Tag: Vegetarian

Big green soup

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A bowl of soup on a wooden board with a bushel of flat leaf parsley and a spoon on it

Whatever it is going on in my brain, be it nameable or undesignated, it only occasionally manifests in the form of what is commonly known as ‘food hyperfixation’. I’ve always been emotionally fixated on the idea of food, specifically, cooking it—experiencing a certain scarcity-minded franticness when I’m unable to cook, which I suspect is, at the least, a bit weird. Now and then, though, a certain food will cohabitate with my habits, like having a writer in residence staying with you: this past week it was lentils. I yearned for their collapsing bodies, tipping them like a rainstick into a bowl ready to soak with cool water, endlessly testing little simmering spoonfuls—no, still not cooked yet.

This recipe for Big Green Soup actually uses split peas, but! Lentil Week is a state of mind type of nomenclature. Speaking of nomenclature, the recipe title misleads not at all: it’s Big (makes over a litre); it’s Green (if you have 400g of silverbeet drooping malevolently in the fridge, this is for you); and it sure is Soup. It is also, of course, delicious. That’s why we’re here.

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The last chocolate chip cookies

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a chocolate chip cookie surrounded by more cookies on a sheet of baking paper

There is a certain serendipity to the connections forged through community that almost make you weep at the tenuousness of it all: in this case, I was generously invited to attend the Bookish Ceremony Hoods Landing book club; one of the attendees brought homemade cookies, which were captivating; I asked for the recipe and learned they were by Mariam Daud, a food writer who was previously unfamiliar to me. I might have found her eventually, but would I have made these cookies? Who knows! And just how good can cookies be? Well, now I know. Hence why I’ve re-christened them The Last Chocolate Chip Cookies because I’m quite certain they’re the final recipe I’ll ever need to broach on this matter. I realise hyperbolic titles like “the best” and “the ultimate” are more about trying to entice your blog onto SEO’s dance card over any actual commitment to excellence, I hope you understand this is true sincerity and not low-hanging overkill. Plus, one of the most important things you can do as a recipe developer is to know when to concede to someone else’s excellence—I can happily cross “invent your own chocolate chip cookie recipe without thinly ripping off the Toll House one” off the list now.

You’ll see why, after one bite.

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Pasta with two chillis

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A fork resting in a white plate of pasta and chilli

Despite having never actually worked as a chef—which I doubt surprises anyone who’s seen me try to poach an egg—I occasionally like to evoke the feeling of being an off-duty chef. A feeling that usually involves deli containers. I did famously spend five years as a bartender which lends some modest credence to this notion; I nonetheless respect and fear the actual dinner service shift. This recipe for pasta with two chillis is the kind of hastily-won, stupid-simple dish that you might bleary-eyedly whip up for yourself after many hours of plating filet mignon for uncaring customers, or indeed, after many hours of doing anything. It’s fast, it’s furious, it revives and recalibrates, and it’s so delicious that I’m feeling self-congratulatory in a “my viral pasta with two chillis” way (even though the word ‘viral’ next to any recipe is foul and vulgar and we shall speak no more of it!). And really, this is merely a descendent of say, Pad Kee Mao, and the sacred art of throwing spoonfuls of Lao Gan Ma onto noodles.  

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Lentils, feta, dates and mint

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A fork resting on a plate of lentil salad on a wooden board on red and brown fabric

To paraphrase Billy Bragg, who himself was paraphrasing Paul Simon, I was 21 years when I started this food blog, I’m 40 now (as of last Friday, that is) and still writing it, obstinately unchanging as the internet around me evolves but also largely turns to sludge. I was student-broke back in 2007, and now everyone is sucked under by the economy; whether or not you have a solid salary and full-time job, you never quite feel like you can see further than the next week, jaw perpetually clenched. A year ago I canvassed people’s opinion via instagram story polls to find what they sought in recipes; “girl, the cost-of-living crisis” ranked highest. A year later, the vibe prevails, and I’m not sure how many more birthdays will tick over before it’s simply considered endemic. It certainly feels well on the way. Amid this context, I bring you a fairly modest recipe, which nonetheless enraptured me: Lentils, feta, dates, and mint.  

(Also, my birthday was terrific and I’m delighted, if mildly startled, to be 40—it really seemed like something that only happened to people much older than me—but let’s face it, the real landmark birthday on the horizon will be when hungryandfrozen.com turns 20 next year.)

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Basal bil Sumac (Sumac quick-pickled red onions)

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An open jar of pickled red onions on a blue and white cloth with a pink spoon

If you don’t consider yourself a great condiment-maker, you could at least pause to consider the condiment as a magnificent concept. In Boustany: A celebration of vegetables from my Palestine, Sami Tamimi discusses Mooneh, or ‘pantry’ in Arabic—“preserving seasonal goods”, which “plays a significant role in maintaining the region’s cultural tradition”. Taking something fragile and making it last, to feed many mouths long after the emphemeral ingredients should be occupying the realm of memory; the condiment is both practical and beautiful. In the case of this Basal bil Sumac, it’s also monumentally quick—just chop some red onions, pour some water-diluted vinegar and salt over them, spike with sumac, and try not to watch the clock for an hour or so while the carmine cellular bitterness breaks down.

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triple tomato beans

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Triple tomato beans and a gold spoon on a black and white striped plate, sitting on a blue and white cloth
Mariah Carey has taught us many things: gratuitious vocabulary words, chopping the top off your jeans with scissors so they’re more low-waisted, and of course, the art of the creatively honourable remix. For the true of heart, riffing on an existing idea doesn’t mean simply swapping out a teaspoon of this or that—it’s about giving a recipe another reason to live. In this case, I suspected that my triple tomato risotto could also be lavishly excellent when pulsified with beans instead of rice. I was correct—and it took quarter of the time to make.

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Sha’aktoura (rice and lentil pilaf)

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a gold plate of sha'aktoura with mint leaves on a floral patterened fabric

One of the more lamentable ways I begin sentences these days is “I saw this in a screenshot of a tweet on Instagram”. Now, to be fair, I could try receiving information in more highbrow, or at least more trustworthy formats and sources but those formats and sources are mostly decaying and I haven’t quite shaken the time-corrupting doomscroll muscle memory just yet, so here we nevertheless find ourselves. To that end; I saw a screenshot on Instagram of a tweet by cowboypraxis that said “i tried to make two plans in one day. as if i were god. as if i were literal god.” and I understood completely; My weekend comprised two such that-way-lies-folly plan-filled days, and yet! This Sha’aktoura from Sami Tamimi’s new cookbook Boustany is so breathtakingly calm and accommodating to cook that it can both be a plan and fit around your plans and make you feel really rather godlike in the process. Or, at the least, like someone who doesn’t begin sentences by referencing screenshots on Instagram.

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Silek ma’ Basal [Braised silverbeet with crispy onions and sumac]

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Silverbeet and fried onions on a green plate with a serving spoon, surrounded by different coloured plates

To paraphrase myself: If your perception of an ingredient is polluted by the disdainful memory of it being served prosaically and—most likely—boiled into limp oblivion, then do yourself a favour and look to those who are doing it better. Sami Tamimi’s new book Boustany: A Celebration of Vegetables From My Palestine demonstrates this point, having made me view silverbeet, or chard as it’s known in other hemispheres, with new and acquiescent appreciation through this recipe for Silek ma’ Basal. To that end: These are beyond catastrophic times for Palestine, as well you know. I don’t have enough of a platform to render talking or not talking about food particularly impactful either way. The food of Palestine is beautiful and so is this book; uplifting it is a privilege and I can only hope that any person who denies Palestinians their own food, tastes nothing but the ash and dirt of their own souls in their mouths forevermore. Onwards.

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Shawarma-spiced roast vegetables with feta

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A serving spoon in a dish of roasted veges

A tray of roast vegetables is a noble dinner. Huddled low topographically yet covering so much surface area; the magnificent juxtaposition of tender internal cellular structure and crisp-lipped exterior; so much result for so little fuss. If you want to make a modicum of fuss, however—perhaps by borrowing the multiplicity of rich spices present in shawarma—and then crumbling over a genuinely modest quantity of feta—then you’re really in for a good time. The hardest part of these shawarma-spiced roast vegetables with feta, for me at least, is that every time I open up my spice drawer the boxes of spices have re-ordered themselves or got themselves all wedged and bunched up the back like an upwardly-directional pair of underwear; I intend to be the kind of person who has spices neatly contained in small, labelled containers but it never comes to pass, luckily this doesn’t put me off using them.

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Freeform black bean cobbler

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a dish of black bean cobbler with a serving inside a bowl in front of it

After last week’s rampant whimsy we’re back to something practical with this freeform black bean cobbler; so named because it’s so adaptable that it might veer all the way around to being annoying again — in that sometimes having too many options just means you have to make more decisions, but I shall attempt to make it clear why the main suggested path is worth traversing, culinarily.

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