Chickpea salad

Another one in the series 'damn quick and easy'.
Heat olive oil in a pan, add one sliced red onion and cook, stirring, over a medium heat for 6-8 minutes until soft. Add 2 garlic cloves, one chili and fry for another minute. Tip in one can of chickpeas and stir. Squeeze over lemon juice and add plenty of flat leaf parsley.

Remove from heat, crumble over Greek feta cheese and toss well.

... from Gordon Ramsay's 'Healthy Appetite'. I don't own this book, which was apparantly written by Ramsey's side-kick Sarge. Ramsey only wrote the intro and branded the book with his name.

Stewed hijiki seaweed with carrots and soy beans

Preparation:
1) Soak 200 gram of soy beans overnight. Cook the soy beans until soft and rub the skins off, this can be pretty time consuming. Instead of soy beans you can also use fried tofu.

2) Reconstitute some dried hijiki sea weed

3) Cut 2 large carrots in thin strips.

Cooking:
Fry and simmer the soy beans, hijiki and carrots in sesame oil for 5 to 10 minutes.

Add: 250 ml dashi stock, 3 tbsp dark soy sauce and 3 tbsp of mirin. If you have, add 3 tbsp of sake as well. Many recipes call for sugar, I omitted the sugar (and sake).

Simmer until the liquid has reduced.

This dish is nice with Japanese rice and miso soup. The taste was a little bland, use more soy sauce for a saltier taste.

Dal: Vegetable Chaunk version

For my own reference:

Chaunk:
2 tablespoons ghee
1/2 teaspoon cumin seed
1/2 teaspoon black mustard seed
1/2 teaspoon red chili powder (and/or fresh chili)
2 bay leaves
Pinch of hing (asafetida)
1 medium size chopped tomato
1 small courgette chopped into cubes
6 string beans chopped (optional)
1 carrot (optional)

Heat the oil in a saucepan. Add hing, cumin seeds, mustard seeds. After seeds crack add bay leaves and chili powder, stir for few seconds and add the vegetables. Stir the vegetables and cook for 4 to 5 minutes till the vegetables are tender, add chaunk to dal and mix well.

I used yellow moong dal, which is split and dehusked mung beans. Simply boil the dal with some salt and a tsp of turmeric.

Sauvignon 2006, Loire Valley

Sauvignon 2006, French white wine. Producer: FOURNIER Père et fils, region: Loire River banks. Grape-variety: Sauvignon. A simple white table wine. Bought for cooking mussels. It’s July and the mussels are just in season, until March next year. [a very nice wine for 8,50 euro, it was the right choice for mussels, would buy again]

More photo's on my Flickr photostream.

More wines
Pinot Blanc Bonheur Convival 2007. White wine. Grape: Pinot Blanc Producer: Domaine Rieflé. Region: Vin d’Alsace. [very fruity, I'm drinking it without food, one glass per day. However it's better to drink with a meal. Won't buy again as an evening wine, but will buy again for dinner: sauerkraut would be nice.]

Bourgogne Aligoté 2006. White wine. Producer: Catherine et Claude Maréchal. Grape: Aligoté. Contains no sulphites. [A very, very dry wine. Nice. Drank on August 30]

Royal St-Charles. Vin Mousseux sec. A French sparkling rose. Not much information on the label, but I found this wine on a Dutch website under the name: De Neuville, Royal St. Charles Rosé. [a little too sweet for my taste, drinks easily but won't buy again. The color is pretty dark red for a rose]

Chai Recipe

For my own reference:

Boil 5 min. then steep for 10 min.:

1 tbsp fennel or anise seed
6 green cardamom pods
12 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
ginger root, sliced thin
1/4 tsp black pepper corns
2 bay leaves
7 cups of water

Add, bring to a boil, and simmer 5 minutes:

2 tbsp Darjeeling tea

[Filter]

Add:

6 tbsp honey or brown sugar
1 cup milk