Warming Winter lentils

Happy New Year to one and all!
I have been quite busy, as impressively demonstrated by the lack of posts.... What is it about the Christmas season that makes it go by in an absolute blurr?
Please let me give you a recomendation as to what your next dinner or appetizer for a round of drinks should be:
Do yourself a big favor and try out the first recipe on this link.

It is absolutely delicious and will make you feel quite virtuous too. It's vegetarian and kind of healthy to boot... I don't think I can add anything to this already glowing review, so please give it a try and let me know what you think.
One adjustment I would consider: My puy lentils weren't quite cooked through after 20 minutes, so give them a try before taking them out of the water...

Cucumber, onion and coriander salad

As per request...
If temperatures where you live are set to hit the high twenties this weekend as well, this might just be the perfect accompaniment the the mandatory BBQ you are planning.
It's a simplified version of Yotam Ottolenghi's. It's easy and quick to make so give it a try!

3 tablespoons vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons sugar (I used palm)
2 teaspoons toasted peanut oil (the original calls for sesame)
One small red onion, halved and finely sliced (use a mandolin, if you have one)
One large cucumber, halved and finely sliced at an angle
One small bunch of coriander, roughly chopped (haters, use mint instead)
One clove of garlic
Thumbsized piece of ginger
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Mix the dressing and add the sliced onion. Leave it to stand and mellow for at least an hour.
2. Smash your garlic and ginger with a big pinch of salt to paste in a pestle and mortar or put it through a fine microplane grater. Mix this with the prepared dressing, sliced cucumber and coriander. Season to taste. All done!

Vietnamese fried mincemeat

This is a dish I had in a Vietnamese restaurant on an early summer evening. We analyzed its components over dinner and decided it must be quite easy to replicate.
I tried it at home recently and was so pleased with the result, I ate variations of it for the remainder of the week. It is a perfect template recipe in the sense that lots of the ingredients can be substituted for similar things you might have on hand. No rigid list of ingredients so to speak.
If you plan on serving it with rice, make it a bit saucier by adding stock or a splash of rice wine that you let cook off a bit. I liked it with just the protein and the veggies, kind of like a warm, rich salad.

Ingredients:
Minced meat of choice (mine was half pork and beef), ca. 100 gr. per person
Splash of oil (optional)
One garlic clove
Chili to taste
A piece of ginger, the size of your thumb
    all minced
Soy sauce
Fish sauce
    to taste
Chopped veggies (Chinese broccoli, asparagus, pak choi, broccoli are all good options. Maybe add the leafy part after frying off the stem bits.)
Fresh herbs (spring onions, mint, coriander, chive, parsley...?

1. Heat up your frying pan to medium high heat. Add the oil and fry off the meat until evenly dark brown. Stirring every now and then helps.
2. Add the chili, garlic and ginger and fry until nicely fragrant and evenly distributed.
3. Add your veggies and fry off for a couple of minutes. If it is quite a hardy vegetable add a splash of water and cover your pan for 2-3 minutes so they can steam through.
4. Take off the lid, season with soy and fish sauce and add your fresh herbs just before serving. The spring onion is especially nice.

Roast Chicken; Part II aka Banh Mi Sandwich

The roast chicken dinner from my last post left me with two uneaten chicken thighs. As you know I am not a big fan of leftovers as such. I just don't want to eat something that I've already had the night before... But roasting chicken has a big draw for me for an additional reason to that erstwhile meal: Homemade chicken soup! Therefore I never through away chicken bones or carcasses. If I know I will not be able to make the soup in the following days I freeze them and get round to it later on. But that is a tale for a different time.

I took the meat off the bone of those two thighs and froze them separately since I knew I would be out of town for a couple of days. I had seen a recipe of these Vietnamese sandwiches on the foodgawker App and knew this was something I wanted to try. It sounded easy enough except for the pickled carrots. But I soon discovered that this could be made with ingredients found in every household.
This is what I did:

Pickled carrot:
1 cup of hot water
1 tablespoon of vinegar
1 tablespoon of kosher salt
2/3 of a tablespoon of sugar
1 carrot, cut into juliennes

Mix the water, vinegar, salt and sugar so the last two can dissolve. Put the mini carrot sticks into a jam jar of appropriate size, top up with the brine you've just made and put on a lid. It's that easy.
I used red wine vinegar (seriously, who keeps distilled white for anything other than cleaning purposes?), you can use whatever you have or like.

This jar should be left for three to five days.

The sandwich:
One baguette sliced in half, a little bit of mayonnaise, the leftover chicken, sliced cucumber, your pickled carrots, some slices of spring or red onion and some fresh coriander*. I won't give any quantities as it comes down to your taste and sandwich making abilities (i.e. how much can you fit in). The finished composition is fresh and satisfying. I will be eating this again for sure.

*Dear people-who-hate-coriander, don't whine, substitute! It's a recipe, not the European Convention on Human Rights. You are allowed to adapt and diverge. Use any fresh herb you fancy: Basil, parsley, chives... I would especially recommend mint.

Beef stew with couscous and a fresh pea salad

What do you serve hungry guests whom you would prefer to spend time with rather than slave away in the kitchen?

I really like the option of stewed meat. It is a dish where the main chunk of the actual work can be done hours before and the results are delicious and tender.
For this meal I wanted to use northern African flavors. I served it with couscous (also done in five minutes) and a pea and feta salad, which was really simple to make.

Ingredients:
ca. 900 gr. beef ragout
ca. 4 tablespoons flour
seasonings
Vegetable oil of choice
3 onions, roughly chopped
1 lemon, just the peel, roughly chopped
2 teaspoons coriander seeds, crushed
1 1/5 teaspoons cumin powder
2 teaspoons turmeric
3 plum tomatoes, diced
olives, roughly a handful
2 bay leaves
water
to serve:
toasted sesame seeds
fresh coriander

1. Season the flower with salt and pepper in a bowl. Then toss the chunks of beef in it to cover. Preheat your oven to 150°.
2. In a pan that is oven proof heat some oil (I seem to use groundnut oil for all frying around here) to medium to high heat and fry off the beef until brown. If your pan is not big enough, do this in batches. Take the meat out and put it aside.
3. Turn down the heat to medium and add more oil if necessary. Add the chopped onions and the spices. Let the mixture fry until the onions are slightly softened.
4. Add the beef, the tomatoes, the olives, the bay leaves and enough water to cover. Let it come to the boil, put the lid on it and move the pan into the oven for about 1,5 hours.
5. Before serving, take out and check if the sauce has the desired consistency (if too dry add a little water, if too watery cook on the stove top without the lid) and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Maybe add a bit of lemon juice. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds and coriander immediately before serving or let the guests do this themselves...


The pea salad went well with this because it added freshness and a bit of zing. Here's how I made it:
Boil a pot of water and add some frozen peas (you'll only leave them in for ca. 4 minutes). Into the serving bowl, grate 1-2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced chili to taste a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, lemon juice and chop 2-3 sprigs of mint. Drain the peas when they've come up to temperature, add them to the dressing and mix. Crumble over some feta and you're done. You don't need salt or pepper in this combination because of the feta, chili and garlic. Favorite new salad!

Mexican sweetcorn salad

I found this dish on the pages of Jamie Olivers magazine, which I always buy when I am in the UK as it is so exorbitantly more expensive here in Switzerland. (So are all the other English mags, but that is a rant for another day.)

It had one section with Mexican food which I found a pleasant surprise. I am not really a big fan of Mexican cooking. I have to admit that this impression comes from a limited number of experiences. I think I've just never been to a restaurant that specializes in the freshness aspect as opposed to the too much cheese and a couple of mildly spicy jalapenos. So these recipes were definitely an eye opener.

The one I was most intrigued by was this spicy sweetcorn salad. The flavours are well balanced and I loved using fresh corn from the cob.

Made for two people:
a tsp of olive oil
small knob of butter
one green chili (mine are hotter than hell, taste yours and see of you need more), finely chopped
one small shallot, finely chopped
two cobs of corn, kernels cut off
4 sprigs of thyme, leaves picked
one clove of garlic, finely chopped
juice of one lime
a small bunch of coriander, chopped
2 spring onions, chopped

Heat a pan with the oil and butter. When in sizzling add the chili and cook for a minute. Add the corn, shallot and thyme. Sauté over high heat (you don't want it to steam) until the corn turns slightly brown and the shallot translucent. This should take about five minutes. Add your garlic, salt and pepper and cook another couple of minutes.
Take it off the heat and add the lime juice, spring onions and coriander.

You could serve it with sour cream and grated Parmesan. Haven't tried that yet.