Baked Falafel

I’m going to be honest here, and say, this is not my recipe. But… I have no idea whose it is. It has been sitting in my recipe folder for well over a year now, just the recipe printed on a page, no URL at the bottom, nothing. I guess I cut-and-pasted it into a word document from somewhere on the interwebs. So, if you recognise it, please let me know so I can attribute it properly.

I am a massive fan of Middle Eastern food, and falafels in particular. But what I am not a fan of, is deep frying at home. Too. Freaking. Scary. Mr Alphie is totally unfussed by deep frying however, so I usually have to wait for him to be home from FIFO before I can indulge my habit. If you’ve ever tried baking falafels made from a dried box-mix, you will know my pain. They are like rocks.

As a result, I collect falafel recipes in much the same way as others might collect coins, comic books, or My Little Ponies… However, I have not really had much success in the past. Which has kind of put me off, and I will admit, I have resorted to the pre-made ones from the supermarket fridge section on more than one occasion (FYI, Woolies Macro SmokeyEggplant Falafel are pretty good, and Yumi's are a close second.)

The original recipe was a bit more manual, requiring you to finely chop the onions, garlic and herbs, and mashing the chickpeas in with a potato masher. I don’t have time for that kind of malarkey mid-week, especially when there is an easier option. And, to be honest, I don’t think there would be a noticeable difference in the end result.

Baked falafel

• 1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas (or 1 can)
• ½ onion, peeled
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• 6-ish stalks parsley
• 3-ish stalks coriander
• 2 tbs flour – plain, wholemeal, whatever (I used atta)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp ground coriander seed
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 200°C.

In a food processor, chop up the onion & garlic til fine. (If you have a small bowl attachment for your food processor, I’d use it for this – there’s not much mixture & I was constantly scraping the sides of mine). Add the fresh herbs, and chop again.

Add the remaining ingredients, and pulse until just combined. It should still be quite chunky.

Place spoonfuls of the mixture on a tray with baking paper. Squirt each one with an olive-oil spray, and bake for 15 minutes. Turn each one over, squirt again with the olive oil, and bake for another 10-15 minutes, until browned.

Delish as they are; with tabouli, hummus and flat bread; or use to fill a wrap; or top a salad.

Makes 10 or so falafels.

Enjoy!

Black Pepper Tofu

Sadly, my local Borders is closing, but it does mean I was able to pick up a number of great cookbooks for a steal. One of these was Yotam Ottolenghi's book, Plenty. Yotam is most well known for his columns in the UK newspaper the Guardian, as well as number of restaurants/cafes in London. Plenty is the culmination of these columns into a book, with a few other recipes thrown in for good measure. The recipes in the Guardian are primarily vegetarian, although Yotam is famously not vegetarian himself. Mr Alphie and I aren't vegetarian either, but are always looking for great meat-free options, for ourselves and the vegetarians we often cook for.

This recipe jumped out at me in my first flick through the book, and again last night when I was looking for dinner inspiration. Luckily, Mr Alphie is not one to shy away from tofu, and after my stay with SIL & Mr SIL, I have developed quite a soft spot for it.

Mr Alphie and I both loved this, and Mr Alphie was pushing to have it again soon- like, before he heads back north again (in 2 days time!).

Notes: I made a half recipe, as I don't think it would re-heat well. Also, I only used one chilli, we only had the hot Thai ones (definitely not mild, as suggested), and that combined with the pepper was a fairly hot dish (but not 'blow your head off'), so make your own judgements on the chilli & pepper quantities - keeping in mind that there is supposed to be a lot of pepper, hence 'black pepper tofu'. 

Mr Alphie rates it: 9.5/10 - a true gem!

Black Pepper Tofu

Serves 4

• 800g firm, fresh tofu
• vegetable oil, for frying
• cornflour to dust the tofu
• 150g butter
• 12 small shallots (350g), peeled and thinly sliced
• 8 red chillies, thinly sliced
• 12 garlic cloves, crushed
• 3 tbsp chopped fresh ginger
• 5 tbsp crushed black peppercorns
• 3 tbsp sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
• 3 tbsp light soy sauce
• 4 tsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 16 small, thin spring onions, cut into 3cm segments

Start with the tofu. Pour enough oil  into a large frying pan or wok to come 5mm up the sides and heat. Cut the tofu into large cubes, about 3cm x 2cm.

Unless, like me, you are wearing your comfy around-the-house trackies, I suggest you wear an apron while coating the tofu - I managed to get cornflour everywhere...

Toss them in some cornflour and shake off the excess, then add to the hot oil. (You'll need to fry the tofu in batches).

Fry, turning them around as you go, until they are golden and have a thin crust. As they are cooked, transfer to paper towel to drain.

Remove the oil and any sediment from the pan, then add in the butter. Once it has melted, add the shallots, chillies, garlic and ginger, and sauté on low to medium heat for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the contents of the pan are shiny and totally soft.

Next add the soy sauces and sugar and stir, then add the crushed black pepper.

Add the tofu to warm in the sauce for about a minute, then add the spring onion and stir through. Serve hot with steamed rice. (We also had steamed Asian greens.)

-Alphie

Middle Eastern Rice & Lentils

After pledging my love for Lebanese food, I realised I haven't posted about it once! So, following from Wednesdays felafel, I bring you another middle eastern speciality; rice and lentils, also known as mujadara (or some variation of). This recipe cam from the Good Living, although it has been ok-ed by FMIL as an authentic take on the traditional version.


Middle Eastern Rice & Lentils with Blackened Onions
from SMH Good Living, June 2 2009
serves 4

• 5 tbs olive oil
• 6 onions, halved and finely sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground all spice
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 2x 400g cans lentils, drained & rinsed
  
• 1 cup long grain rice, rinsed
• Yoghurt, to serve

Heat 2 tbs of the oil in a medium-large saucepan over medium heat, and add one of the onions, garlic, cumin, cinnamon and all spice. Sauté for four-ish minutes until onion is soft and starting to colour.

Add rice, and stir to coat. Stir in stock and lentils and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 15 minutes.

the onions - yes I used a red one, but we only had 5 brown onions...

all cooked down, and nicely black

Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a large pan and add the remaining 5 onions. Cook until soft and blackened, about 20-30 minutes.

Serve rice scattered with onions, with yoghurt on the side.

-Alphie

Broad Bean Felafel

One of the things I miss most about Sydney, is a decent daily broadsheet. The Sydney Morning Herald is a great newspaper, and my favourite section is Tuesday's Good Living. FH Alphie has been religiously collecting them since I moved to Perth, and each time I return home, a pile of Good Livings awaits me.

I found this recipe in the last pile FH Alphie handed over - 28 September, to be exact. And the timing couldn't have been more perfect, as FSIL had just received a shiny new KitchenAid food processor as a gift (from a long-term bludging house guest...)

Mine looked nothing like those in the recipe, but they were still really tasty, very filling, and iridescent green. I think this had to do with the order I put things in the food processor, so I've modified the recipe below, and I hope it works better for you than it did for me!


Broad bean felafel fritters
from SMH Good Living, September 28 2010
(makes 10-12)

• 1kg fresh broad beans
• 400g tin chickpeas, drained
• 1 cup coriander leaves, loosely packed
• 1 cup mint leaves, loosely packed
• 1 clove garlic
• 1tsp ground coriander
• 1tsp ground cumin
• 1 red chilli, deseeded
• 1/2 lemon, zest & juice
• plain flour for dusting
• vegetable oil for dusting

Remove broad beans from their pods. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil, add broad beans and simmer for a few minutes.

The ever shrinking broad beans...!

Drain, rinse to cool slightly, and peel off the outer skins - I find that the easiest way to do this is to pierce the skin along one edge, and gently squeeze it out.

My unfortunately green, smooth as silk mix.

This is where I deviate from the recipe. I would suggest you put the herbs in the food processor first, and lightly chop them up. Then add the remaining ingredients; broad beans, chickpeas, garlic, coriander, cumin, chilli and lemon, and pulse until roughly chopped and combined.


Then shape into patties, and lightly coat in flour. Heat oil in a large frypan, and cook for a few minutes on each side until lightly brown.

Serve with yoghurt, flat bread and salad.

-Alphie

Capsicum & sausage stew

How appetising this sounds! I think I need to find/make up a new name for this creation, because to be honest, it is particularly tasty, but the words 'sausage stew' don't really do anything justice.

This was inspired by a capsicum and potato stew I have made before, combined with a wish to try some of the goat sausages FH Alphie bought back from Totally Local. It made way too much for two people (even though I only used 6 sausages), so I upped the sausages to 8 for the recipe, and that will still leave more than enough sauce for four people.

FH Alphie rates it: 8/10

Capsicum & sausage stew
Serves 4

• 8 (or two per person) good quality sausages
• 1tbs olive oil
• 2 onions, finely sliced
• 2-3 cloves garlic, crushed/finely diced
• 2 red capsicums, seeded and cut into strips
• 2x 400g cans diced tomatoes
• 2 medium potatoes, peeled & diced
• salt & pepper

In a large (preferably non-stick) pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Brown the sausages, then remove and drain on paper towel. Add the garlic & onion to the pan (you might need to get rid of some of the oil first, if your sausages were particularly fatty), and cook over medium heat until soft. Add the capsicum and cook for a few minutes until jut soft.

Stir in the tomatoes and half a can of water, and bring to the boil. Add the diced potato, and top with the sausages. Make sure the potatoes are fully submerged in the sauce, and leave to simmer (lid off) for 15-20 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through.

Serve with crusty bread to mop up the sauce, and something green - we had steamed beans, but a simple salad would be good.

-Alphie.

Beef keema

This is something we have pretty regularly in our house, for a couple of reasons; it's tasty, pretty quick, and we almost always have all the ingredients in the pantry & freezer. And, the recipe came from an Australian Women's Weekly cookbook - you can always count on the AWW to give you a tasty, tried and tested recipe!

Somehow though, it tastes different every time, which is quite strange given that it is one of the few things I cook where I follow the recipe to a tee, every time, especially when you consider how often we have it. It always baffles FH Alphie and I how it can vary so much. Never the less, it is always good. We have gotten to the stage where the 'leftovers' are packed before we eat, to prevent the two of us from eating the whole lot in one go... :shifty:

FH Alphie rates it: 6/10

We also had dessert tonight!! Yay!! FH Alphie volunteered to make something (yes, even with the busted wing - I think he might be getting bored) to compensate for the average day I had at work. He whipped up Ben O'Donoghue's twice-cooked chocolate brownies (delicious. November 2009, pg 51). There is seriously nothing better than coming home to a toasty warm house that smells of brownies, aahhh....

I'm not going to post the recipe for the brownies, FH Alphie claims that he 'just followed the recipe' and didn't do anything special, so doesn't think I should blog about it. So, I'll link to it instead - the brownie recipe is here. I will add this; we cut ours into 15 squares (18 seemed too difficult) and they were waaaay to big, we ended up cutting the rest in half again.

Alphie rates it: 8/10

Beef keema with cumin and currant pulao
AWW Fresh food fast, pg 47
serves 4

• 2 tbs vegetable oil, I use rice bran oil
• 1 small onion, sliced thinly
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp caraway seeds
• 1/4 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 cup basmati rice
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 2 tbs dried currants
• 500g beef mince
• 2 tsp hot curry powder
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tbs sweet chilli sauce
• 1/4 cup water
• 4 green onions, sliced thinly (optional)
• 2/3 cup frozen peas
• 1/4 cup firmly packed fresh coriander leaves (optional)

I make the rice (pulao), in a rice cooker, because I'm lazy. Heat 1 tbs of the oil in the rice cooker, then, holding the bowl down to 'trigger' the rice cooker, cook brown onion, garlic and spices, stirring, until onion softens. Then add rice; cook, stirring, until rice is coated in spice mixture.


Stir in stock, make sure the rice cooker is on 'cook' (not 'warm') put the lid on, and get on with the keema. Remember, you have to stir the currants into the rice about halfway through.



Heat the remaining oil in a large frying pan. Add mince and stir until broken up and cooked through. Add curry powder and ginger; stir until fragrant. Add sauce, the water, green onion (optional) and peas; cook, stirring, until peas are tender. bring to the boil.


Serve keema on pulao, sprinkled with coriander (optional).


You can, of course, cook the rice on the stove. If you do this, follow the instructions above, and once you have added the stock, bring it to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, 12 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in currants and stand, covered, about 5 minutes or until rice is tender.

We usually omit the spring onions and coriander leaves, unless we happen to have them at the time, as they are not items we typically have in the kitchen.

-Alphie

Tuna pasta bake

Ok, so a bit of pasta overload here, but it's easy to eat one handed, which is a requirement in our house at the moment - FH Alphie has a busted wing.
 
This is something I have never cooked before, as it brings back bad memories from my childhood, as Tuna Mornay, as it was called in our house, had a long stint as my sisters FAVOURITE MEAL EVER, and we ate it at least once a week. It took me a long time to recover from that period in my life, however I think I am now over it. I saw a recipe for Creamy tuna and pea pasta bake in Super Food Ideas (SFI) magazine recently and it caught my interest (the fact that I even noticed suggests that I have recovered from the tuna mornay overload) and mentally filed it away for a future time.

This is a bit of a bastardised version of that recipe. The recipe in SFI used peas, and since FH Alfie has a thing against peas, and I made him eat them yesterday, I substituted that for baby spinach, the recipe also used evaporated milk, which I didn't have, and don't usually buy, so I made up a basic bechamel/white sauce instead.


FH Alphie rated it 7/10

Tuna pasta bake
(adapted from SFI, June 2010)
serves 6 hungry people

• 3 cups short pasta
• 1 head broccoli, cut into small florets
• 90g butter
• 1 or 2 onions, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 90g plain flour
• 2 heaped tsp mustard (seeded or smooth)
• 750ml milk
• 425g can tuna in springwater, drained and flaked
• 100g (approx) baby spinach
• 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs (or 1/2 cup dry breadcrumbs)
• 1 - 1 1/2 cups grated cheese (I used Colby)
• salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 170 degrees.

Cook pasta in a large saucepan of boiling salted water until tender. Add broccoli for the last 1-2 minutes of cooking. Drain, and set aside.

Meanwhile, melt butter in a medium saucepan, add onion and cook over medium heat until just soft, then add garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes. Stir in flour, and keep stirring until flour has 'cooked off' a bit, then stir through mustard. Add the milk slowly, stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Bring to the boil, stirring, then stand aside.

Combine pasta and broccoli, white sauce, tuna and spinach. Season and pour into a 3L ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with combined cheese and breadcrumbs.
 
Bake for 30 minutes until heated through and the top is golden.

One pot pasta

As promised, dinner tonight was 'one pot pasta'. I got the recipe from taste.com.au, but I think it was in delicious magazine first.

It is kind of reminiscent of a Bolognaise, or at least Bolognaise the way is it generally interpreted in Australia - rich, tomato-ey and meaty. Regardless, it is the perfect thing for a winter night, especially a lazy Sunday, because although it takes a while, you don't have to do much for most of that time, it just bubbles away, making the house smell delicious. Although the recipe says it serves 4, it looks like it would easily serve a small army, or 6 at least - after FH Alphie and I have eaten, there is always a lot more than half left. And, if you are the cook and washer-upper (which is my status, currently), you only dirty one knife, chopping board, pot & spoon. And the cupboards & floor, if, like me, you have an incident with the red wine...
One pot pasta
serves 4-6, see above.

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tbs rosemary leave, finely chopped
• 500g beef mince
• 250ml red wine
• 750ml beef stock
• 2 tbs tomato paste
• 500ml tomato passata
• 2 tsp caster sugar
• 1 bay leaf
• 500g small pasta shapes (shells are best, as they 'hold' the sauce, but any small shapes will do)
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1 tbs chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
• parmesan, to serve

Heat oil in a large, heavy based saucepan (I used a cast iron Le Chasseur pot), and cook onion until soft (1-2 minutes). Add garlic & rosemary, and cook for 1 minute. Then add beef and cook for 5 minutes, or until browned.

Add the wine, stock, tomato paste, passata, sugar & bay leaf. Season, and bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add pasta and 25oml boiling water, and cook until pasta is al dente. Stir it frequently once the pasta is in because it will stick. Stir in peas and allow to heat through.

Stir through parsley, and serve with parmesan, and a glass of red wine!