Roasted Red meets Baby Romaine

9 March 2023

A recent visit to Barcelona serves as the inspiration for this roasted red cabbage dish that KCC tried as part of the veggie restaurant Sésamo‘s 30 euro tasting menu. The great value menu includes seven tapas plates (that can be served as vegan or veggie), a dessert and a glass of local wine.

Sésamo’s baked cabbage was cooked with pesto, mint and dukkah – from the ingredients we had at hand we decided to cook ours with tahini, soy sauce and a sprinkling of sesame seeds. It can be served on its own as a main dish or as a salad – we added some shredded baby romaine lettuce and some pomegranate and pumpkin seeds to add some more colour to the dish.

If you’re in Barcelona, then we fully recommend you head for Sésamo which is located near Sant Antoni market. Unlike in most other tapas joints, you can be sure of a meat-free experience at this little gem of a restaurant. It’s closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays but otherwise works from 19.00 to midnight. If you’re not planning on being in Catalonia, then follow the recipe below to recreate a taste of one of Sésamo’s signature dishes.

Ingredients (serves 4)

Half a red cabbage
50 g baby romaine lettuce
25 ml olive oil
50 ml tahini
10 ml soy sauce
One teaspoon sesame seeds
One tablespoon pumpkin seeds
One tablespoon pomegranate seeds

Method

Remove the tough outer leaves from the cabbage. Cut off the top half of the cabbage (not the stalk end) and then cut this into four slices. Mix the olive oil, tahini, rosemary and soy sauce together in a glass or ceramic baking dish with a fork. Coat the cabbage slices in the dressing. Bake for 30 minutes at 180 c.
Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve hot immediately or let the cabbage cool down and then mix it with the baby romaine lettuce, add the pumpkin and pomegranate seeds and serve as a salad.

Mooli Mattar Mücver

10 February 2023

This time round on KCC we’re taking a look at mooli, or daikon as some of you might know it. This large, white member of the radish family is common in Japanese, Korean and Chinese cuisine and is also widely used in the Indian sub-continent. It’s a versatile, vitamin-packed vegetable that can be eaten raw or cooked in a variety of dishes. It has a milder flavour than its smaller red cousins but adds an interesting, mildly spicy crunch to salads and stir fries.

Mooli mattar mücver served in a bap with salad

Mücver fritters are a perennial KCC favourite so we decided to make some with grated mooli, mattar (green peas), celery and some chickpea flour to glue it all together for our latest mücver variation. This version is great served in a burger bun or baguette with some fresh coleslaw, shredded salad greens and a dash of soy sauce.

Meet the mooli aka daikon or winter radish

The mooli can be quite wet when grated so give it a good squeeze to remove the excess liquid. The chickpea flour will help bind the fritters together and soak up any remaining moisture so that they hold their shape better when frying.

Ingredients (makes four 125 g fritters)

200 g grated mooli
200 g green peas (fresh, tinned or frozen)
1 celery stick
50 g chickpea or pea flour
One teaspoon cumin seeds
One teaspoon turmeric
Two teaspoons paprika
Oil for frying

Method

Peel and grate the mooli into thin strips. Squeeze the moisture from the grated mooli. Chop the celery stalk and leaves finely and put into a bowl with the grated mooli. Add the peas and the spices and mix well. Now add the chickpea flour and blend everything together. The mix should be sticky but not wet – if it’s too moist, then add a bit more flour until you get a sticky consistency.
Heat the oil in a frying pan. Form the mix into four golf ball-sized pieces. Place in the pan and flatten with a fish slice. Turn the fritters over after frying for two to three minutes. Cook for another two to three minutes until both sides are a golden brown colour. Serve in a burger bun or in a baguette. Top with grated carrot and red cabbage and shredded lettuce or rocket, add a splash of soy sauce and enjoy!

KCC’s Courgette, Coconut and Mung Bean Mash Up

10 November 2022

As the first snow falls here in Almaty, it’s time for some heartier fare. This recipe started out life as courgette soup, but the sudden drop in temperature called for something with a bit more oomph so we added some mung beans and dried coconut to give it a more stew-like consistency. To add a bit of colour, we sprinkled some pomegranate seeds on top and gave it a drizzle of pomegranate sauce before serving.

KCC’s Courgette, Coconut and Mung Bean Mash Up

The delicate, thin courgettes of the summer are giving way to the robust, denser marrows of autumn – perfect for making into a soup. Mung beans are a versatile store cupboard basic – they can be added to stews or grown into bean sprouts for stir fries and salads – check o ut more recipe ideas here. They’re a staple in home-cooked meals in Uzbekistan, where they’re known as mash, hence the “mash up” in the name of this dish.

Ingredients (makes four servings)

1 kilo courgette
One celery stick
One medium onion
Bunch of radish leaves
200 g dried mung beans (soaked overnight)
50 g desiccated coconut
50 ml olive oil
Two teaspoons dried thyme
Two teaspoons cumin seeds
1.5 litres vegetable stock
Pomegranate seeds and Pomegranate sauce to garnish

Method

Heat the olive oil in a heavy-based pan and fry the cumin seeds until starting to crackle and then add the diced onion and cook for five minutes over a medium heat. Next add the diced celery, lower the heat and and cook for another five minutes, stirring occasionally. Cut the courgette into four pieces lengthwise and then slice into 1 cm thick chunks. Add to the pan along with the thyme and stir fry for ten minutes. Add one litre of vegetable stock and the chopped radish leaves and simmer over a low heat for twenty minutes.
While the soup is simmering, cook the mung beans in a separate pan with 500 ml vegetable stock and the coconut. Cook for twenty – thirty minutes or so until the beans are softening or until all the liquid is absorbed.
Remove around 25% of the courgette mix and blend the rest to a smooth consistency with a stick blender. Add these blended courgettes to the cooked mung beans and stir well. Bring to a boil and then add the reserved courgette mix. Pour into soup bowls, garnish with a few pomegranate seeds and a drizzle of pomegranate sauce and serve immediately.

Apricot and Lentil Courgette Roundels

13 October 2022

It’s that in-between time of year as the nights grow longer and thoughts turn towards more substantial meals after a long summer of salads and lighter fare. The last of the seasonal vegetables such as tomatoes and courgettes are perfect for stuffing and baking in the oven, making a bridge between summery salads and the heartier soups and stews of winter that are coming up.

Apricot and lentil courgette roundels drizzled with pomegranate sauce and served with a seasonal salad

We stuffed some courgettes with a mixture of red lentils, apricots, tomato, onion, bulgur wheat and lemon juice to make a versatile roundel that can be served as part of a main course or eaten on its own as a meze, a fully vegan alternative to the sausage roll!

Apricot and lentil courgette roundel – a vegan alternative to the sausage roll?

The autumn fruit is at its best at the moment, and we’ve added some pear and pomegranate to an autumnal red cabbage, carrot, celery and radish salad to accompany these apricot and lentil courgette roundels to make a great lunch or supper. By adding a jacket potato, you can make it into a more filling main course.

Ingredients (makes enough mixture for 10-12 roundels)

Three medium sized courgettes
100 g red lentils
50 g dried apricots (or four fresh apricots if available)
One small red onion (approx 75 g)
One medium tomato (approx 100 g)
50 g fine bulgur wheat
25 ml olive oil
200 ml vegetable stock
Juice of half a lemon
One teaspoon cumin seeds
One teaspoon red chilli flakes
Black pepper to taste

Method

Cut the dried apricots into eight pieces and soak in hot water for at least 30 minutes. While the apricots are soaking, heat the oil in a heavy based pan and add the cumin seeds. When they start to sizzle, add the finely chopped onion and fry over a medium heat until they start to soften. Grate the tomato into the fried onion and cook over a low heat for five minutes or so, stirring occasionally.
Now add the washed lentils, pour in the stock and stir. Cook over a low heat for 15-20 minutes until most of the water has been absorbed. Add the fine bulgur wheat, mix it in well and leave covered for 15 minutes. Drain the apricots and stir them into the mixture. Add the lemon juice, chilli flakes and black pepper to taste and mix well.
While the lentils are cooking, start to prepare the courgettes by slicing off the ends to make them flat. Cut into 3 cm slices. Gouge out the seeds with a small spoon, leaving a little bit of flesh at the bottom of the roundel.
Pre-heat the oven to 180 c. When the lentil mix is cool, pack it into the courgette roundels and stand them on a baking tray with the filling topmost. Bake at 180 c for 30 minutes or so – the courgette should still be firm and not too squidgy and the lentil mix should rise slightly and be beginning to brown on top.
Serve alongside a salad of red cabbage, carrot, celery, radish, pear and pomegranate and a jacket potato, drizzling pomegranate sauce over the roundels or allow to cool and serve the roundels as a snack on their own.

Asparagus in the Ascendency

3 June 2022

It’s that asparagus time of year, a herald of early summer, although you wouldn’t know it in Sweden, where the weather remains distinctly chilly.

Spears of destiny – stir fried with broccoli and red onions

We wrote about asparagus in our very first post, a bulgur risotto, back in 2016. Already this summer we’ve come across locally grown varieties in Kazakhstan and Sweden.

These tasty spears are great in a vegan stir fry served with rice or noodles, or if you eat eggs, then you can turn it into an omelette or a quiche.

Continue reading →

KCC’s Revolutionary Rhubarb Recipes

25 April 2022

While walking through the market in Samarkand recently we came across tables laden with something we hadn’t seen for quite a while – rhubarb, those colourful stalks that instantly evoke childhood memories of rhubarb crumbles served with custard. In Samarkand, the favoured way to eat the stalks is raw.

It’s a tiring business selling rhubarb in Samarkand

Rhubarb is a classic harbinger of spring, with its short growing season over by summer. Often thought of as a fruit because of its use in puddings, complete with lashings of sugar to counteract its tartness, these stalks are in fact a vegetable.

Rhubarb has a long history in Chinese traditional medicine. It started to be imported into the west, where it was prized for its medicinal properties, along the Silk Roads in the 14th century. Transport costs, along with its popularity and relative scarcity, saw it command a higher price than cinnamon, saffron, and opium at one point.

Its high price spurred efforts to localise its cultivation and by the 18th century it was being successfully grown in Europe. The edible stalk’s greater availability, combined with the arrival of affordable sugar, led to it becoming a culinary staple in the world of desserts.

Rhubarb also has its uses in savoury dishes with its sharp flavour adding an interesting note to a lentil dhal. We served our dhal with a fruity plov and some flat bread. Any leftovers can be mixed with chickpea flour to make a fritter as part of an unusual brunch.

Ingredients (makes four servings)

200 g rhubarb
One large onion
150 g red lentils
75 g spinach
25 ml olive oil
500 ml vegetable stock
One teaspoon cumin seeds
One teaspoon cinnamon
One teaspoon red chilli flakes
50 g chickpea flour

Method

Heat the oil and cumin seeds in a heavy-based pan. When the seeds start to sizzle, add the chopped onion. Cook for five minutes over a low heat, stirring occasionally. Add the cinnamon and red chilli flakes and the rhubarb stalk, cut into 1 cm slices – do not use the leaves as these can be bad for your health.
Cook for three minutes over a low heat, stirring occasionally, and then add the washed lentils and the vegetable stock. cook over a low heat for 20 minutes or until all the liquid has been absorbed. Stir in the washed spinach and serve hot with rice or flat bread (or both!)
To make rhubarb fritters, mix leftover 200 g dhal with 50 g chickpea flour. Form into eight walnut-sized balls and fry in oil on both sides until starting to brown, flattening with a fish slice as they cook.

Grip Green Shakshuka

9 April 2022

With spring greens making a welcome reappearance, it’s time for a brunch special – green shakshuka, North Africa’s breakfast star.

This dish, usually made with tomatoes and peppers, is originally from Tunisia but has now spread all over the Middle East.

For our spring greens version, we made a bed of cumin fried onions, banana peel, radish leaves and spinach on which to poach some eggs for our sublime, zero waste brunch special.

Ingredients (for two servings)

one medium onion
one banana peel
100 g spinach
50 g radish leaves
four eggs
one teaspoon cumin seeds
one teaspoon chilli powder
25 ml olive oil

Method

Heat the oil in a heavy-based pan and add the cumin seeds. When they start to pop, add chopped onion and cook for five minutes over a low heat. Add the banana peel (to prepare, use a knife or spoon to scrape off any remaining banana flesh (use this in a cake, smoothie or banana bread) and then slice the peel into 1 mm strips).
Stir fry for another five minutes and then add the chopped radish leaves and three minutes later add the washed and chopped spinach. Cook until the spinach starts to wilt.
Make a depression in the mix and pour an egg into it, repeat with the other eggs, sprinkle chilli powder over the eggs put, put a lid on and steam until the eggs are set

Nauryz Noodles

21 March 2022

Happy Nauryz – the day of the Spring Equinox that marks the start of the new year in some parts of Asia. it’s a big celebration in Central Asia with a focus on things coming back to life after the long winter months. This year we’ve made some green noodles inspired by shivit oshi – dill noodles from Khiva, Uzbekistan, to mark the coming of spring.

As you may recall, here on KCC we’re not huge fans of dill, aka the devil’s weed, so we replaced it with spinach to give our noodles their distinctive green colour. We served our noodles with an orange and green stir fry made from pumpkin, carrots, spring onions, beansprouts and broccoli.

Shivit Oshi – dill noodles in Khiva, Uzbekistan

We washed our Nauryz noodles down with some Turan Tiger beer as a nod to the year of the tiger.

Ingredients (makes four servings)

For the noodles

300 g plain flour
100 ml water
40 ml olive oil
120 g spinach

For the stir fry

100 g spring onion
300 g pumpkin
200 g carrot
300 g broccoli
200 g beansprouts
50 ml olive oil
20 ml soy sauce
Two teaspoons cumin seeds

Method

For the noodles

Pour boiling hot water over the washed spinach leaves and leave for one minute. Drain and then cover with cold water. Drain again and put in a blender with the water and blend to a smooth paste.
Stir the oil into the flour and then add the blended spinach. Mix well and knead the dough. Make sure it is neither too sticky (add more flour if so) or too crumbly (add more liquid if so). Cover with cling film and leave in the fridge until you are ready to use it.
Roll the dough to 1 mm thickness on a lightly floured surface. Fold the dough over three or four times and then cut off 2 mm slices and pull out the noodles by hand.
Cook in a pot of boiling water for five minutes – taste to check that the noodles have the texture that you prefer (e.g. al dente or softer). Drain and serve immediately.

For the stir fry

Heat the oil in a heavy-based pan and add the cumin seeds. When the seed begin to pop, add the chopped spring onions and stir fry over a medium heat. Add the pumpkin, cut into 1 cm cubes and stir fry for five minutes.
Next add the broccoli and stir fry for another five minutes over a medium heat. Add the grated carrot and beansprouts along with the soy sauce and cook for a few more minutes. Serve on a bed of noodles.

Deruny – Cook for Ukraine

11 March 2022

As Putin’s horrific war rages on in Ukraine, now into its third week and with no signs of the death and destruction abating, we’ve been looking at some ways of making a contribution to help people on the ground.

One initiative that caught our eye was the #CookForUkrain e project that was set up by London-based chefs Olia Hercules, who originally hails from Ukraine, and Alissa Timoshkina, originally from Russia. The initiative, which is inspired by 2016’s CookFor Syria project, uses food to raise awareness about the conflict whilst raising funds to support humanitarian causes (the money raised goes to Unicef UK).

KCC’s take on deruny, Ukraine’s potato pancake

Across the world, restaurants, chefs and amateur cooks are putting Ukrainian dishes on their menus and organising fund-raisers by hosting Ukrainian food-themed supper clubs or selling Ukrainian specialities such as syrnyky (cottage cheese pancakes), varenyky (Ukraine’s take on ravioli) and golubtsi (stuffed cabbage leaves) along with baked goods.

We hope we’re doing out little bit by featuring this recipe for deruny, the Ukrainian take on the potato pancake that finds many forms across Europe. Our version used grated potato mixed with onion, caraway seeds and chickpea flour. They had a coarser texture than some versions that use egg and sour cream in the mix but tasted great all the same.

To support the CookFor Ukraine project, you can host your own supper club or sell some Ukrainian food or just make a donation direct to their JustGiving page – click here to donate.

Ingredients (makes 8 pancakes)

300 g potato
150 g red onion
50 g chickpea flour (or plain flour)
One teaspoon caraway seeds
50 ml cooking oil

Method

Peel the potatoes and then roughly grate them. Wrap the grated potato in a tea towel and squeeze out the moisture. Add the chopped onion, caraway seeds and chickpea flour and mix well.
Form the mix into eight golf ball sized pieces and fry in the oil over a medium heat. Flatten the balls with a fish slice and then flip them over and cook until golden brown on both sides. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

Spicy Peas ‘n’ Cheese

30 November 2021

This time round on KCC we’ve been inspired to take on a curry house favourite of ours, matar paneer, cubes of fresh white cheese cooked with peas in a spicy tomato-rich gravy.

We’ve been in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan for the last two weeks to polish off the final chapter in a gruelling two-year run of Central Asian elections. While browsing around the supermarket, we came across a pack of locally made Ricotta cheese. Its dry, crumbly texture immediately reminded us of fresh paneer cheese from the Indian sub-continent, bringing to mind matar paneer.

Spicy peas and cheese with pumpkin dhal and rice

This white cheese does not taste of much on its own so it needs to soak up some flavour. We prepared a tomato gravy and then marinated the cubes of cheese and the peas in the sauce overnight before heating it through just before serving. For any vegans reading, substitute chunks of plain tofu for the paneer cheese – tofu is another ingredient that benefits from being marinated for a while. Serve with our pumpkin dhal and rice or flat bread.

Ingredients (makes 4 servings)

3 medium tomatoes (approx 250 g)
1 medium onion
1 clove of garlic
200 g paneer cheese or tofu
250 g peas (tinned, frozen or fresh if you can get them)
25 ml olive oil or other vegetable oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 cm knob of chopped ginger
1 small bunch fresh coriander

Method

Finely chop the onion and cook for five minutes in the oil over a medium heat in a heavy-based pan. Turn down to a low heat and add the spices and the minced garlic and stir well. Cook for another two minutes and then add the chopped, peeled tomatoes. Cook for 20-30 minutes over a low heat until the tomatoes have formed a smooth gravy with the onions.
Allow the sauce to cool and then add the white cheese (paneer) or tofu, cut into 1 cm cubes, and the peas and mix well. Leave to marinate for an hour or two at least – overnight in the fridge is better, and then heat through. Sprinkle with fresh coriander before serving with our pumpkin dhal and rice. Also goes well with a flat bread of your choice.