Beans / Grains

Lentil & dried lime soup (Shorbat Adas)

January 21, 2013
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I’ve been making this aromatic spicy-warm soup to fill the belly since December’s cold snap.  Its particular flavour comes from the slightly fermented aroma the dried limes bestow on the lentils.  Each time I make it I swap one of the spices for another giving me subtle variations on the theme.  It’s based on the […]

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Fermentation The New Sexy, Microorganisms The Next Taste Frontier

April 15, 2012

Two years ago I can’t imagine I would be as excited  as I was yesterday about watching David Chang’s Harvard Lecture on “Microbiology: An Overlooked Frontier”  he made in 2011, David is the chef at Momofuku.  This lecture on microbes and their flavour profile is interesting for me personally on two different levels, one because […]

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Tarka,Tadka, Chaunk, Dhungar: Tempering Spices & Making Dal

November 15, 2011
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I’ve recently made 2 posts on spices and now would like to mention one of my favourite ways of spicing lentils; tarka.  Tarka, tadka or chaunk and also known by other names if you look on wiki here, is a very good way of spicing food, not just legumes. I first noticed it years ago […]

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Some Spicing Tips

November 9, 2011
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I’ve written the post on Don’t Dry Roast Spices here, and wanted to do a quick one on a couple of tips.  A week or so ago I was asked by Carl if I had any tips for a Goan curry he was making, to which I answered no, but I said I do have […]

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Don’t Dry Roast Spices

November 8, 2011
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Want to be controversial in the foodie world here, tell them not to dry roast spices before making a masala mix.  If I hear or read one more chef, cookery writer stating, “you should dry roast spices for masala because it enhances them, giving a better flavour..”  I might just scream…quietly inside. It was a year […]

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Red Pepper Hummus / Humous – Brands of tahini matter

May 14, 2010
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Do you know the reason I ended up making this?  Because it’s one of my favourite flavours of hummus I buy in the supermarket.  Simple recipe, open a tin of chickpeas, some tahini, throw them into the food processor with roasted peppers, squeeze of lemon, oil, garlic and salt and the machine does all the […]

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