White pudding, deconstructed.

When I read the description of white pudding, I assumed that A) it would be easy to veganise and B) I knew what it was.

I was wrongish on both counts.

On closer inspection it turns out that white pudding is actually made of suet and oats and spices, which are then stuffed into a sausage-tube-thing. I’ve replaced suet before, usually with margarine and copha, but I’ve got no idea how to substitute a sausage-tube-thing.

But the show must go on, and dinner must be made, so I had a crack at white pudding, deconstructed.

White pudding (sort of), clapshot and veggies

The recipe is below, so rather than go into detail about all the guessing and substitutions, I’ll just tell you how it was. It was good! I don’t know if I’d make it again, considering the trouble, but it was honestly very tasty, and certainly different to what we’d usually munch on.

I served it up with some sautéed vegetables, and clapshot, which is mashed potato, swede and chives.

Vegan, deconstructed, white pudding
Serves 3

• 1 cup oats, ground
• 1/2 cup soy milk
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 3/4 cup tempeh, crumbled
• 1/4 cup copha, grated
• 2 tbs vegan worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbs dried sage
• 1 tbs dried basil
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp massell vegan beef flavoured stock
• more oil, for frying

 

1. Grind the oats in a coffee grinder or food processor.
2. Soak the oats in the milk for 30 minutes.
3. Fry the onion in the olive oil, until soft.
4. Combine all ingredients in a bowl, and mix until sticky and well combined.
5. Wrap the whole mess tightly in some foil, baking paper or plastic wrap, and steam in a double boiler or bamboo steamer for 10 minutes.
6. Let sit until cool.
7. Attempt to cut the unwrapped ‘sausage’ into pieces (mine did not like being chopped).
8. Heat some extra oil in a non-stick pan, and add slices of sausage. Fry until lightly browned on each side.
9. Serve with a full breakfast, or with potatoes.

 

Scotch broth and oat cakes

Time does tick on, huh? Lucky for me I’m home with an unstoppable cough today, so I can catch up on blog writing between coughing fits.

The very first Scottish-ish meal I turned my hand to, in the distant past of about two and  half weeks ago, was Scotch broth accompanied by some oat cakes.

Scotch broth is made of meat, leek, root vegetables and barley – what I grew up just calling “soup”. Obviously I didn’t use any meat, but instead flavoured mine with fake beef stock from Massell. I was also unable to find any leek, it not really being the season for them, so I used lots of spring onion, shallot and garlic tops from the garden instead.

I based my recipe around this one from Jamie Oliver, and this one from Angela Hartnett from the Guardian. I have since found that vegan versions abound, so my apologies if my recipe is exactly the same as other peoples’.

Vegan Scotch Broth

The broth looked pretty, and tasted pretty good in that nourishing, wintery kind of way. I don’t think this sort of soup is ever going to win my heart back from curried carrot or creme of cauliflower, but it made a fairly decent attempt. To make it look pretty, and not go too stodgy, I mucked around a little during the preparation and soaked and boiled the barley in its own pot before adding to the soup. You don’t really need to do this, I was just trying to ensure I didn’t accidentally make porridge.

I served the broth up with some oat cakes. I first tried them in Scotland, and fell in love. For those who haven’t tried them, they’re basically just a dry biscuit (or a cracker, for the yanks) made of oats and oat flour. And they’re very tasty and moreish.

As with the broth, I based my recipe around several others, including this one from TriniGourmet and this one on the Bob’s Red Mill site.

I won’t post a full recipe, but will add that:

• I veganised by using plain old vegan marg, and it worked out well, so no need for shortening if you don’t have any, and
• I used a coffee grinder to make the oats into rough oat flour. I did this for about 3/4 of the oats called for in the recipe.

Home made oatcakes (pictured with mushroom pate)

I was impressed with how easy they were to make, and how tasty and dry they were, and think I think I’ll add them to the standing rotation. (Actually that probably won’t happen, because I always say that and I never do it, but what the hell, why change now?).

They seemed to go down well with Mr also – he didn’t realise they were home made.

 

Vegan Scotch Broth

Serves 4-6

• 1/2 cup pearl barley, soaked for 2 hours
• 1/2 cup lentils, soaked for 20 minutes
• 2 tbs vegan margarine
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 1 swede, diced
• 2 radishes, diced (you don’t have to do this, I just have a radish glut)
• 2 potatoes, diced
• 1 leek or 1 cup of chopped spring onion, onion tops, shallot tops and garlic tops
• 2 litres of stock (I used massell beef stock powder)

1. In a pot of boiling water, cook the barley and the lentils. Drain and set aside.
2. In a large saucepan melt the margarine and fry the onion until soft.
3. Add the vegetables, including leek if you have it but leave the onion and garlic tops out if you’re using them instead. Add the stock ad bring to the boil. Return to a simmer, and simmer for 30 minutes.
4. Add the onion etc tops if using, and continue to simmer for 15 minutes.
5. Serve with bread (or oat cakes).

 

 

 

 

The first feast

The first Iranian things I tried making were from the dinner selection.

The menu went as follows:

• bread
• herb salad
• pickles
• kashk-e badenjan
• chelow
• khoresht – sour tofu and herbs

I read in Saraban that Iranian meals usually begin with flat bread and a basket of herbs and cheese. These are then followed by pickles, lie or lemon, then the ‘main’ component, either soup or stew and rice.

I actually went and made the bread (which is a BIG DEAL because I have tried and failed at bread many times over), but I bought the pickles. The bread I made was barberi, or breakfast bread – I made sure we had some left for breakfast the next day.

I used the recipe from Saraban and it turned out…okish. It was fluffy, but also had that slightly bland, tough thing going on which my bread always has. I’m doing something very wrong with bread, but I just don’t know what it is. Imma buy it instead.

There are no photos of the bread, but there will be some from breakfast.

The herb salad came mostly from our back yard veggie patch, but our eggplants are still pretty weedy looking and haven’t fruited yet, so I bought the eggplant too.

Salad, pickles and khask-e badenjan

The eggplant side dish was the star of the evening. I have added a veganised version of the Saraban recipe below, because it was so fabulous it really must be shared.

The chelow, which is Iranian rice, is another riff off of the pilaf theme which pervades the cuisines of central asia, southern europe and the middle east, this one with a very crunchy bottom. The crunchy-bottom concept is a concept I came across a few years back when I covered Azerbaijan, but I didn’t have the right tools to replicate it then.

Now, with my hard-anodised pan of non-stick wonder, I was able to turn my attention to an appropriately crunchy-bottomed rice dish.

It turned out beautifully – lovely and golden, crispy and fluffy. Sadly though, the crispiness was actually a little too crispy for Mr and I. I think we prefer our grains with a little give. It was gorgeous though, I’ll give it that.

Khoresht and chelow

The stew, or khoresht, was from this recipe for sour chicken stew at Turmeric and Saffron. I followed it for the most part, subbing fried tofu for the chicken, and making a much smaller dish over all. I also used lime instead of bitter orange, because I don’t know where I would get a bitter orange in Melbourne.

Frying tofu in the wonder-pan – looks tastier than it was.

I enjoyed the stew especially the sour part,  but Mr was not so fussed about it. The tofu didn’t really take in much flavour, and if I made it again i would marinate it a long while before frying it.

 

Eggplant with sour creamy sauce

• 1 large eggplant
• salt
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 small onion
• olive oil
• pepper
• dried herbs (the original recipe specifies mint, but I had none so used some dill, tarragon and oregano)
• 3 Tbs tofutti better than cream cheese
• 100ml water
• 2 Tbs vinegar

1. Peel and slice the eggplant into rounds. Salt and leave to sweat for 20 minutes.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 220 degrees.
3. Fry the onion and garlic in some oil until just soft. Set aside, but don’t clean the pan.
4. Wash and fry the slices, then fry in batches until just coloured on each side in the same pan as used for the onions.
5. Put all the eggplant, onions and garlic into a baking dish with some pepper and dried herbs and bake for 20-30 minutes. (Mine were 30 minutes, but that was while I waiting for something else to happen, so it might not need this long)
6. Pull the eggplant out of the oven and mash with a fork. It will be a bit lumpy.
7. Put the mashed eggplant in a serving dish, with some room left over.
8. In a small saucepan which the tofutti, water and vinegar and bring to the boil. Return to simmer, stirring constantly until it is a little thicker.
9. Pour the liquid on top of the eggplant and serve warm or at room temperature.

 

 

Vegan, Gluten Free, Soy-Free, Nut-Free Christmas Menu Planning (and a recipe for James)

This year Christmas will be had at my Mum’s house. My Mum, my sister and I went out for a coffee yesterday to have chat about what will be on the table when December 25th rolls around.

In a house full of sweet-tooths with dietary restrictions, this means serious planning. I was gonna post a pic of our serious faces to show you but I didn’t actually take a photo – that’s how serious it is!

Just to give you an idea of the lay of the land here at Operation: AwesomeChristmas, check out this list of restrictions:

• One step sister can’t have MSG (even naturally occurring), soy or gluten.
• Mum prefers not to do gluten but makes exception for pastry, and requires trifle.
• Sister likes everything except fruit, and requires rum balls (which she has re-named Amazeballs).
• Step-Dad likes prawns but is allergic to their shells (and that is the last you’ll hear about prawns on this blog).
• Brother is allergic to peanuts and gets creeped out by other nuts but will eat other nuts without incident if you don’t mention them.
• Everybody is gluten free except the kids and the vegans.
• Kids are coming, and kids are picky.
• There are two vegans and everyone else likes to chew on dead creatures (tee hee, crude!)
• I want all the sweets but am vegan and want to stay the weight I am because I am at the upper range for all my clothes and don’t want to go shopping.

Honestly, it’s less like planning lunch and more like answering one of those Lovatt’s puzzles with the grid where you match people with their train and shirt colour.

In the end we came  up with a menu that should suit everyone, we think

Menu for Operation:AwesmeChristmas

Key:     V – vegan    GF – gluten free    SF – soy free     NF – nut free

Snacks

• Dips in Christmas colours (hommus, roast capsicum and pesto with out nuts) – V, GF, SF, NF
• Chopped veggies for dipping – V, GF, SF, NF
• Rice crackers – V, GF, SF, NF
• Christmas lollies – GF, SF, NF

Lunch

• Rice noodle salad – V, GF, SF, NF
• Rice paper rolls with tofu – V, GF, NF
• Rice paper rolls without tofu – V, GF, SF, NF
• ***Roast strawberry and tomato tart – V, SF, NF*
• Caramel onion and Mushroom tart – V, SF, NF*
• Sanakopita minis – V
• Boiled baby potatoes with vegan sour cream and chives  – V, GF, NF, SF option
• Others are bringing a rocket and fig salad, a roast veg salad, and ham and prawns for the meat eaters.

*these will be gluten free if I can find gluten free puff pastry and short crust in Newcastle

*** I have been planning to make this tart for a week, but in my trial-run it was too sour. I have been using roasted strawberries and tomatoes, tomato paste, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, pepper and basil in the filling. Any suggestions for fixing it, please comment – in can be a collaboratart!

Roast strawberry and tomato tart – Trial run

Dessert

• Custard tart with fruit (from Vegan Pie in the Sky)  – V, GF*, SF
• Strawberry Cheesecake  V, GF
• Amazeballs (non-vegan rum balls without rum)
• Vegan rum ball Christmas tree - V, GF, SF, NF (I’ll adapt last year’s recipe to replace the biccies with GF, and the soy milk and soy chocolate with rice milk and rice milk chocolate)
• Trifle – V, GF, SF, NF

I’m so excited I could burst!

The custard tart is from Vegan Pie In The Sky, and I have made it twice before to resounding applause. It’s also very, very pretty:

Custard Tart

The cheesecake is my old go-to recipe, but I’m adding strawberries for good measure. I promised a friend the recipe (Hi James!), so without further ado…

Vegan Strawberry Cheesecake

• 1 x 200g packet of plain biscuits (GF if needed) like Arnotts Nice or Orgran Outback Animals, or Choc Ripple for a chocolate cheesecake
• 2 Tbs vegan margarine
• 2 Tbs non-dairy milk

• 1 cup good quality coconut cream (the whole fat stuff, try Ayam brand in the dark green tin)
• 1/2 tsp agar agar powder
• 1x200g packet Cheezly, Mozarella flavour, chopped
• 100g silken tofu
• 3/4 cup icing mixture
• 1 cup chopped strawberries

1. Crush the biscuits using a food processor (or whack them with a rolling pin) until they are very fine.
2. Melt the margarine and mix with the biscuits and milk to form a sticky, crumbly mess.
3. Press the mess into a tart dish or pie pan or a round spring-form tin.
4. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, but up to 2 hours.
5. Blend the strawberries until they are pureed. Set aside for later.
6. In a large saucepan mix the agar with the coconut cream and bring to the boil
7. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
8. Pour the agar and coconut into a blender with the cheezly, tofu, icing mixture and strawberry puree. Blend until smooth.
9. Pour the filling onto the base and refrigerate overnight.
10. Decorate with more strawberries and serve.

 

Bobotie and Milk Tart, several weeks later (oops)

As per my menu plan, I made vegan versions of Bobotie and Milk Tart several weeks ago. And then I forgot all about the blog and moved on to other things like Coursera and True Blood and Christmas. Oops!

Bobotie is sort of like shepherds pie, except it has an eggy-custard layer instead of a mashed potato layer, and the mince is spiced with curry. I followed the recipe from SA Promo here, however I substituted some cooked lentils and some broken up vegan burgers for the mince, and made a white sauce with a a little extra silken tofu for the topping. There is also a vegan recipe you could follow over at veggie.buntch.net.

Vegan bobotie just out of the oven

Vegan bobotie

The bobotie made for a satisfying, tasty meal, but I wasn’t super keen on the sweet+curry thing. I know that  sweet and savoury tango in most of the cuisines of the world but still I’m not entirely convinced.

I served the bobotie up with yellow rice (using this recipe) and some easy tomato salad.

Yellow rice and tomato salad

I also had a shot at creating a vegan milk tart. I used pretty much every damn vegan custard-replacement in the book, and was delighted with the results. I was less delighted with the pictures, but I did what I could in my dark house with my little camera.

Baked vegan milk Tart (milktert)

Short bread base

• ½ cup spelt flour
• ½ cup rice flour
• ¼ cup plain flour
• 1/3 cup icing mixture
• ¾ vegan margarine

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.
2. In a large mixing bowl mix the flours and icing mixture together until well combined.
3. Rub the margarine in until the mixture resembles a crumbly dough.
4. Press the dough into a pie plate or tart dish and bake for 15 minutes.
5. Allow to cool.

Filling

(This made too much for just the pie, and I had an extra cup of just filling – if you’re playing along at home, only work to about 2/3 of this recipe)

• 1/3 cup sago (or seed tapioca)
• a litre of water to the boil
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tbs agar agar powder
• 1 1.3 cup bonsoy soy milk (in my eyes it’s the only brand that still tastes decent after boiling)
• 1/2 cup coconut cream
• 2 Tbs agave
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• nutmeg and icing sugar, for dusting

1. In a large saucepan bring the water to the boil and add the sago. Cook until the sago is just translucent and drain and set aside.
2. In another saucepan stir the bonsoy, sugar and agar agar powder over the heat until the bonsoy starts to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for five minutes, stirring frequently.
3. Remove from heat and quickly stir the sago, coconut cream,  agave and vanilla into the milk and agar mixture.

For an uncooked Tart

1. For an unbaked tart, pour the mixture into the cooled tart shell and refrigerate for several hours.
2. Dust with icing sugar and nutmeg before serving.

For a baked Tart

1. For a baked tart, pour the filling into the tart shell and dust with icing sugar and nutmeg
2. Put a tray under the pis dish to catch any filling that bubbles over, and bake at 180 degrees celsius for 20 minutes.
3. After baking, grill for 4 minutes or until brown on top.
4. Allow to cool completely before serving.

 

As it happens this may be where I leave South Africa, for now anyways, because I have too many exciting Christmas related posts to write!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pap and Sauce

My first foray into South African cuisine was to attempt making Pap ad Sous. Pap is a dish of maize, like ugali (which I tried many moons ago when this blog looked at Tanzania, but was not very impressed with). Sous is a tomato sauce that goes with it.

This time it turned out better, although we’re still not huge fans at the Roundtheworldvegan household. I followed this recipe from Rainbow Cooking, but I used polenta meal as I don’t have any maize meal. The texture was much nicer than the ugali, although I think mine was a little thicker than the recipe was aiming for, so if I make it again I’ll add more liquid.

For the sous I followed this recipe from Welmoed Wines loosely, but made a few changes because I’m out of a few things. I have since come across this recipe from Capetown Magazine, which looks divine.

I’ve read that pap and sous can be served up on its own, but is often accompanied by sausages, or borewors. We had the pap and sauce with some Tofurky sausages which Mr brought back from a recent work trip to Hawaii (some guys get all the fun!).

It was pretty tasty comfort food, and quick to make too. Two thumbs up South Africa!

Keira’s vegan tomato sauce, loosely South African style

serves 2

• 1 onion chopped
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1 400g can whole tomatoes, chopped
• 2 tbs tomato paste
• 3 tbs vinegar
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 1 tbs sugar
• 1 tsp English mustard
• Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Fry the onion in a little olive oil, until soft.
2. Add all other ingredients and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Blend if there are big chunks.
4. Serve with pap and sausages.

The ghost of menus past

I’ve covered around 25 cuisines on this blog now, and one of the best things that has come of it is that the food we eat on a regular basis has changed (and gotten much better!).

Despite incidences of my cooking becoming increasingly rare since I started working again and Mr stopped, there are particular foods that I just keep coming back to when I do get around to cooking. Lately these constants have been Georgian, Turkish and Italian. Pizza, kidney beans, walnuts and tahini replacing the dahl and stir fry dinners of yesteryear.

All this revisiting means I’ve had the chance to perfect some recipes which didn’t work out that well on the first go, so I decided it was time to repost them.

Turkish Brekky

Ok, so this isn’t exactly a cooked meal, but it was fun. While we were in Turkey breakfast was usually offered as a buffet featuring cucumber, tomatoes, cheese, olives and bread, along with simit and tahini with grape molasses (which tastes like caramel). I mocked up a vegan version using agave instead of grape molasses, and using a bit of cheezly. Tasty, healthy brekky!

Next up is the Georgian feast we prepared for some friends who visited recently-ish. It was a little while ago, when our garden was still overflowing with winter crop, so we pulled out all of this:

Garden haul 1#: silverbeet, beetroot, parsnip, cauliflower, cabbage, snow peas, spring onion and kale.

and turned it into this:

Pkhali and eggplant with walnut

… as well as kidney bean salad (lobio), ajap sandal (eggplant and tomato dish), pilaf with cabbage, and fried potatoes, and mini spanakopita which I took to work for Veggie Club.

The pkhali and the eggplant with walnuts were both really yummy and so much better than my first disastrous attempt at imitating Georgian walnut paste. I’ve been using this recipe from Georgian Taste, however I have included a few cashews to make it even creamier, I have left out some of the garlic in deference to Mr, and I used beetroot this time instead of spinach.

For the eggplant and walnut paste I followed the recipe for pkhali, but left out the spinach altogether. I then fried some strips of eggplant and wrapped them around tablespoonfuls of the walnut paste. Yum.

I also made my first attempt at creating a vegan khachapuri, which is a totally delicious looking, totally un-vegan Georgian cheese bread. It turned out brilliantly, and though it is time consuming to make, I think it will have to go on the “again, again!” list.

I scoured the web for recipes and ended up using a mix of this recipe at food.com and this recipe at Nami Nami, but of course it needed tweaking to veganise.

Slice of vegan imureli khachapuri

Vegan Khachapuri

Makes 2 loaves

For the dough:

• 250ml soy milk
• 3tbs margarine, melted
• 14g instant yeast
• a pinch of salt
• pinch baking soda
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 3 1/4 cups plain flour

For the cheese filling:

• 2 cups cheezly, mozzarella flavour, mashed with a fork
• 1/2 cup Vegusto vegan cheese, strong flavour, grated
• 100g silken boxed tofu, mashed with a fork
• 1 tbs rice flour, whisked with 1/4 cup  soy milk
• 1 Tbs plain flour
• 2 Tbs vegan margarine
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• pinch of nutmeg (just because I ave this thing about nutmeg and cheese – you could leave it out)

Follow the directions as per the Food.com recipe, although only warm the soy milk, don’t scald it.

 

I have no new Italian recipes to share, but I didn’t want to post yet another picture f yet another haul from our garden that made it into a meal – because I’m so amazed at how well this whole growing-our-own-food business is going

Garden haul #2: spring onions, herbs snow peas, lettuce and broad beans.

Dinner from the garden: garden salad, pizza (herbs from the garden and mushrooms from our mushroom box), and broad beans with vegan facon.

 

 

 

 

Uzbek salads

The first an easiest Uzbek meal we had was a bunch of salads, served up with a non-Uzbek pilaf. I had a HUGE list of salads to choose from – it seems that in Uzbekistan a meal often starts with several salad options.

In the end I chose salads including what seem to be the most common veggies used in Uzbek coking- carrots and radishes. I used recipes from the book The Art of Uzbek Cooking available at the Moreland Libraries.

Radish and Almond Salad

First was the radish and almond salad. This was very simple, just grated daikon radish, mixed with a little vinegar, salt and pepper, and topped with toasted almonds and pomegranate seeds.

Carrot and Radish Salad (top), and Radish and Almond Salad (below)

Again the Carrot and Radish salad was pretty easy going. Grated carrot and daikon radish, with some chopped, cooked potato, mixed with a little vegan mayo, salt and pepper.

The third dish I made was braised cauliflower. For the real recipe you’ll need to visit your library, but in brief it was chopped cauliflower, cooked in vegetable stock and margarine, with some onion.

Braised Cauliflower

Now I thought my salads looked fairly pretty, but little did I know. I’ve since seen pictures of actual Uzbek salads, and they are amazing! See:

Tomato and Onion Salad c/o http://uzintour.com/en/uzbekistan_home/

Next time I’ll have to get into some serious salad decorating!

 

Chickpeas, Couscous, Carrots, and Tea

The recipe for Chicken Kdra in the book A Taste of Morocco, by Clare Ferguson, looked way too tasty to be passed over. I knew I would just have to overcome the chicken isn’t vegan issue.

Lucky for me the recipe includes chickpeas, so I decided just to make it without its star ingredient. It turned out brilliantly.

Chickpeas Kdra

I wanted to serve it up with some traditional couscous.  Have you seen how couscous is supposed to be made? Its a far cry from my ‘pour it out and cover with water’ standard, and requires a lot of time, patience, hand-rolling and equipment.

I don’t have time, patience or equipment, so needless to say I wussed out and went with my packet method. I did try to imitate the amazing traditional couscous dishes I’ve seen in books though, by making an onion jam and some spicy tomato sauce to top the couscous with.

As a vegetable dish I made some spicy carrots, which were much tastier and more interesting than they sound.

From top right: Spicy Carrots, Spicy Tomato Sauce, and Onion Jam

As this was a weekend night, I also bother to make a dessert of sliced oranges with cinnamon and sugar, which was pretty tasty. Credit for the idea goes the front of one of the cookbooks.

Oranges with Cinnamon and Sugar

Again, I mostly referred to a recipe in the book, but I made a few changes, so I will post my vegan version of Clare Ferguson’s Kdra.

Chickpea Kdra

serves 3

• 400g tin chickpeas, drained
• big pinch of saffron (or in my case, a huge amount of the dodgy “Turkish” saffron I got from a market in Istanbul)
• 1 tsp Massel chicken stock powder
• 1 Tbs ground ginger (I used the dry version)
• 1/4 tsp tumeric
• 1/4 tsp coriander
• 1 tbs margarine
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 2 Tbs parsley, chopped
• 1/2 cup white rice
• juice of one lemon
• coriander and parsley, to serve

1. In a large saucepan or frying pan, mix the chickpeas, spices, seasonings, onion and margarine over low heat until well combined.
2. Turn up the heat and fry, stirring constantly, until the onions start to sweat.
3. Add the rice and stir to combine.
4. Add 3 cups of boiling water and simmer until rice is cooked.
5. Squeeze lemon juice over it, salt to taste, and serve.

Harira

Harira is a soup, usually fairly meaty, which people in Morocco use to break their fast during Ramadan. It just so happens that Ramadan is now, so it turns out this soup was quite a fitting place to start.

I made a vegetarian version of the soup, which usually features chicken hearts and necks. I got some help from two fabulous books I borrowed from the Darebin Libraries: A Taste of Morocco, by Clare Ferguson, and A Season in Morocco, by Meera Freeman.

Books

Thick with lentils and flavourful thanks to the spices, the soup was fantastic, and made a filling meal. I enjoyed the spice combination of cumin, saffron, turmeric, and pepper, and the lemons and tomatoes made it lovely and tart.

I made a few changes but used Freeman’s recipe as my guide so I will post my version, but credit goes to her.

Vegan Harira

serves 4

• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 handful parsley stalks, chopped finely
•  1/2 cup dried red lentils
•  1/4 tsp tumeric
•  pinch saffron
•  1/2 tsp cumin
•  1/2 tsp black pepper
•  pinch cinnamon
•  3 cups water
•  1 1/2 cup cooked chickpeas, drained
•  2 cups tinned tomatoes
• juice of one lemon
•  1/2 cup little soup pastas (I used a broken up vermicelli type)
•  salt, lemon juice, coriander and parsley for serving

1. In a large saucepan mix onion, parsley, lentils, spices, and water and bring to the boil.
2. Bring the heat down to a simmer, and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally to stop the lentils from sticking (which mine totally did).
3. Add the chickpeas and simmer for a further 20 minutes.
4. Add the tomatoes, lemon juice and pasta, and simmer for a further 10 minutes.
5. Adjust seasoning if needed and add salt.
6. (If your lentils stick, like mine did, now is the time to pour the ok soup into another pan, and start soaking the first pan to try to get the burnt lentil gunk off )
7. Serve with a sprinkling of parsley and coriander , and with more lemon juice is desired.