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.

Green Bean Funchoza Supreme

17 June 2022

Continuing with our summery vibe, the year’s first green bean crops are appearing. Green beans are great for adding a bit of crunch to a stir fry or a salad, we’ve gone for the best of both worlds by mixing our green beans in with celery, carrots, spring onions and walnuts on a bed of funchoza (vermicelli) noodles, liberally dressed with soy sauce, apple vinegar and sesame seeds.

This recipe lends itself to the pictorial treatment – see below for the steps needed to assemble this summery salad. Also check out our reel on Instagram as well with an orangey red, green and gold inspired Black Uhuru backing track.

Double Radish Courgette Quiche

23 July 2020

With reports coming in from allotment owners in the UK of a bumper post-lockdown vegetable crop, we’re revisiting an old favourite — a quiche made with courgettes, peppery radish leaves and a healthy dash of horseradish.

SAMSUNG CSC — Courgette, radish leaf and halloumi quiche

In a topical touch, we’ve added a dash of horseradish (хрен in Russian), the latest plant to be touted as a defence against coronavirus in Central Asia, following hard on the heels of garlic.

20200722_162910 — Horseradish sauce with beetroot

Demand for horseradish, a root vegetable which is traditionally mixed with honey to fight colds and coughs, has soared in in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in recent weeks, along with the price. We bought a jar of horseradish sauce, flavoured with beetroot, as the fresh roots are in short supply.

Crackers have also been hard to find in Almaty in recent weeks, so we used up the leftover pastry from making the quiche to prepare our own. Simply roll the pastry out to a thickness of 1 mm and then use a glass or mug to cut out a round shape. Bake in a hot oven (200 c) on a baking tray for 8-10 minutes until they start to brown.

Ingredients (3-4 portions)

For the pastry:

250 g flour (we used a 50/50 mix of rye and wheat flour)
60 ml olive oil
120 ml cold water
One teaspoon cumin seeds
One teaspoon sesame seeds
Healthy sprinkling of black pepper

For the filling:

One medium courgette
Bunch of radish leaves
One teaspoon horseradish sauce (or freshly grated if you can find it)
One small onion
One egg
100 g halloumi
50 ml olive oil

Method

Put the flour in a large bowl with the cumin and sesame seeds and a sprinkling of black pepper. Mix the flour and oil together with a fork and then slowly add the water and keep mixing until it starts to come together. Knead with your hands for 5-10 minutes until you have a stretchy ball of pastry. Leave in the fridge covered in clingfilm for an hour or so.
Heat the oven to 200 c. Roll the pastry on a lightly floured surface until it is about 2 mm thick. Grease a baking dish and then put the pastry in the dish to form a pie crust. Prick all over with a fork and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes. You can use any leftover pastry to make crackers – put them on the top shelf of the oven at the same time as you’re baking the pie base.
Heat 25 ml of oil in a heavy based pan and chop the courgette into 5 mm slices. Cook the courgettes on both sides until browning. Put the courgettes to one side and add the rest of the oil to the pan. While the pie base is baking, cook the sliced onion and chopped radish leaves in the hot oil.
Add the horseradish sauce and the egg to the mixture when the radish leaves are wilting. Stir well and then pour this into the pie crust. Place the fried courgette slices on top and put strips of halloumi around the courgettes. Bake for another 20-30 minutes at 180 c until the pastry is starting to go brown and the cheese has started to melt.

Lockdown Lunch: Red-hot Hummus

16 April 2020

We’re now nearing the end of the third week of Almaty’s lockdown. Life has settled into a pattern of venturing out as little as possible and relying more on what we have stored away. After a delve in the cupboards, we came up with one of the stalwarts of the staple food world – a pack of dried beans.

After soaking in cold water overnight, these red beans can be used in endless ways – from soups, stews and curries to burgers, salads and dips. We’ve gone for a easy-to-make red bean hummus; you’ll just need to add tahini, lemon juice, olive oil and some spices. Serve with flat bread and salad for a tasty lunch.

Toasted sesame seeds

Add olive oil, and you have tahini

Don’t worry if you haven’t got any tahini on hand, you can make your own by toasting some sesame seeds and mixing them with olive oil – here’s a link to last year’s post on DIY tahini.

Ingredients (makes around 300 g)

250 g cooked red beans (reserve 50 ml of the cooking water)
Two tablespoons tahini
25 ml olive oil
One lemon
One garlic clove
One teaspoon cumin seeds
One teaspoon sumac
Two teaspoons red chilli flakes
A few sprigs of coriander

Method

Mash the beans with a potato masher or a fork and add the tahini. Mix well then add olive oil and lemon juice and blend until you get a smooth consistency. If the hummus is too thick, use some of the cooking water, Add the minced garlic and spices and mix a bit more with the fork. Garnish with a few beans, a drizzle of oil, a sprinkling of chilli flakes and a sprig of coriander.

Hummus to the Power of Turmeric

30th May 2019

Welcome back to Knidos Cookery Club, or KCC to those in the know. This time we’ll be whipping up some hummus spiked with the super-spice turmeric – it’s easier than you think and once you’ve tasted homemade hummus we’ll be surprised if you settle for a shop bought one again.

20190524_172344(0) — Turmeric-infused hummus all ready to go with carrot and cucumber slices

There are a lot of claims around the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea as to where hummus originated, but ownership of this dip has now become truly international – we first came across this turmeric-infused version in Mexico earlier this year.

Toasted sesame seeds

Add olive oil, and you have tahini

You’ll need some tahini (sesame seed paste) to make this recipe, but don’t worry if you can’t track any down – it’s simple to prepare your own batch of this nutty-tasting spread. Toast 50 g of sesame seeds in a frying pan (without oil) over a low heat and shake continuously until they turn from white to a golden colour. Then mix with 50 ml of olive oil in a blender and, hey presto, you have tahini. Add more oil for a runnier consistency.

Ingredients (makes around 300 g)

250 g cooked chickpeas
1 garlic clove
2 teaspoons tahini
1 tablespoon olive oil
Juice of a lemon
25 ml chickpea water
1 teaspoon turmeric
0.5 teaspoon cumin or caraway seeds
1 teaspoon paprika or chilli powder

Method

Place all the ingredients into a bowl, except for the paprika and cumin (or caraway) seeds. Mix with the blender setting or with a hand blender. Keep mixing until you have a creamy, smooth paste. If needed, add more of the reserved chickpea water or lemon juice to achieve a smoother consistency.
Allow to chill in the fridge for a few hours then mix in the cumin (or caraway) seeds. Sprinkle the paprika over the top and serve with slices of cucumber and carrot.

Welcoming Uzbekistan with a Royal Feast of Oyster Mushrooms with Buckwheat Noodles

16 May 2019

This time round on Knidos Cookery Club were welcoming cookery fans in Uzbekistan who can finally enjoy unfettered access to our superior vegan and vegetarian recipes after the government unblocked a host of websites, including WordPress, last week.

To celebrate this unprecedentedly momentous occasion, we’ll be riffing on laghman, a classic noodle dish from Uzbekistan. A friend recently turned up at KCC’s Almaty HQ with a proliferation of King Oyster Mushrooms (see the photo below), providing us with a challenge to come up with something tasty.

A quick root around the kitchen cupboards produced a pack of soba (buckwheat) noodles and some sesame seeds so we put a pan of water on to boil and chopped up some leek, celery and tomatoes and added a dash of wine for a rapid-fire stir fry involving the funky-looking mushrooms.

Ingredients (serves 4)

50 ml olive oil
two teaspoons cumin seeds
100 g celery
100 g leek
600 g king oyster mushrooms
400 g tomatoes
25 ml soy sauce
100 ml dry white wine
Sesame seeds
300 g Soba (buckwheat) noodles

Method

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and add the cumin seeds. Cook over a medium heat for a minute and then add the diced leek. After a few minutes add the chopped celery and cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally.
Put the leek and celery mixture to one side and put the diced king oyster mushrooms into the frying pan, add the soy sauce and cook over a low heat for ten minutes or so. If the mushrooms start to go dry, add a dash of water and stir.
Add the chopped tomatoes to the mushrooms and cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the leek and celery mixture and the wine and stir well. Braise everything for ten minutes or so until most of the liquid is absorbed.
While the mushroom mix is braising, put the soba noodles in a pan of boiling, salted water and simmer for four to five minutes. Drain the noodles and arrange on a bowl with the mushroom mix on top. Add a sprinkle of sesame seeds before serving.