'Chicken' seitan and spinach in Indian creamy sauce - Malai palak

This is one of those insanely good Indian recipes that I find irresistable.  Malai means cream, Palak is spinach and this is a loosely adapted recipe from Vegan Richa. In her recipe, she uses soy curls to replace chicken, which are then cooked in a delectable creamy spicy sauce. I’m not even sure if you can buy soy curls in New Zealand and can’t imagine them being commonly available around the world, so it strikes me as a much better idea to use seitan.  Seitan also produces a nice 'meaty' result.

In the original, the soy curls are marinaded and then baked. I think marinades are unseamanlike underway, as well as being wasteful. Certainly, I don’t find it makes much difference to seitan and in fact you get infinitely better results from incorporating the flavours into the seitan in the first place. This is what I’ve done in this recipe. As for baking - I assume many small income voyagers stil lsail without ovens and even those who do, will probabaly avoid using them because of the cost - and the fact that they heat up the cabin.

 

I use ginger paste and garlic paste in my ‛Indian’ cooking. If you prefer to use finely minced ginger and garlic, go ahead.  I'm not sure that this is really a Curry For Cooks, in spite the use of ingredients being pretty authentic: most boats would probably have them on board.  The only exception is the methi and if you don't have it you can leave it out.

Serves 2

Ingredients

For the ‟marinaded chicken”

6 slightly rounded tbsp vital wheat gluten

2 tbsp gram flour

2 tsp nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp mushroom stock powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp onion powder

        1/4 tsp garlic granules

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/4 cup water

1 tbsp soya sauce

For the sauce:

1 tsp oil

1 (Indian) bay leaf

1 whole clove

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 tsp garlic paste

1/2 tsp ginger paste

1 small green chilli, diced

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/8 tsp cayenne OR 1/4 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder

pinch ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp black pepper

*200 ml/7 oz ounce can of full fat coconut milk

2 tbsp vegan yoghurt

1/4 cup water or milk

125 g/4 oz spinach, washed and roughly chopped

1 tsp dried fenugreek leaves, kasuri methi

garam masala

chilli flakes

Method:

• Seitan: In a bowl, mix vital wheat gluten, gram flour, nutritional yeast, mushroom stock powder, salt, onion powder, garlic granules, ground coriander and ground cumin.
• In a small jug, mix the water and soya sauce and add them to the bowl.
• Mix into a soft dough, starting with a knife or spatula and ending with your hand. If the mix seems a little bit dry, add a little more water, a teaspoonful at a time. Use the dough to clean your bowl thoroughly, otherwise the dried seitan will need to be soaked off.
• Put the dough on a board and flatten down. You will be cutting it into bite-sized chunks, so it wants to be a suitable thickness.
• Put the trivet into your pressure cooker, along with 1/2 cup water. Place the seitan on the trivet, and bring up to pressure for 5 minutes. Let the pressure go down naturally.
• When you can take the lid off, take out the seitan and cut it up – or tear it for a more ‛authentic’ appearance.
• If you want to, you can now fry the chunks in some oil so that they are crisp on the outside. On odds, I think I prefer them soft.

For the sauce:

• Heat a pan over medium high heat and add some oil.
• Now add the bay leaf, clove, onion, garlic paste, ginger paste, green chilli salt. Cook stirring occasionally until onion is golden.
• Turn down the heat and add coriander, ground cumin, cayenne or Kashmiri chilli, cinnamon and black pepper
• Throw in the seitan pieces and turn for a few minutes so that they are well mixed in and covered in the spices.
• Then add in the milk, yoghurt, water and spinach and mix in. Reduce heat to medium low, cover and cook for 12-15 mins, checking that it’s not drying out. Add some more water, if necessary.
• Add the kasuri methi, check salt and flavour and carry on cooking until you get a rich creamy sauce.

Garnish with garam masala and chilli pepper flakes if you like, and serve with rice, roti or even good quality bread.

Variations:

• Use two or three leaves of Swiss chard instead of spinach.
• Replace the seitan with half a cup of chickpeas or beans, cooked and drained, putting them in with the spinach
• Add some quartered mushrooms, with the onions, etc.
• If you don’t have yoghurt, use more milk/water. If you have a lot of coconut yoghurt, you can just thin that down to suit. You need around 300 ml liquid. You may need to simmer for more or less time to achieve the consistency you want.

Notes:

• * Coconut milk tends to come in an odd assortment of sizes. Just use a can closest to the size in the recipe. If you’re fortunate to find dried, genuine coconut milk, mix that according to the instructions on the container.

 

You will find many more recipeslike this, here, here and here 

 

 

Spinach and rice casserole

 

I love spinach and there are many ways to cook it. This is as very simple recipe and if you are one of these terribly organised people, you can even cook the rice well in advance, in which case it will go together very quickly.

 

There’s no real point in specifying a weight of spinach – you tend to get what you’re given and take it. Suffice it to say that there has to be enough to feed two people. If you’re unused to cooking spinach, be warned: a big bunch that will hardly stuff into the shopping bag becomes only a few cupfuls when it’s cooked.

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

1½ cups brown rice

bunch of spinach

1 tbsp olive oil

2 garlic cloves

1/2 cup grated cheese

2 eggs

nutmeg

cracked black pepper

2 tbsp sesame seeds

 

Method:

• Cook the rice in the usual fashion.
• Wash the spinach and then roughly chop it. 
• Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, add the spinach and cook it for about 3 minutes. Keep it moving so that it gets coated in oil and the stuff at the top of the pan can cook, too.
• Lower the heat and insert a flame tamer, if necessary. Add the cooked rice, diced garlic and the grated cheese. Mix well.
• Beat the eggs. and stir in with the other ingredients. Season generously with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Smooth the top over and sprinkle with the sesame seeds. 
• Cover and cook over a low heat for 15 minutes. Take off the cooker and leave to stand for 3 or 4 minutes before serving, just in case it has ‘caught’.

Some lightly cooked carrots go well with this.

 

Note:

• If you have an oven, finish it off in there, once you've mixed everything together and added the sesame seeds.  That way you will brown it and get toasted sesame seeds.

Variations:

• Use Swiss chard instead of spinach.
• If you eat eggs, but don't eat dairy products, use vegan cheese or mix 2 tbsp nutritional yeast in with the eggs. 

 

 You will find many more rice recipes here

Rice and black-eyed peas with Swiss chard - Lobhia saag pulao

 

This recipe is very freely adapted from one of Vegan Richa’s. For a ‘real’ curry, there are no weird and wonderful spices and there aren’t too many of them, either, which made me feel that the recipe might be tackled by a cook who likes curry, but doesn’t want to faff around too much. It’s a one-pot meal and Swiss chard, if bought very fresh and looked after with loving care, will last for 4 or 5 days, which will take you well into a thousand-mile passage. Spinach would also go very well in this recipe.

 

Black-eyed peas are quite popular in Indian cuisine and have the advantage that they don’t need soaking. They also need the same time to cook as brown basmati rice, so make a perfect match. This is a very pleasant curry, even following my method rather than making it the ‘right way’, which involves a blender and thus some awkward washing up.

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 tbsp of oil or ghee

1 medium onion, sliced

1 green chilli pepper, chopped

1 tsp ginger paste or chopped ginger

3 cloves garlic, diced

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp garam masala

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cardamom (seeds if you don’t have ground)

2 medium tomatoes, chopped

3 or 4 large leaves of Swiss chard

1/2 cup brown basmati rice

1/2 cup dried black-eyed peas

2½ cups water

salt

1/2 tsp kasuri methi/dried fenugreek leaves

Method:

• Heat the oil in the pressure cooker over medium heat. Add the onion, chilli, ginger and garlic, sprinkle over the salt and mix it in.
• Cook until the onion is translucent.
• Now add the garam masala, cinnamon, and cardamom, lower the heat and cook until the spices smell fragrant.
• Stir in the chopped tomatoes and cook for several minutes until they become juicy. Loosely cover and add a tablespoon of water if the mix seems to be getting to dry: it very much depends on your tomatoes.
• In the meantime, dice the chard. Don’t worry that there won’t be any texture after it has been cooked: the original recipe calls for it to be blended.
• Now add the black-eyed peas to the pressure cooker, together with the rice and the water.
• Put on the lid, bring up to pressure and cook for 10 minutes, let the pressure reduce naturally.
• Taste the mixture: you will probably need more salt. If it seems very wet, let it simmer over a low heat until some of the water evaporates. The amount of moisture will depend on both the tomatoes and the greens.
• Add the dried fenugreek, if you’re using it.
• Serve hot, maybe with roti if you’re really hungry!

Note:

• If you are using spinach, you would want ‘ bunch’. It is usually sold in an unspecified amount, but as it’s not filling and it shrinks away to nothing once you heat it, unless the bunch looks enormous you’re unlikely to have too much.

Variation:

• Try other greens, such as mustard greens or spring cabbage.
• Whole lentils would also work with this recipe, as would mung beans.
• Long grain brown rice should also cook satisfactorily in the same time as the black-eyed beans. If yours seems to take a very long time, I suggest adding it with the water and cooking it for a few minutes, letting the pressure reduce, then adding the beans and spinach to ensure that the rice is cooked through without cooking the beans to a mush.

 

You will find many more rice recipes here

Swiss chard with white beans

 

 

It is often difficult to lay hands on the actual beans called for in a recipe, so I'm trying to remember  to use the phrase 'white beans' in the title, while suggesting what would be ideal, in the text.

This recipe is quick to make and when eaten with bread as intended, would make a substantial starter for four, or a good lunch or light dinner for two. If you use canned beans, which speeds the whole process up substantially, it would also make a good snack with something like large crackers or Melba toast, to give to visitors who have lingered until sundowners.  The combination of bread, beans and Swiss chard make for a pretty well-rounded meal nutritionally.

 

I first made this when I had no appetite and little enthusiasm for cooking, but had a large bunch of chard looking at me.  As it soon yellows, it had be to be eaten up!  I slightly altered the recipe to what is shown below, and ate it on the previous day's naan bread (= ½ cup flour), reheated on the toaster, rather than the recommended sourdough.  It was still was surprisingly good; indeed, I ate more of it than I'd anticipated.  Although the original called for cannelini beans, I can only buy them canned and as I prefer to cook my own legumes, I used haricot beans. However, using canned beans would make this meal almost ‘instant’.

 

Although the stems are a little more sturdy, the leaves of chard tend to disappear like spinach, when heated, so you will want at least six large leaves of chard and possibly more.

 

Serves 4 as a substantial starter or two for lunch or a light dinner.

 

Ingredients

 

1/2 cup haricot beans, soaked and cooked in the usual way.

1 large bunch of chard (any type) 

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

5 large cloves of garlic, sliced

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp sage

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp wine vinegar 

generous grind of pepper

Method

• Cook the beans and set aside.
• Cut off the stems from the chard and chop them into smallish pieces.  Set aside.
• Cut the leaves into strips lengthways and then across into manageable-sized strips - remember you're going to be piling this on bread!
• Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add  the chopped garlic and cook for 2 minutes, making sure it doesn't burn.
• Add the chopped chard stems and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently until they start to soften.  Sprinkle over the salt.
• Add the leaves, toss well and cook until they start to wilt. 
• Season with sage and red pepper flakes.
• Tip in in the cooked, drained beans. Gently mix together and continue to cook for 4-5 minutes, until the beans are hot.
• Add the vinegar.  Mix gently to ensure the flavours are all spread around and cook for an additional 3-5 minutes.  Grind over plenty of black pepper.
• Serve hot over thick slices of sourdough bread, or home-made bread, or even flat bread if that’s all you have. Put it on a big plate as most of the topping will try to fall off! 

It truly tastes much better than you might anticipate from the few ingredients, used.

 

Note:

• I really recommend the vinegar, it adds a je ne sais quoi that you wouldn't get from lemon juice.

Variations:

• If you retain the liquid from the can, or use a little stock to moisten the mix, it would make a more filling meal over polenta, short pasta or mixed in with rice, pilau-style.
• Spinach could be used instead of chard, as could any sort of softer green, such as mustard greens or spring cabbage.
  

Swiss chard with lentils and rice

 

I had bought a big bunch of chard, which doesn’t keep very well, so was looking for another recipe using it. I have, in my collection, a recipe for a baked rice and spinach/chard (with cheese and eggs); I have a recipe for whole lentils and spinach/chard; I have several recipes for lentils and rice, but to my surprise, I realised that I had none that combined all three. I therefore decided to create a recipe which would. My lentils and spinach recipe is vaguely Middle Eastern, so I decided to make this one vaguely Middle Eastern too, but with the spices giving it a ‘lift’ rather than dominating. There is plenty of precedent for this: lentils, in one form or another, and rice are frequently combined from the Eastern Mediterranean’s Mojadarra, through Iran’s Pulao and Egypt’s kushari to India’s (similarly-named) kitchari: I dare say that there are a zillion recipes similar to this, available on the Internet.

This is much simpler than most of those I’ve just mentioned, and I was very pleased with the result – there is just enough seasoning to stop it from being bland, which is what I wanted, this day. It’s also quick and easy to make. When one buys Swiss chard, it tends to come in fairly large quantities and while the green part disappears in much the same way as spinach does once you cook it, the stalks are more noticeable. I like the stalks and don’t always want to put them aside for another meal: this recipe combines both parts of the chard very acceptably. However, the combination of dark lentils (I used green), brown rice and dark green chard don’t make for a visually very exciting meal!

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 medium onion, sliced

olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

2 or 3 large cloves of garlic, chopped

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp harissa powder

1 tsp za’atar

1/2 cup whole green lentils

1/2 cup brown basmati rice

Swiss chard – about 5 or 6 large leaves.

black pepper

Method:

• Slice the onions as you prefer – I did them fore and aft rather that in half moons – and add them to the pressure cooker, together with a generous amount of olive oil. Sprinkle over the salt and fry until they are softened, as brown as you wish.
• Add the chopped garlic, cumin, harissa powder and za’atar and mix well. Fry for a minute or two until the spices are fragrant.
• Now add the lentils and rice and mix until they are coated with the spice mixture. Add a cup of water, put the lid on the pressure cooker and bring up to pressure. Cook for 7 mins.
• While this is happening, trim the base of the chard stalks and then cut them away from the leaves. Chop the stalks into 1cm/1/2 in pieces and set aside. Put the leaves in a stack and slice them four or five times lengthwise. Then cut these across into narrow strips.
• Let the pressure reduce at room temperature. Open the lid and stir the contents. If the mixture looks too dry, add a couple of tablespoons of water. Then put all the chard into the pressure cooker, on top of the rice-lentil mix. Bring up to pressure for 1 min and let the pressure come down naturally.
• Season with generous amounts of black pepper and serve hot.

Notes:

• If you don’t have green/Puy lentils, then use beluga or small brown lentils. The big, flat brown lentils won’t give as pleasant a result and split lentils will end up a mush. Mung beans could be used at a pinch.
• If you don't have za'atar, use dried thyme instead.
• If you have no harissa, use some form of chill.

Variation:

• Add red chilli flakes or a chopped red chilli for a hotter dish.
• Some chopped carrots would go very well in this recipe and make it a little more colourful, too.

 

You will find many more rice recipes here