Little chocolate-tahini cakes

I got all into the idea of using tahini in baking after I made (and fell in love with) a hot cross marmalade tart a few weeks ago. I came across this other recipe with tahini in it. As well as the tahini, it featured a couple of other ingredients I really like and happened to have in the house: Kahlua and dark chocolate. Sounded like a delicious combination, so I made these as a pudding to follow the mushroom and walnut ravioli, as a nice dinner for S.

(I halved the original recipe to get the quantities below, and it made 9 little, dense cakes in my muffin tin)

3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 cup icing sugar, plus more for dusting
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/6 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder (use a bit more if you don't have D-p)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped (or use chips)
1/4 cup / 60 ml soy milk
1/3 cup / 80 ml Kahlua
1/4 cup / 60 ml tahini
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Heat the oven to 350F / 180C / gas 4. Grease and flour a 12 cup muffin tin (you will likely need only 9 cups). Mix the flour, icing sugar, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt in a bowl with a fork. Put the chocolate in a separate bowl. Heat the soy milk over medium heat until it begins to steam and almost comes to a boil. Pour the soy milk over the chocolate, then add the Kahlua, tahini, and vanilla. Let stand for 1 minute, then stir until the mixture is smooth and the chocolate is melted. Add the chocolate mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Use a spoon to transfer the mixture to the prepared tin, filling each cup about two-thirds full. Bake for 15-20 min, until the tops are firm but the inside is still slightly soft (test by inserting a skewer). Transfer the tin to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes, then invert and let cool completely, about 15 minutes. Lift off the tin and the cakes should come out easily. Dust with icing sugar if you want to prettify them. Best eaten the day they're made. We ate them with a dollop of soy yoghurt.


Nice: rich, slightly squishy in the middle, chocolatey and slightly nutty. A little dry around the edges. Not amazing, although strangely compelling.

Mushroom and walnut ravioli

S made me a nice Saturday lunch, so I decided to make him a nice dinner. His favourite food is pasta. I made a fresh, eggless pasta a few weeks ago, and wondered if the same dough would work as ravioli. Which, I just realised, is a merger of two of S's favourite food things: pasta, and little packages. I had been thinking about what would be good as a filling, and mushroom and walnut was a forerunner. So when we got home with mushrooms among our grocery shopping I decided to go for it and give ravioli a shot.

(made 12 fairly large ravioli = a good quantity for two people, with some dough left over that made a portion or two of fettucine to dry out)

For the pasta:
1 cup pasta flour
1 cup plain flour
1 tbsp gram flour
1 tsp salt
water

For the filling:
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
~8 medium sized mushrooms, cleaned and finely diced
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tbsp chanterelle mushroom powder
1 tsp white vermouth
1/2 tbsp chickpea and barley three-year (dark) miso
~10 walnut halves, half ground / half chopped
salt+pepper

First, make the pasta. Mix the flours and salt in a heap on a clean work surface. Make a well in the middle and add water, mixing with your fingers until it comes together into a dough. Knead for a few minutes, until the dough is pliable. Wrap in clingfilm and put it in the fridge for ~30 min.

While the dough is chilling, prepare the filling. Heat ~1 tbsp of olive oil in a medium frying pan. Add the garlic and fry until softened and starting to go light brown. Add the mushrooms, mushroom powder and thyme and cook, stirring occasionally, so the mushrooms soften, go dark and release their liquid. Continue cooking until the liquid is reabsorbed / evaporated. Add the vermouth and cook until it too is evaporated. Add the miso, walnuts and seasoning to taste.

The pasta dough should have had sufficient time in the fridge by now. Take one third and roll out on a floured surface until thin. Cut out circular pieces using a Coke glass or other circular cutter. Pair them up. Place a teaspoon full of the mushroom filling mixture in the centre of one of each pair of circles. Lightly wet the edge of the circle around the mushroom pile, then place the other circle of the pair on top and squish the two circles together all around their circumference with your fingers. Try not to let any air get sealed in the middle. You can press around the edge with a fork as well if you want to be sure of the seal.

As each one is completed, transfer it to a baking sheet lined with coarse cornmeal or semolina. Refrigerate them on the baking sheet until you are ready to cook them. Roll out the next third of dough (and then the next third) and shape more ravioli, continuing to add the completed shapes to the collection on the baking sheet until you are out of filling. If there is any remaining dough you can just roll it out and shape it into fettucine or another shape, and dry it out if you don't feel like eating it all straight away.

To cook the pasta, bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Put the ravioli in. Cook for about 5 minutes - they will float, then you will need to cook them for a minute or two longer. The exact cooking time will vary depending on the thickness of the pasta. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil (or truffle oil?) and some salt and pepper, or with whatever kind of sauce takes your fancy.


These turned out good: S loved them and said they were one of the best things I ever cooked. The pasta was a little thick - it is hard to roll it out really thin manually, and since these involve a double layer of dough all around the perimeter any slight too-thick-ness is magnified. We both quite enjoyed the thickish pasta anyway, although I don't know if it would have passed inspection on Masterchef... None of them burst while cooking - think using water to help the seal was a good tip. Not sure if the gram flour made any difference (might be an idea to try varying the quantities of the different types of flour in the dough more though?). The filling was really successful - incredibly flavourful and savoury, and a great texture. The next filling I'd like to try is butternut squash, sage and hazelnut or pecan.

Chickpea flour pancake-pizza

Another very weird 24 hours: was woodturning late last night, finishing off my first bowl (!). When I left to bike home around 0045, I got to the JFK bridge and again, endless sirens: all shapes and sizes of cop cars whizzing along Mem Drive towards Watertown, and a cop boat in the river too. I eventually got across the road only to nearly get run down by another two cop cars coming over the bridge on the wrong side of the road, then cycled the rest of the way home dreading what I was going to see on the news when I got there.

Woke up this morning, bleary-eyed but ready to head to work, checked the news, and found the city was on lockdown: everyone in the city ordered to 'Shelter at Home' while the police conduct a manhunt (for a bombing / shooting suspect) in Watertown. All day we've been in a kind of limbo, reading news constantly while a warm, sunny Spring day passed by outside. I snacked fitfully and nervously all day, then by evening felt like I needed something real to eat...

I'd been meaning to try this recipe idea for a while. It's basically socca, simplified and restyled as a pizza.

For the base:
1/2 cup chickpea flour
3/4 cup water
1/2 tsp dried thyme
salt+pepper
1 tbsp olive oil

For the onions:
2 tbsp olive oil
3 medium-large onions, peeled and finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
2 tbsp vinegary red wine
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp mixed dried herbs (basil, sage, rosemary, oregano)
salt+pepper
1 tsp honey

Other toppings:
8 salty, dry, black olives, de-stoned and chopped
2-3 tbsp chopped basil
2 pieces of dry 5-spice tofu, shredded
1-2 tbsp sesame seeds

Heat the oven to 450F and put a large, flat, cast iron pan in it to heat as well.

Whisk the base ingredients together in a bowl and set aside.

Heat the olive oil for the onions in a medium frying pan with a lid, then add the onions and garlic. Cover and cook until well softened. Uncover, add the red wine, vinegar, dried herbs, salt and pepper and cook for a bit longer, until the liquid has mostly evaporated. Add the honey (or sugar) and cook for a minute or so longer, then set aside.

Take the cast iron pan out of the oven (careful, it will be very hot and heavy) and spread the chickpea mixture across it quickly and evenly. Put back in the oven for 5-10 min. Then take out again (the chickpea mixture should be cooked to make a crust), and spread the onion mixture across it. Sprinkle the other topping ingredients across the top: shredded dry tofu, chopped basil and olives, and sesame seeds. Put in the oven for another 5-10 min, until the tofu and seeds are lightly browned.


This was interesting: I liked the chickpea base but it came out quite thin, more like a pancake. Perhaps double the quantity another time? And / or try increasing the relative quantity of chickpea flour in the mix?

Parsnip muffins (savoury and sweet)

Yesterday was crazy.

We biked the course of the Boston Marathon overnight on Sunday night: took a train from South Station with 700 other bikers at 10pm, started the course around 11.30pm having biked from the train station in Southborough to the start line in Hopkinton among a vast throng of red blinking lights (lots more bikers arriving in buses and cars as well as the train). S and I lost the others quite early but we sailed all the way: it was a beautiful night: so much energy, fun, camaraderie. Finished about 1.30am, but then I was too excited and didn't really sleep - got up early and went to work in beautiful Spring sunshine. Felt off-kilter, but like the first weekend of Spring... almost Summer.

Food for lab meeting was cheesy pizza (was a last minute solution as originally ordered from the other side of the marathon route), so I couldn't eat it and went down to Brigham Circle about 3pm to get something to keep me going. I was in Green T (tea shop) waiting for a banana-coconut-pineapple smoothie as masses of sirens started speeding past. So many. Unusually many, despite being in an area full of hospitals. There was rolling news on a little TV in the shop. The headlines were about explosions at the marathon finish line. Two and two came together, and my heart clenched. The girl brought out my smoothie and we stood watching the headlines with another customer for a few minutes, exchanging words of shock and disbelief, before I ran back to work: my heart still aching; my thoughts with the people at the finish line, the people in the hospitals, with this tough little city, with all my friends who could so easily have been in the wrong place on this sunny holiday Monday.

Baking can be my way of winding down and taking my mind off things. So I made these last night, after I eventually biked home, having waited for the runners to finish passing our street and the hubbub to die down. I'd wanted to do more, different things with parsnips, the idea of making a bread occurred (thanks to Delia), then I decided to adapt it into a savoury muffin to make it quicker and more portable, then decided to try sweet ones too. Used this recipe as a base; borrowed the idea of a rye-wholemeal-cornmeal flour mix (in the savoury version) from Boston Brown Bread (I needed something Boston-related to creep in, somehow).

Savoury:
(makes 12)

1 cup wholemeal flour
1 cup rye flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp ground cumin
2-3 tbsp pumpkin seeds
1 1/2 cups grated parsnip
1/3 cup oil
2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 5 1/2 tbsp boiling water
1 1/3 cups fake milk mixed with 1 tsp cider vinegar

Heat oven to 350F. Prepare a muffin tin. Mix flours, cornmeal, baking powder, bicarb, thyme, cumin, salt and pumpkin seeds in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl mix the oil, linseed mixture, milk mixture and grated parsnip. Add the wet to the dry and mix until just combined. Dollop into prepared muffin cups and then bake for ~25 min, until a skewer comes out clean.


Sweet:
(makes 12)

1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 1/4 cups wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup slivered toasted almonds
1 1/2 cups grated parsnip
1/3 cup oil
2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 5 1/2 tbsp boiling water
1 1/3 cups fake milk mixed with 1 tsp cider vinegar

Heat oven to 350F. Prepare a muffin tin. Mix flours, baking powder, bicarb, sugar, spices, salt, nuts and raisins in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl mix the oil, linseed mixture, milk mixture and grated parsnip. Add the wet to the dry and mix until just combined. Dollop into prepared muffin cups and then bake for ~25 min, until a skewer comes out clean.


Sweet ones are good: not too sweet, nicely spiced. Think pecans or walnuts might work better than the almonds. You can't really taste the parsnip.

Parsnip and peanut curry

I love parsnips, but in all honesty I have stuck to relatively few ways of cooking them: mostly pureed (in soup or mash) or roasted (both are recommended, and delicious). Neither of those methods makes something that is as good cold the next day. The best thing for eating cold (or reheated) the next day is curry: the longer it sits, the more the flavours play together and the more interesting they become. I have roasted and souped parsnip with curry spices before, why not make a parsnip curry? S and I were talking about making curries with spice pastes recently, thought I would try something in that style. And really liked the idea of peanuts with parsnips for some reason (possibly partly alliterative).

My littlest sister has been in India these last few weeks, I think that might have inspired this longing series of curried veg. She's in Thailand now, perhaps Thai curry experiments will follow?

(makes quite a huge pot - prob serves 4-6)
(based on this recipe)

5 cloves garlic
2 inch piece of ginger
1 small onion
1 green chilli
75ml water + 325ml water
1/2 cup peanuts
2 tsp coriander seed
1 tsp cumin seed
2 tbsp safflower, canola or peanut oil
1 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/2 a tin of tomatoes
2 lb parsnips
2 cups chickpeas
1-2 tsp tamarind paste
1-2 tsp salt
1-2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

Put the garlic, ginger, onion and chilli in a blender with 75ml water and blend to a paste. Grind the coriander seed and half the cumin seed. Toast the peanuts in a dry frying pan and then grind them coarsely, so there are still plenty of chunks left (or chop them).

Heat the oil in a tall saucepan. When hot, add the whole cumin seeds and toast for ~30sec, until fragrant. Add the ground spices and peanuts and stir and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic-ginger paste and cook for a few minutes more, until it starts to thicken. Add the tomatoes, the rest of the water, the parsnips and the chickpeas, cover and simmer for 20-30 min, until the parsnips are tender. Add salt and tamarind, taste and add more if needed. Eat sprinkled with chopped fresh coriander, with brown rice.


This was an excellent pre / post midnight bike marathon snack. The parsnips are sweet: I know they are a love or hate thing but I am firmly in the 'love' camp, and I think they work excellently with the earthy / toasty / robust chickpeas, peanuts and curry spices. It was a treat to have such a big pile of parsnips (thanks A!).

Chickpeas with amchoor

I bought a bag of amchoor (powdered green mango) yesterday. It had been on my mental shopping list for a while, and although it was a rather big bag, when I found it I couldn't resist. So here is something with amchoor (which seems to be something fit for a similar kind of role to tamarind: sweet / sour flavour depths) - basically this recipe.

4 cups cooked chickpeas (+ keep 1 cup cooking liquid)
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
2-3 cardamom pods, crushed
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp amchoor
1 tbsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cayenne
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 chopped tomatoes or 2 heaped tsp tomato puree plus 1 tsp red wine vinegar and 1/2 cup water
1/4 cup chopped fresh coriander
1 1/2 tsp salt

Heat the oil over medium heat in a medium-large saucepan. When hot, add the cumin, cardamom and cinnamon, and cook for 1 min. Add the ground spices, stir, and pour in the tomatoes / tomato puree plus 1/2 cup water. Cook, uncovered, stirring often, until for 5-10 min or until the tomatoes are reduced. Add the chickpeas, cooking liquid (or sub water if you don't have), and half the chopped coriander. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20 min or until the sauce has thickened. Remove from heat and add salt, and vinegar if it needs it. Serve with the remaining coriander.

Ful medames: mushed fava beans

I guess I am in the mood for broad beans (=fava beans). As well as buying frozen ones recently, I also bought dried ones recently. With the dried ones, I think I had the ful medames we ate at Boston Kebab (a local, small, Palestinian / Middle Eastern place) in my head: they were thick and garlicky and rich with olive oil and wonderful scooped up with warm flatbread on a cold day. Ful medames are apparently the Egyptian national dish, and usually eaten as a breakfast dish. If this is representative of Egyptian food, I want to eat more...

I tried to make it myself.

1 packet (1 lb) dried, small, brown fava beans (aka broad beans)
water
1-2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cumin
3 cloves garlic
juice of 3/4 lemon
2 tbsp olive oil (and more to serve)
1 tbsp chopped parsley (to serve)

Put the beans in a pan and cover with water, up to about 4 inches above the top of the beans. Cover and leave overnight.

In the morning, drain and rinse the beans, then cover again with the same amount of water, bring to the boil and simmer for about 2 hours, until the beans are soft to taste.

Drain the beans, then put them back in the pan with 1/2 a cup of water and the salt. Make sure to add plenty of salt. Heat the beans gently, and mash them with a fork as you do.

At this point, you can serve the beans into bowls and pass round the cumin, lemon juice, parsley, garlic and olive oil so people can mix it individually. Alternatively, you can add the garlic, cumin, lemon juice and oil to the beans and heat gently for a minute or two, then serve it into bowls and sprinkle parsley on top and pour a little more olive oil over it.

Eat with warm flatbreads (we had some frozen ones that I heated on the hob).


It came out quite well - mushed beans, some parts silky and some full of fibre and structure, strong with garlic and subtle with cumin; with lemon juice and parsley livening it up and lashings of olive oil to finish it off. Additions of chopped fresh tomato, hard boiled egg or chopped light-tasting olives would also be good.

Miso soup as a meal

This is very simple. But good. Use whatever vegetables you like, and just make sure to add them in an order that ensures they are all cooked at the same time. The tofu and udon make it bigger, heartier and into a full meal, but they are optional too. Use whatever kind of miso takes your fancy / fits with the vegetables you chose.

1 small onion, peeled and finely sliced
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into thin half moons
1/2 a watermelon radish, peeled and cut into thin slices similar sized to the carrot
1 serving sized packet udon noodles
2 in block of tofu (any kind), diced
2 in piece of cabbage, thinly sliced
3 spring onions, trimmed and sliced
5 mushrooms, sliced
light miso, 4 tbsp or more
water

Put the onion, carrot and radish in a large saucepan with about a litre of water. Bring to the boil and simmer for ~10 min, until the veg are nearly cooked but still a little crunchy. Add the noodles and tofu, bring back to the boil and cook for a few more minutes. Add the cabbage, spring onions and mushrooms, bring to the boil and simmer until all the ingredients are just cooked (a minute or so). Finally, take a ladleful of the liquid from the pan and mix it in a small bowl with the miso, then transfer this mixture back to the pan and stir until combined. Alternatively, you can mix the miso and liquid in your own bowl and then add a serving of soup and mix it up before eating.

Broad bean 'hummus'

I had an exciting trip to Super 88 (Asian supermarket in Allston) last weekend, and scored all sorts of things: from umeboshi plums and shiso seasoning to green tea noodles, via perfect avocados and frozen broad beans. I'd bought frozen broad beans from there before and been disappointed - they were big and tough and ugly. These ones were in a transparent packet, so I could see before I even picked them up that they were none of those things - they were rather dinky, bright green, and had even had their little jackets removed. I stashed them in the freezer and remembered about them a week later, when I came in from aerials hungry and ready for something fresh and tasty. I decided to make the broad beans into a bright green, hummus-like paste.

1 cup frozen broad beans, defrosted by soaking in boiling water for about 5 min
1/2 a small clove garlic, peeled
2 tbsp tahini
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp chopped fresh mint leaves
salt+pepper

Put all the ingredients in a blender cup and blend until smooth.


I really, really liked this - fun colour, and the broad bean taste is so refreshing and full of summer promise (especially paired with the mint).

Really simple miso-tahini salad dressing

Vinaigrette only gets you so far. I always hated mayonnaise. But there is something to be said for a dressing that coats the salad leaves thickly. This fits the bill, and I think it tastes great: sweet, sour, umami, tangy, toasty, all the good things. All you need is this and some robust salad leaves and you have a great salad.

2 tbsp white miso
1 tbsp tahini
1-2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp honey (optional)
water

Mix miso, tahini, honey and vinegar in a bowl. Add water until it is a good consistency. Put a load of salad leaves (Romaine?) in a bowl, sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and then toss with the dressing. Done.