Category: Vegetable

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ken’s awesome Mujaddara

Mujaddara (Arabic: مجدرة‎ mujadarah, with alternative spellings in English majadra, mejadra, moujadara, mudardara, and megadarra) consists of cooked lentils together with groats, generally rice, and garnished with sautéed onions.

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I decided to make Mujaddara (or however you spell it). Ken has been making this ever since he had it at a Palestinian restaurant in Jerusalem. He made it for me several years ago, and I found it almost as addicting as his macaroni and cheese. All things considered, it is a much healthier dish.  I hunted around on the web, and couldn’t find a recipe that sounded as good as the recipe that he makes, so finally, I broke down and asked him how he makes his. He said, “Look in our cookbook.”

Ken and I have our own hand-written cookbook at home. Ken had received it as a “blank” cookbook from his ex-girlfriend, Julie, when he was in grad school, shortly before we met as a “parting gift.” I thank her for providing a place for us to document our food love 🙂 It is our “recipe box,” full of recipes we have invented, but also full of recipes from friends and relatives, dead and alive. It is also stuffed full of recipes we have used and liked from the Internet. I found his recipe, hand-written, on a numbered page, and it was definitely his recipe, different from anything I found out on the Internets.

Time: 20 minutes active, 40 minutes cook-time, 1 hour total
Servings: 6

Ingredients:

1 c. green or brown lentils
1/4 c. olive oil
2 large diced onions
1 c. rice (or other grain, like bulgur wheat)
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1.5 t cumin
.5 t allspice
.25 t cayenne pepper (or more to taste)
1 large bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
2 c broth or water
salt to taste

1-2 additional onions for frying to garnish

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees farenheit.

Rinse and clean lentils. Place in saucepan with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, turn down, and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Lentils will not be soft at this point. Turn off.

In a heavy oven-proof pan, or dutch oven, heat the oil on medium-high. Add onions and cook until they have carmelized to a deep golden-brown. Depending on the onions, this can take from 15 to 30 minutes. Stir them frequently to make sure they don’t burn. Sprinkle with a pinch of kosher salt.

Add garlic, stirring in to the onions for only about 15 seconds. Add grains, and sauté for a couple of minutes, stir in spices, add lentils and broth or water. Add salt and pepper to taste, plus bay leaf and cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil, and place dutch oven, uncovered into preheated oven. Set timer for 20 minutes.

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In the meanwhile:

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Deep fried onions for garnishing.

Slice 1-2 onions thinly. Add about 1 inch of frying oil (canola, avocado, or peanut) in a heavy pan. Heat oil up over medium heat, test temperature by dropping onions into oil. When it is hot enough, the onion will bubble to top quickly, and will fry with time to a golden color. Remove and dry on paper towel.

Serving Suggestion:

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A mixed green salad with lemon and olive oil dressing and Zoë’s homemade croutons, plus a herb yoghurt sauce.

Dish up rice and lentils, and garnish with fried onions. Serve with a lightly dressed salad. We made a lovely herb yoghurt sauce that was super easy to make: a small container of greek yoghurt plus a couple of tablespoons of Trader Joe’s Zhoug Sauce. Harissa is also an excellent accompaniment for this meal.

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Simple sweet potato chips

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Every now and then, I just want potato chips with a hamburger for dinner, which is what we had last night. I read a lot of recipes for baked sweet potato chips, but in the end, Ken convinced me that I should just fry them. He was right. One recipe that I looked at suggested soaking the sliced sweet potatoes in warm water with some cornstarch before cooking them, claiming a crunchier result. I am not a Cooks Illustrated type, so I took her at her word and gave it a go instead of setting up an experiment. I had pretty spectacular results.

Time: 1.5 hours total–10 minutes active prep, 15 to 30 minutes soaking, 10 minutes draining, 30 to 45 minutes frying, depending on how many you decide to make.
Servings: 3 medium potatoes makes about 6 servings

Ingredients:

3 medium-sized sweet potatoes (I used Japanese sweet potatoes)
Frying oil (I used a combination of canola and avocado)
1 T corn starch
Salt or other seasoning to taste

Instructions:

Thinly slice potatoes with their skin on. I use a mandolin, but if you are good at hand-cutting, go for it! Put them in a large bowl, cover with warm tap water, and mix in the cornstarch. Let sit for about 30 minutes. Drain potatoes in layers separated with paper towels. In the meantime, pour about and inch and a half of oil into a heavy pan with tall-ish sides. I use a cast iron dutch oven to fry in, because I don’t fry that many foods and do not own a deep fryer. Heat oil to a good frying temperature. If you are the thermometer using type of person, I believe the desired temperature is around 350 to 360 degrees. I usually just test the oil with whatever I am frying and adjust the temperature according to the result I get. I am not anti-thermometer; it is just that my thermometers are almost always broken, or I can’t find them when I need them! When the oil is the right temperature, it isn’t smoking, and when you drop the uncooked chips in they rise to the top immediately in a bubbling craze. If your oil is not hot enough, the chip will sink and stay, yielding an inedible rubbery thing. If it is too hot, you will have a lot of burned stuff and smoke. Make sure you have a lid nearby to smother a fire should one arise.

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I use wooden tongs to push chips around and flip. Wood does not suck heat out of the oil the way metal does. Keep a close eye on the chips as they cook, as they go from beginning to toast to burned very quickly. When they begin to darken, start taking them out and draining on paper towels. If you are seasoning them, you can do it right away. After they have cooled and crisped, you can pile them for serving.

 

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Perfect Guacamole Every Time

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The key to perfect guacamole every time is perfectly ripe avocados! There are many different types of avocados, but for guacamole, I prefer the Hass avocado from California; it has the right balance of moisture and “meatiness,” and when perfectly ripe, mashes to sublime creaminess.

Ripe Hass avocados have nearly black skins, and a little “give” when squeezed gently in the palm of your hand. An avocado that is too mushy is likely to have bad spots, and one that is too hard will not mush or have the delicate sweetness required for perfect guacamole. If you purchase unripe avocados, often the only available choice, leave them out on the counter for a few days until they reach perfect ripeness, and then pop them in the refrigerator. They will continue to ripen in the fridge but much more slowly, giving you time to use them for whatever purpose.

The following is less of a recipe and more of a guide. I learned to make it this way in Yucatan, Mexico from a man who was cooking for are large family reunion.

The basic ingredients are quite simple:

3 ripe medium Hass avocados
Jalapeño or Serrano to taste
Lime juice, one lime for each avocado
Salt to taste

I also like to have garlic and /or shallots in mine, and sometimes add finely chopped tomatoes at the end.

In Mexico, they use a mortar and pestle, and begin by grinding the pepper with the lime juice. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, you can mince the pepper, or puree it. Scoop out the avocado, and blend in. I don’t like to make my guacamole perfectly smooth. I like it pretty textured. That is a matter of personal preference. You can blend it to the degree that best suits you! If I am using garlic, I add it before the lime juice and pepper to get it well mashed first. I mince the shallots.

Serving guacamole with freshly cooked chips is the best, but any sturdy corn chip will do! My current favorite brand is Juanita’s.

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Zoë’s Famous Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Our daughter is learning to cook, and the first technique she has mastered is roasting. Roasting is a great place to start cooking, because you can make a whole meal in the oven with judicious timing. We often do tag team cooking, and Zoë has taken it upon herself to become the resident vegetable roaster. One of her claims to fame is that she even got her vegetable-hating cousin to eat her brussels sprouts, and to come back for seconds!

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Zoë says that her secret is to toast the sprouts rather than burn them. The fresher the sprouts, of course, the better the result.

Serves: 3 to 4

Time: 45 minutes, 30 active

Ingredients:

2 T olive oil

1 lb of fresh brussels sprouts, cleaned and halved

3 cloves of garlic, sliced cross-wise

Fresh rosemary

Fresh thyme

Salt and pepper

Lemon juice to finish

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Arguably the most time-consuming part of making brussels sprouts is trimming and cleaning them, but it is totally worth it! Trim the stem to loosen outer leaves, and cut in half.

Place brussels sprouts in a baking dish with sides that will hold them on when you go to turn them. You want them to be a single layer deep, so we find we often need a cookie sheet with edges. Other times we use a cast iron skillet. We line it with parchment to make clean-up easier.

Drizzle olive oil over brussels sprouts and toss to coat. You can also use an olive oil spray if you prefer. Add garlic and herbs, salt and pepper to taste, and toss again before placing in oven. How long they take to cook will depend on how big they are. We peek at them after 10 minutes, give them a stir, and then every 5 minutes after that until they are done. Squeeze lemon on these before serving.

Serving suggestions:

Brussel sprouts are best in the winter, and are well suited to be served with most any protein.

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Sautéed Greens with Other Vegetables

A few years ago we started to make a concerted effort at eating a more wholesome diet, relying less on carbs and prepared foods. One of the staples in our diet has become cooked (sautéed, braised, roasted, etc.) greens. This recipe, may be adapted to different greens and vegetables, which makes it an important piece of cooking knowledge to have. We often don’t plan our cooking, and find ourselves rummaging through the vegetable bins for things that might taste good together. This combo is especially good!

Kale with asparagus
Kale and other greens mixed with vegetables are delicious. The varied textures and flavors bring more interest to the dish than it would have otherwise.

Ingredients:

2 T olive oil

1 lb of kale, chopped

1/2 lb asparagus, or alternatively, broccoli florets and stems (peeled and sliced)

1 onion, diced

1 clove of garlic, minced

Zest of one lemon

Juice of one lemon

Red pepper flakes

Water as needed

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Put oil into a heavy deep skillet, or a wok large enough to hold uncooked greens.

Cook onions and garlic together, until onions are translucent. Try not to burn the garlic.

Add greens and asparagus (or broccoli) and stir for a minute or so. Add lemon juice, and a few tablespoons of water to help the vegetables steam a bit. Add lemon zest, pepper flakes, and salt and pepper. Stir frequently, and test greens and vegetables for doneness. I prefer to turn the stove off when the vegetables are a little under cooked, and let them sit, while I finish the rest of dinner. I turn the burner back on to heat them up just before serving.

Serving suggestions:

This is a great side dish for any chicken, fish, or meat that you are serving, and also is a wonderful complement to legume dishes served with rice. I frequently use my leftover greens in soups. You can use any combination of greens and vegetables, however, I find that collards are better braised since they can be tough and bitter if not cooked for a long time.

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