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.

 

 

Apple palov, soup and salad

The last night of Uzbek attempts was another palov, this time with apples, another soup, and another salad.

Both the soup and the palov recipes came from this blog (http://uzbekcooking.blogspot.com.au/) although I tweaked them a little to be vegan friendly. The salad I just threw together, using ingredients that seem to repeat a lot in Uzbek recipes.

The soup was half fried cabbage soup. The name got my attention, because I love cabbage, I love fried things, and I had a glut of cabbages in my garden. To make it vegan I left out the chicken, and used vegan chicken stock powder to add the flavour.

Half-fried cabbage soup (please excuse my watch and panadol in the background)

The soup was glorious, and one I will be making again. I especially liked the effect of blending some of the potato with the water, to make the soup thicker without making the whole thing gluggy.

The apple palov was also pretty tasty, although I did have to use chunks of apple rather than whole ones, as I don’t have a corer. I also left the meat out, of course.

This was a tasty rice dish, and I enjoyed the apples. Mine got a little too cooked though, because I was reveling in the fabulous anti-stick qualities of my expensive new hard-anodised pan, and it turned out a bit like a cake.

Palov cake

The salad was your basic cabbage and carrot affair, with a little parsley, salt, pepper, oil and vinegar thrown in for good measure.

Cabbage and Carrot Salad

So, that’s it for my foray into the cuisine of Uzbekistan. It was tasty, and I always like the comfort-food element of cooked rice dishes. I was surprised to find a cuisine so dominated by carrots and radishes, but I think it worked out, and I’m sure our eyesight is better already!

Palov, salad and soup

Oh my goodness, I forgot to actually post the other Uzbek posts!

So it’s a double-post day.

The most famous Uzbek food is Palov. Similar to pilaf, plov and other rice dishes I’ve covered from all over the world, palov is made with rice, meat, vegies and seasonings. This one is the kind you cook in a pan, without touching the bottom, so it sets a little and has layers when you serve it.

I made a fairly basic palov, with vegan sausages and carrots, coloured with a little fake saffron (I think it’s marigold – from Turkey). It was actually a little bland, I’m sad to say, and I really couldn’t get the layers thing happening.

Unlayered Palov

We ate it with a mung bean and pumpkin soup from the book, The Art of Uzbek Cuisine, which was much tastier than expected, and a basic tomato and onion salad, which is always one of my favourites.

Pumpkin and Mung Bean Soup

Tomato and Onion Salad

All in all it was a filling, comforting meal, but not the tastiest food I’ve tried. I think I might have to try the palov of an experience Uzbek cook to really get it, because so far my attempts at this style are coming nowhere near the best pilaf ever, or other versions thereof.

The best pilaf ever eaten!

I have cooked and eaten a LOT of pilaf/plov/palov/pilau/paella/risotto/rice and other grain dishes since I started this blog and, of course, every recipe writer claims that theirs is the best in the world. On this occasion though, I think the Armenians might actually be right.

I used this recipe I found at the blog The Armenian Kitchen. It lived up to its name, being completely perfect. It was tasty due to the stock but not too salty, it had crunchy noodle bits (not too crunchy) and it felt nice because of the oil, without being too oily. I plan to make it a mainstay – I think it could even replace pasta as my favourite grain dish.

Perfect Pilaf

I’d post a recipe, but I didn’t need to make any changes because the thing was already a masterpiece, so just check it out at the source.

I served it up with too other Armenian dishes, recipes also taken from the net – eggplant with “meat” and a bean salad. The beans were supposed to be chickpeas, but I didn’t have any, so I used kidney beans. Think of it as making up for using chickpeas instead of kidney beans when I made the Georgian bean salad.

The Eggplant with Meat dish was found on several sites, and you could use the recipe from here, here, or here. I subbed Redwood vegan mince for the lamb, and added a little fake beef stock powder for flavour. It was a pretty ho hum dish in the end. Too squigy in texture for my tastes, and too bland for Mr.

The bean salad recipe was fairly standard, and as per usual, we enjoyed it. I definitely prefer my beans like this instead of cooked to within an inch of their life in beans and rice style dishes. I used the recipe from Armenian Kitchen, but added some herbs at the end.

It made for a yummy meal, and the fabbo pilaf made up for any disappointment the eggplant dish dealt.

Armenian Meal no.2

When I started the Armenian plan I intended to make “cheese” borek and baklava, but I’m not really feeling the pastry vibe this week, so it isn’t going to happen after all, making this the last for Armenia. Fare well Armenia, and thanks for the pilaf.

 

 

Stew and Pilaf and Salad

The first Armenian meal was a stew called Bozbash.

I originally decided to make Bozbash after coming across praise for it in a book about Eastern European cuisine. This book, and several websites, identified Bozbash as an Armenian dish. I found several recipes for so-called Armenian Bozbash also. I also came across this article, containing a conjecture that Bozbash is not Armenian, but Azeri. I have no idea, and I had already made the thing, so to keep things simple this is my totally inauthentic, veganised version of the Azeri/Armenian/generally Central Asian dish.

For the record it was warm, hearty, but a little boring. I forgot the vinegar though, and this may have made the difference. No doubt the meaty version is less bland, but you can only get so much juice out of soy sausages.

Pilaf and Bozbash

I adapted it from these recipes: http://beyondborscht.tumblr.com/, Lamb Soup with Chestnuts, and Bozbash Yerevan.

Vegan Bozbash

Serves 3

• olive oil
• 2 Fry’s burgers
• Medium brown onion, small dice
• 1 tbs margarine
• 2 carrots, chopped into rounds
• 1 dried bay leaf
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 3 cups vegan “beef” stock, 1 cup water
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 leek, diced
• pepper
• 2 potatoes, big dice
• 1 large tomato, peeled and diced
• 1 can chickpeas (400g), drained
• 1/2 cup fresh peas
• 4 semi dried prunes
• Leaves of 2 sprigs flat leaf parsley
• Leaves of 2 sprigs coriander
• a little vinegar, to serve

My method was mostly like the Beyond Borscht recipe, with a few deviations.

1. In a large saucepan fry the diced burhers in a little oil until they brown. Remove from an and put aside.
2. In the same pan, fry the onion in some margarine, until brown. Stir so it doesn’t burn too much ( a little is ok).
3. Add the carrot and continue to fry over medium heat until beginning to brown, stirring to avoid burning. Remove carrot and onion but don’t clean the pot.
4. Add the bay leef, thyme, water and beef stock, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes with the lid off.
5. Put the carrot and onion back in the pan, and add the leek, garlic and pepper. Put the lid on and simmer for about 45 minutes. Check occassionally to ensure yours doesn’t go dry. (mine didn’t).
6. Remove from heat but let it sit with the lid on, for 1 hour or more. (If you need to let it sit overnight or for a few hours, sit it in the fridge after it cools, to avoid nasties building up).
7. In a separate pot boil the potatoes until tender, but not falling apart. Once done, set aside.
8. To peel the tomato: Cut a small, very shallow cross on the bottom of the tomato, and remove the core in a small cone shape. The tomato should still be in one piece after this. Then put the tomato into boiling water for 30-60 seconds. Remove and allow to cool a bit. Once cool enough to touch, the skin should come off easily. Then dice the tomato and set aside.
9. When you are ready to eat, put the soup together. Pull out the bay leaf and discard. Add the burgers, tomato, chickpeas, peas and potatoes to the carrot/leek/stock mixture and heat to your serving temperature.
10. Dived the prunes and the solids of the soup into three bowls, pour the soup over. Garnish with parsley and coriander, and a little squirt of vinegar.

I served it up with a lentil pilaf, and an eggplant salad.

For the pilaf I used this recipe I found on CeltNet, although I used half rice and half bulgur.

Eggplant Salad

Eggplant Salad (based on this recipe from Little Armenia)

serves 2

• 1 medium eggplant
• 1 spring onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 Tbs Sun dried tomatoes, small dice
• 3 Tbs red capsicum, small dice
• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp sumac
• lemon juice from 1/4 lemon
• salt to taste
• 2 Tbs chopped parsley

1. In a very hot oven, roast the eggplant, turning 3 times so all side brown and the eggplant deflates a bit. Takes about 20 minutes.
2. Let the eggplant cool enough to handle. Open the eggplant and scrape the flesh and seeds into a bowl. Discard the skin.
3. Mash the eggplant with a fork, then add the onion, garlic, tomato, capsicum, oil, spices, and lemon juice, and mix together.
4. Add salt to taste if desired.
5. Put the mix in a serving bowl and sprinkle with parsley. I like it best if it sits for 30 minutes or more before eating.

Eggplant salad and bozbash

 

 

 

 

Ouch! Recipes for stinging nettle and other things from my garden

I love gardening, and the place we’re renting at the moment is perfect for it. The owner has spent 40 years developing the soil, and its beautiful. Sadly though, we moved in a little late in the season, and some of my veggies are coming a long a bit slowly because of the cold.

The same can’t be said for the weeds. Stinging nettle has found its way its the veggie beds, and has taken over fast. I was going to rip it all out, but further consideration has lead me to realise that a) it stops the slugs and caterpillars from walking straight from one plant to the next, and b) its edible.

And nettle isn’t the only thing going great guns at our place – the lemon tree is continuing to be prolific, and my mushroom container (bought at the Flemington farmer’s market, but also available at CERES and other garden shops) finally grew me some fungi!

My home grown stuff, and my boots. (and gloves and string – not sure where I was going with that).

So I’ve been playing with ways to use our bounty, and here’s the best hits so far.

Nettle and Spelt Pasta

I made this a few weeks ago, and didn’t get a picture, so you’ll just have to imagine the grey-green coloured, hand made noodles.

I used my all purpose pasta recipe, with just the one tweak. I blanched and pureed around two and a half cups of chopped nettle, resulting in about 1 cup of nettle mush. I then added the nettle mush to the flour to make a crumbly dough, before adding enough water to fill it out. Of course the measurements elude me, but you get the idea.

I served it up with a tomato sauce because I was playing host to some kidlets, but I think it would be great tossed with some salt, nooch, garlic and olive oil.

 

Nettle Risotto

Next up was a nettle risotto, with lemon and pumpkin.

Nettle Risotto

I wasn’t going to post a recipe, because I make risotto all the time and was sure I had posted a few here by now. But when I looked for a recipe to link to – gasp! I’ve never actually posted one. So here is my risotto recipe this time with nettle, but use whatever veg you like (I’m a big fan of plain onion risotto).

Risotto with Nettle

Serves 3-4

• 2 cups raw nettle, washed and stems removed (use gloves and be very careful, they hurt)
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 brown onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 1/5 cups aborio rice
• 1 cup pumpkin, small dice
• 6 cups stock of your choice I used veggie
• zest of two lemons
• 3 Tbs lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp dried tarragon
• salt and pepper to taste

1. First deal with the nettle. Wearing gloves remove the stems and any dead leaves. Put the nettle in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil, lower heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Strain.
2. Puree half the nettle, and chop the other half, and set aside.
3. In a large saucepan heat the oil and fry the onion until soft and beginning to brown.
4. Add the garlic and fry for another 5 minutes, stirring.
5. Add the rice and wine, and stir over high heat until the rice begins to turn more opaque.
6. Add 2 cups of stock, the nettle and the pumpkin. Bring to the boil, then return to simmer until the stock is nearly absorbed. Repeat, stirring frequently, until the stock is all used up and the rice is cooked.
7. Stir the lemon juice and zest through, taste, and add salt, pepper or herbs you want – i used tarrgon with the nettle.
8. Serve up hot.

Nettle Pesto

So my nettle use has had a bit of an Italian bent. This time I went with pesto to top some plain pasta. This is easy peasy, but as before, be very careful when handling the nettle.

Nettle Pesto on Pasta

• 2 cups of washed nettle, stems removed.
• 1/3 cup of pine nuts
• 1/4 cup cashews
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 Tbs nutritional yeast
• juice of half a lemon
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/3 cup vegan cheese, crumbled

1. First deal with the nettle. Wearing gloves remove the stems and any dead leaves. Put the nettle in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil, lower heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Strain and set aside.
2. In a dry, non-stick pan, toast the pine nuts until they brown. Be watchful – they take a while but once they begin to brown they burn quickly. Reserve half of the pine nuts for garnish.
3. Toss all ingredients together and blend. I use a stick blender, but a food processor or big blender will work too.
4. serve on pasta, topped with the vegan cheese and left over toasted pine nuts.

Lemon and Hazelnut Cheesecake and Vegan Lemon Butter

My sister suggested I turn my mound of lemons into lemon butter, and I actually found a vegan recipe very quickly. I used this one, and created my own jar of the stuff. Its sweet and sour, and while it is tasty, it isn’t really matching up to the memory of buttery, creamy, eggy lemon butter of my pre-vegan days. I might give it another go with more coconut milk though.

Lemon butter in an old peanut butter jar.

I did, however, turn it into the topping for a delicious cheesecake. I need to work on it again though, because the lemon tang completely overwhelmed everything else, and not in a good way.

Ugly lemon cheesecakes

Fabulous Plain Old Fried Mushrooms

Last, we come to the mushrooms. In my first crop I only had enough mushrooms for one meal and the pressure was on to find the most perfect thing to do with them. In the end I decided I wanted to know what they tasted like alone, and how they compared with other mushies, so I fried ‘em up home style with some margarine, salt, pepper and garlic powder. They were stupendously good, and I can’t wait for more mushroom babies to spring up!

Terrible photo of delicious mushrooms

Meals from Spain

I’m reaching back into my memory here, because most of the Spanish food I made was made a few months ago now, but I do remember how tasty they were.

I focused mostly on Tapas, because I love tiny food, but I also included paella (kinda), mashed potato, stew, stuffed eggplant and polenta in my foray into Spanish cooking.

The Stew

I based my stew on a recipe for rabbit stew that I found in a cookbook I borrowed from the Newcastle library. The recipe called for herbs such as parsley, thyme, and bay, as well as red wine, tomatoes, onions, garlic, red capsicum and paprika.

I changed it from a Rabbit Stew to a Rabbit-food Stew by subbing carrots, chickpeas, cannellini beans, a little vegan sausage and mushrooms the rabbit and bacon.

I cooked the onion, garlic, dried herbs, veggies and beans in the wine for about 45 minutes, and added the fried sausage, fresh herbs and paprika at the end. I served it up with a basic olive-oil mash, using potatoes, 0live oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Rabbit-food stew and olive oil mash

The Polenta

While I was trying to cook Spanish food I had another bout of gastritis, so I had to go back to bland food for a week or so. During this time I made some carrot polenta, based on a Spanish recipe. It was very easy, and quite a tasty side dish for everyone else, although it was the main for me.

It consists of grated carrot, polenta, a little margarine, a little salt, and some vegan plain yoghurt to serve. I made the polenta as per the package instructions, adding sauted, grated carrot and some smooshed, boiled potato before cooking.

Carrot Polenta

The Paella

My attempt at Paella was pretty far from the original, as I don’t have a paella pan, and wasn’t able to present it in a big pan covered in pretty veggies. I made mine in my Mum’s electric frying pan, and presented it in bowls. Easy, yummy, but probably not actually recognisable as paella.

I added capsicum, cherry tomatoes, carrot, celery, zucchini, chickpeas, onions, herbs and a little bit of fried vegan sausage (I like Sanitarium’s hot dogs for Spanish food). I used a bit of brown rice and a bit of basmati rice.

(An aside, I was under the impression that Basmati was a whole grain. It isn’t. That makes me a little sad, because I was really enjoying the moral superiority of eating whole grains that tasted so white-ricey.)

Vegan Paella

 

The Eggplant

I made the eggplant in my second go at Spanish food, after we moved back to Melbourne.

I found the recipe in The Mediterranean Cookbook by Joanna Farrow and Jaqueline Clarke, which I actually bought for someone else, but ended up with, and use frequently.

I used baby or Japanese eggplants, and stuffed them with toasted pine nuts, sultanas, dried cranberries (my addition), fresh thyme from my garden and caramelised onion. I boiled the eggplant rather than baking it, for a quicker and less oily result. These were very tasty, and much better than I expected. I think the cranberry addition is a winner – so much nicer than sultanas.

Stuffed eggplant, the Spanish variety

More Pilaf, Cabbage and a Salad

Pilaf with home made stock

I have now real and followed so many pilaf recipes, that I’m actually getting pretty good at making my own. Success seems to lie in the stock. In Australia, I usually just use easy-peasy Massel stock powder, but I can’t get anything approximating vegan stock here in Tbilisi, so I make my own, and it works out well.

In my stock I use a handful of chopped mushroom stalks, the outer cabbage leaves and any left over cabbage stalk, parsley stalks, carrots, a tomato, brown and red onion skins and ends, and all the little tiny garlic cloves I can find (I use the ones from the middle because I have chopping them later, and using them in stock means I don’t have to feel guilty for being lazy). I add a tiny bit of salt, and sometimes a little sugar. I generally make about 1.5 litre at a time.

Pretty Pilaf

Keira’s Pilaf Recipe

serves 3

• 2 tablespoon olive oil
  
• 1 cup white rice (long grain)
• 1 medium brown onion, diced
• 1 small red onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• any vegetables you want, small dice
• 2 cups strong stock
• water as needed
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• salt and pepper, to taste
• sultanas or raisins, if desired.
• dash of chosen spices – I use cinnamon, clove, coriander seed and some curry, depending on what I feel like.

1. In a large, non-stick frying pan, heat the oil, and add the rice. Fry on medium heat for about 5 minutes.
2. Add the onion and fry until translucent, stirring frequently.
3. Add the garlic and any vegetables or fruits you will be using, such as capsicum or zucchini, and fry for a furhter 5 minutes.
4. Add one or two squeezes of lemon juice now, to help break up the rice.
5. Add the stock. Leave until all of the liquid has been absorbed. This took me about 15 minutes.
6. Test – you may need more water, depending on what type of rice you used.
7. Remove from heat when the rice is cooked. Taste, add rest of lemon juice, salt, pepper, and spices. Fluff with a fork and serve with other dishes.

Note: If we’re having pilaf at lunch I like to add a little nooch at the end. Don’t do this at dinner tough, because the B6 in the nooch tends to stop people from sleeping.

 

Cabbage with Tomatoes

I Have no photo of the cabbage and tomatoes dish, because it wasn’t actually until after I made it that I found out it was Turkish.One of the only green vegetables we can get here is cabbage, so I had planned to fry some up with onion and garlic as per usual. I added a chopped tomato, a little stock, a little tomato paste and some cayenne pepper, on a whim.

Turns out what I made closely approximates this dish, so there you go – I’m a food psychic, or something, because I didn’t see this site until long after we ate the meal.

 

Chickpea Salad

The salad wasn’t so much Turkish as Turkish-inspired. I just threw together some onion, garlic, parsley, coriander, chickpeas and red capsicum, to add some protein and crunch to the meal.

Chickpea Salad

 

Turkish Feast in Tbilisi

The first meal of Turkish origin I tired was actually a week or so ago, when a friend came around for dinner. I decided to put on a bit of a feast (I have a lot of time at the moment), and served up a spread including chickpeas in tomato sauce, eggplant mezze, stuffed cabbage, pilaf and shepherd’s salad. I also served up what was supposed to be brownies but turned into very dry biscotti due to my difficult oven and inappropriate ingredient substitutes – but that’s not Turkish, and I don’t have a photo, so lets forget it happened.

Sadly, I got wrapped up in conversation and forgot to take pictures until everyone had started eating, so most of the photos are of semi-destroyed dishes.

Eggplant in olive oil and tomato sauce, with Cabbage roll in the background

Everything was good, but the eggplant mezze dish was the definite winner. It was well cooked and oily in a good way,  and the tomato sauce was a perfect match. A recipe for this is at the end of the post.

The cabbage rolls were a little beyond my dexterity and fell apart when lifted. They tasted pretty good though, with some heavy handedness on the dried mint and sultanas.

 

Shepherd's Salad and Pilaf

Shepherd’s Salad is a Turkish take on an internationally popular combination: cucumber, onion and tomatoes with herbs. This one has garlic, coriander and parsley, with a little lemon juice and vinegar as dressing.

I went with a mixed pilaf with sultanas, a little orange capsicum, onion, garlic, herbs, and some left over chickpeas. This is probably very un-Turkish, but it is what I had. I added a little clove, cinnamon, salt and pepper to flavour it. I’m not personally a big fan of sweet dinner food or non-citrus fruit in savoury dishes, but this was okay. I used a combination of recipes from the land of the internet, but they all involved cooking the rice in some olive oil, then added the onion, then vegetables, then stock and fruit, and cooking the liquid off.

Chickpeas with tomato

The chickpea dish was based on a recipe from the book, Contemporary Turkish Cooking, by Filiz Zorly (2007). I changed it due to ingredient availability, as I can’t get dry chickpeas, cumin or good tomatoes. It turned out really nicely, a little spicy but not too hot, and quite flavoursome. I’ll post my recipe below, but do check out the original if you have access to dry chickpeas, because I imagine that would be even better.

The recipe for the stuffed cabbage rolls also came from Contemporary Turkish Cooking, which I perused at a public library in Vienna, on a cold, too-tired-to-tourist day.

Chickpeas with Tomatoes

Serves 4

• olive oil
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1-2 good tomatoes, diced
• 2 cups drained and rinsed, tinned chickpeas
• 2 tbs tomato paste
• 1/2 tsp curry powder
• 1 tsp corriander powder
• dash cinnamon
• dash tsp cayenne pepper (use as little or as much chilli as you want. I and my friend both have stomach problems that mean no more hot foods without risk of ulcers and stomach cancer, so not much chilli for us )
• Juice on half a lemon
• salt and pepper to taste
• I would have added a little cumin, if I had access to it.

1. In a little olive oil, sweat the onions until translucent.
2. Add the garlic and fry until fragrant (about 3 minutes).
3. Add the tomato, chickpeas, tomato paste, spices and 1/3 cup water. Bring to the boil then return to simmer until the tomatoes are falling apart. Add more water if necessary. This took me about 15 minutes, with occasional stirring.
4. Add the lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Let sit until, and reheat before serving. I let mine sit for about an hour, and it became much more flavousome with the time.

The recipe for the eggplant mezze dish was originally found somewhere on the internet, but I can’t find it now, of course. I’ll attribute when I figure it out, but this is what I did.

Eggplant in Olive oil with Tomato Sauce

Serves 2

• 1 large, long eggplant (or two smaller eggplants)
• Salt
• Olive oil (the amount is up to you, but at least 3 tablespoons)
• 1 medium brown onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 large tomatoes, chopped
• 2 tbs tomato paste
• 1-2 tsp sugar (if your tomato paste isn’t sweet)
• salt and pepper
• 1/3 – 2/3 cup water

1. Peel strips of the eggplant, lengthways, so that it looks a little like a circus tent. Slice the eggplant into rounds, salt, and let sit for 30 minutes.
2. Wash and dry the eggplant slices. Heat a little olive oil in a non-stick pan, and fry the pieces, turning once, in batches until they are all cooked through and lightly browned. I used about 1 tbs of olive oil here, but there are versions of the recipe that use up to 1/3 cup, so do what you please.
3. Arrange the cooked slices on a serving dish, and drizzle with remaining olive oil (I used about 1 tbs here).
4. In a small saucepan, cook the onion in a little more olive oil, for about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for a further 5 minutes, though don’t let the garlic burn.
5. Add the diced tomatoes, and cook, stirring occasionally, until they fall apart.
6. Add the tomato paste here, and then taste test – if it tastes sour add some sugar. I add salt and pepper here.
7. Add 1/3 cup of the water and continue to cook the sauce, stirring occasionally over low heat, for another 25 minutes. It should cook down, and all the tomato pieces should be pulp by now. Add extra water if it becomes dry before this point.
8. If you are a careful sort, pull out the floating bits of tomato skin (or remove them before hand, as shown in my post on ratatouille). I decided not to bother this time.
9. Pour the sauce over the eggplant slices, and refrigerate. Serve cold or at room temperature.

 

One disaster, a few thngs that didn’t quite work, and salad

When we first arrived in Tbilisi we were cold, tired and hungry as a result of a long flight and very little sleep the night before. We stayed with a couple we met through couch surfing, and Natalia, our host, made us a really tasty dish, which she said would probably be called something like “Potatoes on the family way”. She said it usually gets made with meat, but as a vegetarian she makes it with mushrooms.

Mr and I both loved it, so as soon as we were settled into our own place, its the first thing I tried to cook.

Unfortunately, my version didn’t match the golden, crispy texture her’s had, so I wont be posting the recipe yet. For now, you get a photo of what my version-that-didn’t-quite-work looked like. I added chickpeas for protein, too.

I didn’t get a photo of Natalia’s version, because I had just met her, and felt like a dork.

Potatoes that didn't quite work

The next dish I tried, again without success, was Eggplant with Walnut Sauce. I’ve seen photos on the net, and a number of recipes, and it looked fabulous. Unfortunately, I don’t actually have any blending/crushing/grinding implements in this kitchen, so my walnut sauce was more like walnut gravel, and I added too much vinegar, and my walnuts didn’t taste good, so the result was gritty, bitter and sour nastiness. I served it up with a pilaf that turned gluggy and a salad that tasted of slightly bitter cabbage and too much vinegar.

Even the photo sucks

All in all, not my greatest kitchen success.

I don’t think I’ll try to make this again, as I don’t have the right gadgets, and the version of the sauce I can buy is fantastic and affordable. If you want to have a go at it, check out these recipes: Nami Nami’s recipe, Ashbury’s Aubergines, Sisauri’s version, and Tsai.

Happily, not everything has been a disaster. We have been enjoying a lot of really nice salads and soups made with my home made stock. At the moment, the vegetables we can get are limited to cucumber, cabbage, potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, eggplant, cauliflower, the occasional capsicum, and some not-too-good tomatoes. We can always find a lot of fresh herbs, including parsley, coriander, mint, dill, spring onions, and tarragon.

Purple and green salad

My favourite salad at the moment is cabbage and cucumber, or Purple and Green Salad.

Purple and Green Salad

• 1/3 head of red cabbage, shredded finely
• 1 cucumber, sliced thinly
• 1 handful chopped mint
• 2 tablespoons chopped coriander
• 1 small red onion, sliced very fine
• 1 tsp sugar
• pepper
• 1 tsp white wine vinegar
• 2 tsp olive oil

In a large bowl, mix the cabbage, cucumber, onion, half the mint, and all of the coriander.

In a small bowl beat together the remaining mint, sugar, vinegar, pepper and oil

Combine. Easy peasy.

If you don’t like the onion flavour you can leave it out or try this trick- before peeling or chopping, boil the whole onion for about 5 minutes. Cool, then slice as usual. It takes away some of the bite. I’m always boiling something, so I just pop it in with the pasta, potatoes or what have you.

Carrot and Cabbage

My second favourite salad at the moment is Carrot and Cabbage.

Carrot and Cabbage Salad

• 1/3 head of green cabbage, thinly shredded
• 1 carrot, grated
• 1 red capsicum, thinly sliced
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 3 tablespoons sultanas
• olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in a salad bowl.

Cabbage soup

The soup has been mostly a Russian cabbage soup or a Turkish red lentil soup both of which I’ll post about when I get to the Russian and Turkish weeks.