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.

Barleekie – a Barley, Leek and Lentil Soup for Burns Night

21 January 2021

We’re always on the look out at KCC for something to celebrate and this week we’re heading for Scotland. Coming up on 25 January is Burns Night, which marks the birthday of the country’s national bard, Robert Burns, with a night of poetry and songs accompanied by lots of drinking and feasting.

A hearty bowl of barleekie soup – a barley, carrot, leek and lentil stew

The celebration revolves around a hearty supper and commemorates the life and works of Scotland’s most famous poet with recitals of his work and comforting winter fare. It’s all washed down with a wee dram or two of whisky.

The first course of the supper is usually cock-a-leekie soup, this is followed by the main attraction, haggis, a savoury, offal-based dish that is similar to “a crumbly sausage, with a coarse oaty texture and a warming peppery flavour,” according to the BBC Good Food website. It’s usually served with neeps (mashed turnip) and tatties (mashed potato). Clootie dumpling, a steamed, dried fruit pudding, is served for dessert.

We’ve replaced the chicken usually found in the cock-a-leekie soup with green lentils to make our vegan version – Barleekie soup, named for its key ingredients of barley and leeks.

If you want to try your hand at haggis but are not keen on all those innards then check out this recipe from Emi’s Good Eating for a vegan take on Scotland’s national dish. As for the clootie dumpling, check out this recipe from the BBC.

Ingredients (for 3 – 4 servings)

100 g pearl barley
100 g green lentils
One leek (200 g)
One carrot (150 g)
One lemon
50 ml olive oil
600 ml vegetable stock
One teaspoon cumin seeds
One teaspoon turmeric
One teaspoon ginger
One bay leaf

Method

Soak the barley and green lentils separately for 4 hours. Zest the lemon and mix this into the soaking barley.
Heat the oil in a heavy-based pan and then wash the leek thoroughly and chop the white part into 1 cm rounds and roughly chop the green parts. Add the leek to the pan and then stir in the spices. Sweat the leek over a low heat until it is soft.
Stir in the chopped carrot, barley and green lentils and then add the vegetable stock and the juice of the lemon and the bay leaf. Simmer for 30 minutes or so over a low heat until the the lentils and carrots are cooked but the barley still has a bit of bite to it.
Serve hot with hunks of crusty bread or oatcakes if you have them.

Can the 3 Cs, Carrot, Coconut and Coriander, help combat Coronavirus?

12 March 2020

With the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic showing no sign of abating, we’ve come up with a soup that is full of nutritious ingredients that can boost your immune system. A healthy diet combined with regular exercise is recommended to help strength your body’s ability to fight off infection.

SAMSUNG CSC — KCC’s 3 Cs soup – Carrot, Coconut and Coriander

While our 3 Cs soup may not offer you guaranteed protection from coronavirus, it can certainly enhance your health. Its combination of anti-oxidant-packed carrots, garlic and onions, fibre-rich coconut and coriander and the anti-inflammatory properties of turmeric and ginger, should leave you feeling bolstered up and ready to face the crisis with renewed vigour.

Zero Waste Tip: Coconut milk is easy to make at home – you don’t need to buy it in tins. Take 50 g of dried (desiccated) coconut and cover with 200 ml of hot water. Leave to stand for an hour or so. Liquidise with a hand blender or in a liquidiser on a low setting.

Pour the resulting mix through a fine sieve, pressing the coconut to produce more liquid – you should end up with about 200 ml of milk. Use the leftover coconut mass in soups, burgers, dhals, cakes, or smoothies. The coconut milk will keep for three to four days in the fridge – shake well before use as the cream will settle on the top.

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

500 g carrots
250 ml coconut milk
50 g dried coconut
2 medium onions
2 garlic cloves
1 cm knob of ginger
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
50 ml olive oil
500 ml vegetable stock
Fresh coriander to garnish

Method

Heat the oil in a heavy-based pan and then add chopped onion, garlic ginger, turmeric and ground coriander seeds. Stir and cook for five minutes over a medium heat and then add the finely grated carrots. Reduce the heat and cook for 5 more minute, stirring frequently.
Stir in the coconut milk and bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Now add the dried coconut and the rest of the stock. Allow the soup to simmer over a low heat for 20 minutes and then blend to a smooth consistency in a liquidiser or with a hand blender. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves before serving.
Don’t forget to wash your hands thoroughly before preparing and eating food.

KCC’s Corn and Coconut Chowder

17 October 2019

This time round on Knidos Cookery Club we’re cooking up a chowder, a creamy soup crammed with fresh, seasonal vegetables that’s ideal for the chillier nights of autumn.

A warming bowl of KCC’s Corn and Coconut Chowder

These days chowder is a name given to any creamy soup that has been thickened with the addition of flour or crumbled crackers. The name of this soup is thought to come from chaudron, an old French word for a cauldron – it was originally brought to north America by sailors who made it as a fish soup thickened with ship’s biscuit and cream.

Some versions use a tomato base, but our version is based on the creamy base and uses coconut milk and chickpea flour to make the sauce. We’ve added some of the last of this year’s corn on the cob and some new season pumpkin, that vegetable that is a harbinger of the colder months of the year. Combined with the holy trinity of soup bases – onion, celery and carrot and a potato, this chowder, garnished with lemon zest and celery leaves, is a soup to savour.

Ingredients (for 3-4 servings)

One large potato
Two large carrots
Three sticks of celery
One medium-sized onion
One corn-on-the cob
200 g pumpkin
One lemon
One bay leaf
Two teaspoons dried thyme
50 ml olive oil
Three tablespoons chickpea flour
One litre coconut milk (50 g desiccated coconut + one litre of water).

Method

Make the coconut milk first by blending the dried coconut with the water using a hand-held blender for two minutes. Strain through a sieve separate the liquid from the leftover coconut, the latter can be saved and used to make energy balls, biscuits, cakes or added to your breakfast muesli.
Heat the olive oil in a heavy-based pan and then add the sliced onion and fry for five minutes over a medium heat. Add the diced carrot and celery and cook for another five minutes. Now add the chickpea flour and dried thyme and mix well. Now add the pumpkin, potatoes and coconut milk and a bay leaf.
Cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until the potato is just cooked. Add the juice of the lemon and half the lemon zest and stir well. Cook for a few more minutes and then remove the bay leaf and serve in bowls and garnish with the rest of the lemon zest and chopped celery leaves.

Punked-Up Vichyssoise

14 June 2018

With football’s World Cup kicking off in Russia today, this time round on Knidos Cookery Club we’ve decided to take on that classic French soup – Vichyssoise, as we have a sneaking suspicion that after 20 years this could be France’s year to lift the FIFA World Cup Trophy.

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The usual flavouring of this soup can be a bit bland to our Asian influenced taste buds, so we’ve spiked it with some chilli powder and mustard seeds to give it a bit of oomph. We’ve called this punked-up creamy combo of leek and potato, that can be eaten hot or cold, Sid Vichyssoise, excuse the pun, after the late, great Sex Pistols bassist.

As we said, this soup can be served hot or cold, making it perfect for the long, balmy nights of mid-June when chilled or as hearty winter fare when served hot in colder times. Just make sure you clean those leeks properly. as you don’t want any grit in the end product.

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

50 ml olive oil
200 g leeks
200 g baby carrots
200 g new potatoes
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons red chilli flakes
300 ml vegetable stock
Dash of soy sauce

Method

Heat the olive oil and mustard seeds in a heavy-based pan until the seeds begin to pop. Next, add the leeks, sliced into 1 cm rounds, the cumin seeds, black pepper and red chilli flakes and cook for five minutes. Then add the finely diced carrots and potatoes and cook for five more minutes, stirring occasionally.
Now add the stock and the soy sauce, stir well and let it simmer over a low heat until the potatoes are beginning to fall apart. Remove from the heat and blend with an electric hand whisk to create a smooth, creamy soup and then leave to chill in the fridge before serving with another sprinkling of red chilli flakes.

A Must-Have Mastava

26 April 2018

Knidos Cookery Club is just back from a foodie fact-finding mission to uncover some new recipes along the Silk Roads. While on the expedition, we inadvertently fell foul of Kazakhstan’s strict zero tolerance laws while munching on a local delicacy, sunflower seeds.

Sunflower seed munchers are not welcome in this park in Shymkent, Kazakhstan

It turns out that eating this tasty little snack in public is an offence, classified as “petty hooliganism”, and punishable by watching a video of Kazakhstan’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev railing against this social evil and the payment of a fine (4 x the Monthly Calculation Index (MCI) that is used to calculate benefits and fines – approx £25).

After this contribution was made to the Shymkent Police Nauryz party fund, the situation was resolved amicably and we were all able to go on our merry way, suitably chastised!

The road trip also took in a visit to Uzbekistan, which has inspired KCC to attempt Mastava a traditional Uzbek rice and chunky vegetable soup – it’s usually prepared with lamb or beef but we’ve used lentils and red beans instead of meat to add the protein in our version.

20180320_225344 — A hearty bowl of mastava and a cup of green tea

Mastava uses whatever seasonal vegetables are to hand – we had carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkin and some red peppers for our version. We’ve liberally spiced it with cumin, coriander seeds, red chilli flakes and black pepper as well as some fresh coriander to garnish the soup.

Ingredients (makes around 4 – 6 servings)

150 g green lentils or similar

250 g red beans

150 g pumpkin

150 g rice

200 g cherry tomatoes

Four small potatoes

One large carrot

One red pepper

Six spring onions

30 ml olive oil or other vegetable oil

1 litre vegetable stock

One teaspoon cumin seeds

One teaspoon coriander seeds

One teaspoon black pepper

One teaspoon red chilli flakes

One bunch fresh coriander

Method

Heat the oil in a heavy based pan and add the crushed black pepper, cumin and coriander seeds and chopped spring onions. fry for five minutes over a medium heat and then add chunks of carrots, tomatoes and red pepper. Cook for 10 minutes and then add the vegetable stock, red chilli flakes, potatoes and rice and bring to a boil.

Simmer over a low heat for 20 minutes, and then add the cooked green lentils and red beans and chunks of pumpkin. Keep simmering until the rice is cooked, stirring occasionally. Serve in bowls and garnish with fresh coriander.

Christmas Redux – the Party Continues…

4 January 2018

Happy 2018 to all our readers! Just when you thought the festive season was over, here’s a quick reminder that in some parts of the world Christmas is still to come. In Russia and parts of eastern Europe, the Orthodox church uses the Julian calendar, leaving a 13-day lag between the two Christmases.

To mark the big day we’re making our version of borsch – a dish that varies considerably across eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The spelling also varies with both borshch and borscht in use.

In Ukraine, borsch forms an integral part of the Christmas Eve table, and it’s often veggie-friendly as this day is also the end of a period of fasting – meat and dairy products are not consumed in the run up to Christmas.

We’ve added some dried mushrooms to the beetrooty mix to give the stock more depth and put a bread topping over the pot to have something handy to tear up and dip into the borsch.

Ingredients (makes 3-4 servings)

500 g beetroot

1 medium- sized onion

1 garlic clove

200 g potato

200 g carrot

250 g red or white cabbage

50 ml olive oil

50 ml tomato puree

5 dried mushrooms

1 litre vegetable stock

2 bay leaves

Juice of one lemon

1 teaspoon red chilli flakes

50 g fresh parsley

For the bread top:

150 g flour

100 ml warm water

15 ml olive oil

Pinch of salt

Method

Clean the beetroot, wrap in tin foil and bake in an oven pre-heated to 180 c for one hour. Pour boiling water over the mushrooms and allow to stand for 30 minutes.

While the beetroot is cooking, heat the olive oil in a heavy-based pan and fry the chopped onion and garlic on a medium heat for ten minutes. Add the bay leaves and chilli flakes and then add the sliced mushrooms. Cook for five more minutes then add the tomato puree and the vegetable stock.

Bring to the boil and then add the diced potato and carrot and cook for 15 – 20 minutes over a low heat. After the beetroot has cooled, peel it and then dice it and add to the soup. Add the finely sliced cabbage, chopped parsley and lemon juice and cook for another 15 minutes.

Prepare the bread topping by combining the flour, water and oil and knead until you have an elastic mixture. Cover with cling film and leave to stand for 30 minutes.

Pour the borsch into individual serving bowls, place a disc of rolled out bread over the top of the bowl and cook in an oven pre-heated to 200 c until the bread is cooked and starting to go brown on top.

For non-vegans, add a dollop of sour cream after breaking through the bread cover. Use the bread to mop up the borsch.

Pumpkin, Pear and Pomegranate Potage

21 December 2017

Seasoned greetings to all our readers! To end the year on a high, we’ve come up with a thick and hearty pumpkin and pear soup sprinkled with pomegranate to add a colourful touch to your seasonal table.

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Roasting pumpkin in the oven is a great way to prepare our favourite winter vegetable. After cubing the pumpkin, it’s just a matter of waiting about an hour or so for it all to cook leaving time to enjoy a few glasses of mulled wine or a snowball or

Knidos Cookery Club would like to say a big thank you for all our readers who voted for us in the Saveur food blog awards – unfortunately we didn’t win this time round…

Wishing you all a creative and tasty 2018 in your kitchen. Have a great time with whatever tickles your festive fancy in what’s left of 2017. See you next year!

Ingredients (serves 3-4)

500 g pumpkin cubed

100 g pear

One small onion (around 75 g)

One teaspoon cumin seeds

Half teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch of black pepper

50 ml olive oil

250 ml vegetable stock

50 g pomegranate seeds

Method

Chop the pumpkin into 2 cm cubes, quarter and slice the pear into 1 cm cubes and put in a baking dish. Sprinkle the sliced onion, cumin seeds and cinnamon over the pumpkin and pear and then slosh the olive oil over the top. Bake for 40 minutes at 180 c in a pre-heated oven.

While this is baking, boil up some vegetable stock. Add the pumpkin and other ingredients to the stock, blend with a hand blender and serve immediately in a bowl with a smattering of pomegranate seeds over the soup.

Getting Down to the Nuts and Roots

26 January 2017

This time round on Knidos Cookery Club we’re getting back to the roots with a comforting winter soup made from some of our favourite root vegetables, a leek or two and some roasted chestnuts.

20170124_204349 — Roasted chestnuts – a winter treat

One of the big events in the world of Knidos Cookery Club so far in 2017 has been the relocation of Datça’s weekly market to a new, purpose-built site. Previously, when the market came to town on Friday and Saturday, it would spill down the hill in the centre of town, causing considerable congestion with the stallholders looking for parking spots and the customers squeezed in-between.

The new look market in Datça, Turkey

Root vegetables aplenty!

The noble, knobbly celeriac

Black (purplish) carrots

The new site has a covered area for the local fruit and vegetable growers with the other stalls – spices and nuts, clothes, household goods etc., setting up around the covered market. It’s a lot more user-friendly, with plenty of space for shoppers and stall holders.

The last few visits to the market have entailed searching for some of our regular suppliers in the new layout, and we’re pleased to report that most of them have been accounted for!

20170108_222106 — A warming bowl of rooty, chestnut pureed soup

In season at the moment are chestnuts – anyone who’s visited Istanbul in winter will probably remember trying fresh roasted chestnuts while on the move around the centre, a delicious snack that epitomises the city in the colder months of the year to me.

There were also root vegetables aplenty – including black carrots (these root vegetables were first cultivated in Afghanistan and were yellow and purple in colour) and celeriac, lengthy leeks and lashings of oranges and lemons. So this week we’ll be making a rooty nutty soup containing celeriac, potato, carrot, leek, shallots and chestnuts.

Ingredients (serves 3-4)

75 g shallots

250 g leeks

250 g celeriac

one medium-sized potato

100 g carrot (black if you can find them!)

500 ml vegetable stock

25 ml olive oil

150 g chestnuts

one teaspoon dried thyme

salt and pepper for seasoning

juice of one lemon

Method

Fry the finely sliced leeks and chopped shallots in the olive oil, which has been seasoned with dried thyme, over a medium-high heat until just beginning to brown. Peel and dice the celeriac, potato and carrot into 1 cm cubes and add to the pan of leeks and shallots.

Stir in well to coat the cubed root vegetables with oil and thyme and then add the stock and the juice of the lemon and simmer for 20 minutes over a low-medium heat. While this is bubbling away, score the outside of each chestnut with a cross shape (on one side) and roast the chestnuts in an oven pre-heated to 220 c /gas mark 7.

Check the chestnuts after 20 minutes or so – if they are easy to peel and are roasted sufficiently, then they are ready for use. If not, check every 5 minutes until the shell comes off easily.

Add the peeled chestnuts to the soup pan, stir well and season with salt and pepper to taste. Then use a hand blender to make a smooth, thick soup and serve straight away with hunks of wholemeal bread.

Riding the Bread Bowl Zeitgeist

3 November 2016

Ok, so we’ve all heard of dunking bread into a wholesome bowl of soup, but, until last week, Knidos Cookery Club had not come across soup being served in a bread bowl. It’s a craze that had seemed to pass us by.

On a chilly night during a recent trip to Reykjavik, Iceland, we found a restaurant that was serving just two dishes – asparagus soup or a thick, meaty broth, both served in a bread bowl. We were instant converts.

20161030_160310 A few days after this, a restaurant was spotted in Pendik, a district of Istanbul in Turkey, that had a poster for Ekmekte Çorba, yes, that’s right, soup in a bread bowl. Looks like there could be a craze starting here so let’s chase the zeitgeist and try and recreate this in the Knidos Cookery Club kitchen.

Slice…

scoop…

… and serve.

Wondering what to do with all that pumpkin left over from Halloween? Why not turn it into a hearty soup that should pass the bread bowl test – you don’t want your soup to be too liquid as there’s a danger of ending up with a soggy mess of soup and bread. We’ve thickened ours with red lentils and bulgur wheat, so combined with the bread, this one’s going to be a real winter warmer.

Ingredients: (serves 3-4)

four medium-sized round brown loaves

300 g pumpkin (save the seeds for roasting)

50 g red lentils

50 g coarse bulgur wheat

one medium-sized pear

one medium-sized onion

one garlic clove

750 ml vegetable stock

sprinkle of dried sage

one teaspoon of dried thyme

two bay leaves

one teaspoon of cumin seeds

one cinnamon stick

half a teaspoon of turmeric

Method:

Cut the pumpkin in half and remove the seeds, retain them to use later. Peel the pumpkin and dice into 1 cm cubes. Place the pumpkin cubes in a baking dish, pour in 50 ml of olive oil and sprinkle the sage and thyme over the pumpkin and mix well.

Bake in a pre-heated oven (220 c /gas mark 7) for 45 minutes or until the pumpkin mashes easily with a fork. While the pumpkin mix is cooking, put the seeds on some tin foil and roast in the oven until starting to char a little bit.

Finely chop the onion and garlic and fry in 50 ml olive oil over a medium heat. As they’re cooking add the cumin seeds, turmeric and cinnamon stick and bay leaves. Cook until the onions are starting to brown.

Chop up the pear finely and add with the roasted, mashed pumpkin to the onion mix and pour the stock over the top. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and add the bulgur wheat and red lentils. Cook over a medium heat for thirty minutes or so until the bulgur and lentils are beginning to go a bit mushy.

Slice the top off the loaf and scoop out the contents, leaving around 1 cm of bread as a lining for the bowl. Pour the soup into the bread bowl, garnish with roasted pumpkin seeds and serve immediately. Use the top of the bread to dip in the soup and eat the bowl as you go, depending on how hungry you are!