milk up to 82C, stirring to prevent sticking, then allow to cool. When it reaches blood temperature (stick your finger in and if you can't feel it, it's ready), stir in about a tablespoon of yoghurt (not more). Pour into a glass or food grade plastic jar or pot, cover and leave somewhere warm like the airing cupboard overnight.

[2] "Poor Man's Saffron". Rubbish. It's poor man's saffron because saffron is frighteningly expensive and turmeric is a cheap way to get the same colour. But the flavour is, as cookery writers will sternly tell you, is inferior. It's not "inferior". It's completely different. Yes, it's yellow. No, it doesn't taste anything like saffron. It's a musty, sweet flavour that works beautifully with seafood, coconut, yoghurt and so on. If you want to use it instead of saffron, feel free. But you can also use apples instead of tomatoes and cucumbers instead of watermelons. Personally, as much as I like saffron, if I was forced to choose for my Desert Island Spice Cupboard[3] I'd have turmeric without hesitation.

[3] Choose? What a terrifying prospect!