recipe

Leftover Vegetable Kofta

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I love good Kofta, those delicious spiced spheres from Indian cooking.  There are many different versions, of course, and I’ve tasted some wonderful personalized recipes (one local restaurant uses rasins).  I never tried making any until now

I came up with this after realizing that making vegetable broth meant that I wasted vegetables, so I began exploring recipes.  I realized that vegetarian kofta, which are basically balls of vegetables and flour, would be perfect to make use of these leftovers.  Plus I’ll look for any excuse to use chickpea flour, which is just amazing stuff.

These came out pretty good.  This is the second time I’ve tried this, and though they’re a bit chewy, there’s definitely something here.

One note is that I’d pick out most herbs if you use a bunch of them. Some are powerful, some taste bad if there’s too much, some may trigger allergies en masse, some are so loaded with specific vitamins that they may not be good for people taking supplements, and so on.  Parsley and peppercorns (which I both use in my vegetable broth) are stuff you want to watch out for.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups of pureed, boiled vegetables (you may be able to use cooked vegetables and roasted vegetables with a little broth or water). Be sure to pick out most herbs if you used any.  This is 2 cups after being pureed, by the way.  The more different vegetables the better, and you could probably use leftovers pretty easy.
  • 3 cups of chickpea flour.
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • 2 tsp ground coriander.
  • 1 tbsp garlic (two if you used no garlic in the recipe)
  • 1 tbsp curry powder or garam masala
  • 2 Tbsp baking powder.
  • Olive oil (or good nostick pans)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 400. Use a towel/cloth to lightly coat small muffin tins with oil. You’ll want enough to make 18-24.
  2. Puree vegetables in a blender/food processor. The mixture should be reasonably thick
  3. Pour the vegetable puree into a bowl. Slowly stir in the chickpea flour bit by bit, sprinkling it on the mixture (about ¼ a cup at a time), stirring, and repeating. This is needed as chickpea flour can lump up easily – with the last ¼ cup, stir in the baking powder.
  4. After stirring in the chickpea flour there may be lumps. I use a large spoon to mash the mixture against the side, stir it in, and repeat.
  5. Place about 1-2 tablespoons of the mixture in each muffin hollow. You should get around 18-24.
  6. Place in oven and cook for 8 minutes.
  7. Remove the tins and use chopsticks to flip each kofta over. Place back in oven for another 5 minutes.

 

I want to tweak the spices a bit, probably add one more tablespoon of baking powder, and a bit more chickpea flour to make sure the dough is less sticky – turning these over was tough.  Probably much like bread dough you can just add a bit here and there until it’s more powdery than sticky.

I want to try these with my various sauces . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Black Bean Veggie Soup

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Been awhile since I posted recipes!  This one is a wonderful soup that’s sweet, tasty, and has a tough of spice to it. This is a go-to soup for me because it’s always worth making.

Makes 4 servings.

1 Tbs. olive oil
About 1 cup chopped onion (1 small)
About 1 cup chopped red bell pepper (1 small)
3 cloves garlic, minced (1 Tbs.)
1 TBSP chili powder
2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
11/2 cups cooked black beans, or 1 15-oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup green peas (frozen or fresh)
1 cup finely chopped carrots/grated
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 Tbsp dried cilantro or 1/4 cup chopped.
2 Tbs. lime juice

Directions:

  1. Heat oil in the pot you plan to cook in (you can also use a BIG wok or frying pan to make the whole thing). Sautee onion and red pepper until softened.
  2. Add garlic and chili powder to pan, sautee for 3 minutes.
  3. Add broth, beans, peas, carrots, corn, and bay leaf. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer, cook for 20 minutes to heat through.
  4. Remove bay leaf. Stir in cilantro and lime juice. Bring to simmer while stirring, serve.

This soup really is good any time of the year, and acts as a light main course, and could also be a good side dish. As a main course, I find it goes excellent with a salad that has a good dressing.

Notes:

  • The amount of chili powder may seem a lot for a mild soup, but it blends in well.
  • The sautéed onion and bell pepper actually add a kind of sweet taste, further amplified by the carrots and corn.
  • The key to this recipes taste is the order you cook things in. Note how things are cooked in different orders and added at different phases.

Recipe: Besan Fritters

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Recently I looked at my cooking (and yes, I need to post more on it) and realized my Tex-mex and Mediterranean kick had gone a bit far.  So I decided it was time to start diversifying – and as I’d recently got some besan flour (chickpea flour) – also called Gram flour incase you want some – with the intention of making fritters with them.  I’d tried besan fritters once before with some success, and used it in other experiments, but kind of forgot about it.  It’s actually a very popular ingredient in Indian cooking, and you can get it at any Indian market –

First results aren’t perfect, but are a darn good start.  Good enough for me to post without (gasp) perfecting it!

  • 2 cups besan
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 cup water
  • 2 tsp lemon juice
  • 2 cup chopped veggies. (1cup peas, 1 cup diced onion)
  1. Mix besan, spices, and water together thoroughly – it’ll create a kid of light dough.
  2. Add lemon juice.  Mix.
  3. Add veggies to the mix.  You may find it needs a bit more water.  Mix thorouhgly.
  4. Separate into eight “lumps.”  It’ll be more like a very sticky dough more than anything else so it’s not too hard, but you are going to want to wash your hands.  Alternately just scoop it out of the bowl as needed, but I like to be regular.
  5. Place the lumps in frying pan/skillet sprayed with cooking spray or sprinkled in olive oil.  Flatten into a cake.  Cook until it browns, spray/sprinkle with oil, flip it over and brown the other side.  Place on a paper towel to cool a bit.  I usually find I can do about 3 at a time.
  6. Serve!  They’re fine on their own, but I imagine a sauce, dip, or chutney would be awesome.

Off the bat these are great.  Each fritter is about 130 calories and 6-9 grams protein (I had trouble getting exact numbers sadly, especially on besan) – so one is a good snack and two is a good main course with some veggies, fruit, or brown rice.  They reminds me a bit of okonomiyaki but lighter – which gives me plenty of ideas.

Also I tried experimentally baking some at 400 degrees.  They didn’t brown as easy but held together OK.  Just not sure it has the same flavor.

I plan to do some serious experimenting with these, with different veggie combos (maybe some tomatoes instead of peas, or adding some pickled ginger, maybe diced cabbage).  I’m also thinking if I ditched the salt and used a tablespoon or two of low-sodium soy sauce it may be good.  I might substitute vegetable broth for the water, though as I prefer to make my own I’d want to time it right.   Also if I used the soy sauce and/or vegetable broth I don’t know if the lemon juice is needed.

Definitely this is added to my repertoire and is something to experiment with in the future!