things we eat and drink, at home and out and about
I signed up to a “British vegetable box”, and what that translates into these days is: a lot of leeks, carrots and potatoes.
It’s a fun challenge to come up with new recipes (new to me, I suppose!) to use them in different ways.
So after I made a leek and potato soup (a Devvers classic), I devised a leek, carrot and potato fritatta, and then… a leek and broccoli risotto for Sunday lunch, because Sundays should be for rice dishes!
Continue reading “Leek and broccoli risotto”
I had some left over boiled potatoes and carrots from a bollit, and a lot of leeks, so I turned them into a comforting fritatta.
I was feeling quite creative so I decided to add a spicy twist to this by concocting a sort of “spicy soya topping”, using dehydrated soya mince, chilli oil and paprika. After baking in the oven, the texture became crispy and super interestingânothing to do with the boring soggy soya bits you get just after rehydrating.
It provided a good counterpart to the soft, comforting fritatta flavours. Something to experiment with!
Continue reading “Leek, carrot and potato fritatta”Note: this post was written almost a year ago, in July 2020! It had been sitting on my drafts for some reason, and it’s a pity because it has some cool stuff we did last year! So out it goes!
Feel free to imagine it is preceded by a whiff of naphtalene or something đ
This week we went to two (!) restaurants and a pub and it was all weird and quiet. We also ran out of milk but made porridge anyway. And Devvers made Spanish sweets following a Valencian recipe again!
We still can’t walk without the persistent feeling that everyone is going to give us the virus, and many things are still closed, although at least the supermarkets around us are relatively well stocked nowadays.
Continue reading “[VERY BELATED POST] Pseudo-isolation, week 17: everything is weird (and quiet)”
Sesame seeds are used mostly as a decorative element in Spanish food, e.g. as topping on burger buns or in “rosquilletas” (a sort of bread-based snack). The dishes with a much stronger presence of sesame seeds were all originating from Andalusia, such as tortas de anĂs and mantecadosâpossibly related to the Arab influence, but I’m hypothesising here.
I think I started “sesame seeding” my life after I tried Japanese food for the first time and I wanted to replicate some of the flavours at home. Apparently there was some mysterious ingredient called “sesame seed oil” that provided that extra “something” that my attempts were missing so far (no wonder something was amissâI was using olive oil to cook Japanese stuff đ ). What a discovery!
Later I progressed to learn how to make hummus at home. It had a mysterious ingredient called tahini…! And once I discovered what it was, I wanted to put it on everything.
Then I started learning about all the sauces and dips you can make that involve tahini: whisk with a bit of water and it turns into a smooth dip. Add some garlic and it becomes nicely punchy. Or you can add lemon and yoghurt and it’s tangy and addictive. So many variations! All of them so tasty!
Of course, I also learned about the Divine Trinity: cumin, nigella and sesame seeds sprinkled on crackers or anything that deserves a good oomph. And there’s also my beloved dukkah, which you might have heard me talk rave about already many times.
Butâand this is a big butâneither of these recipes really puts sesame front and center. I wanted to make something that would unashamedly declare its sesameness. Something where “sesame” was in the name of the recipe.
And so I came up with this sesame seed bread!
Continue reading “Sesame seed bread”
I was trying to make flatafels, but using yellow peas instead of chickpeas.
Yellow peas, we found out in another attempt to make hummus with them, are sour if you just soak them but don’t cook them. So this time I had soaked and cooked them in the pressure cooker, but it seems that I went a touch overboard with them, and they were too soft. Borderline mushy. Ew.
To make things worse I also blended them in the food processor, as I was sort of just following the normal recipe for falafel.
Continue reading “A happy accident: freadafels (falafel buns)”