Pav Bhaji spice blend

 

Blender Alert

Pav Bhaji is a popular Indian street food and is usually made in huge pans. Pav means “a small bun,” while bhaji means “vegetable.” The spice blend used to make the vegetable stew is different from the usual garam masala (or curry powder!) and has sour and sweet notes. The black peppercorns add a background heat, and the other spices add glorious scent and flavours to the blend. It can be used on any vegetable side dish or you could experiment with adding it to vegetable curry.

Makes about 1/4 cup 

Ingredients

4 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp fennel seeds

4 whole black cardamoms or use whole green cardamoms

4 cloves

1/2 to 3/4 tsp chilli flakes

1/2 tsp black peppercorns

1 tsp ground cinnamon (not cassia)

3 tsp dry mango powder/amchar

Method: 

• Heat a large skillet over medium heat. 
• Add coriander, cumin, fennel, cardamoms, cloves, chill flakes and peppercorns and dry roast for a couple of minutes, until the coriander and fennel seeds start to change colour.  Cool slightly and transfer to a spice grinder.
• Add the cinnamon and mango powder and grind the ingredients to a powder.  Transfer to an airtight container and store in the proverbial cool, dark space.  A glass jar is better for blended spices.

 

Chilli sin carne

 

This is one of the first recipes I ever cooked and it was pretty exotic for an English girl in the mid 70s!  The photo above, shows it served with kumara/sweet potatoes: I'd never heard of either back then!  Nowadays, in one form or another, it’s a standard for both omnivores and vegetarians. People make all sort of punning and witty names for the vegetarian version, but surely chilli sin carne is the obvious version - chilli without meat!  I have tweaked the recipe over the years and now have something that everyone seems to really enjoy. Full of flavour, with a nice lift of chilli, warming and filling, it is wonderfully welcome on a cold, damp evening. Moreover this recipe is one that can be cooked in just about any conditions at sea – and I have done so. You can eat it with bread, rice, pasta, polenta, potatoes sweet or otherwise and no doubt many other things.  

With fried yams

If you aren’t used to ‛spicy’ foods, ie, chilli, you might want to go easy on the chilli flakes. If you like more spice, swop out the flakes for cayenne pepper.

Everyone, I’m sure, has their own version of this dish and mine is less authentic than most. The bulgur wheat makes a fine substitute for mince, while keeping the dish looking similar. I add some cocoa, which darkens the sauce and adds what I fondly believe to be ‘that South American touch’. In defence of my creation, I will say that everyone seems to enjoy it.

Serves 2

Ingredients

1/2 cup red kidney beans, soaked in 1½ cups water

1/4 cup bulgur wheat

1 tbsp soya sauce

1 tsp cocoa

1 onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, diced

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 green pepper

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp oregano

400 g/14 oz can chopped tomatoes, OR 3 fresh tomatoes OR 4 tbsp tomato purée

salt and pepper

 

Method:

• Put the soaked kidney beans and their water in a pressure cooker, together with the bulgur wheat, soya sauce and cocoa. 
• Bring to pressure and cook as usual.
• Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in another saucepan, add the onion and garlic and fry for about 5 minutes until they’re softened.
• Chop and add the green pepper, lower the heat and cook for a few more minutes. Add the chilli flakes, cumin, smoked paprika and oregano and stir until they are well mixed in.
• Stir in the tomatoes and lower the heat. If you're using tomato purée add and extra ¼ cup of water.  Bring to the boil and then simmer over a low heat.
  
• When the beans are cooked, add them to the saucepan. Stir gently to combine and season carefully with salt and a generous grind of pepper.
• Simmer until the sauce has thickened to the consistency you want and the flavours have have combined – at least ten minutes.

Serve hot.  I like chilli best, served over ‛baked’ (ie, cooked whole in the pressure cooker) and split kumara (sweet potatoes). But it also goes well with bread, rice, pasta, polenta and quinoa. I have never tried it with potatoes, but am sure it would go well with them in just about any form.

Note:

• Chilli is one of those meals that improves with keeping, so you can make it earlier in the day if you feel like it, or if you’re making it for company. Re-heat it very gently to prevent it burning and add a little more water if necessary.

With polenta

 Variations: 

• In rough conditions, fry the vegetables in the pressure cooker, add the kidney beans, the water, bulgur wheat, soya sauce, cocoa, oregano and spices, cover and bring up to pressure. Let the pressure reduce gradually while cooking pasta in another pan. Add the tomatoes and seasoning after the pressure has reduced.
• In really rough conditions, Just dump everything into the pressure cooker, along with a further cup of water and 1/2 cup rice. Bring up to pressure and cook for 10 to 15 minutes. Reduce pressure naturally.
• As an alternative to using rice, dump all the chilli ingredients into the pressure cooker, stir well to mix them all together and then put some kumara (sweet potatoes) on top. If they are small ones, you will need to handle them with care because they will be very soft after all that cooking, but still delicious.
• You can substitute TVP for the bulgur wheat. If you do, fry it with the onions and garlic and add some extra water when you tip in the beans./Substitute 1/4 cup whole lentils for the bulgur wheat.
• If you're making 4 servings, the one can of tomatoes will suffice. You may need to add more water to stop the sauce getting too thick.
• Use red pepper if you don’t have green.
• This also works well with black beans.
• Leftovers can be used to fill empanadas.
  

Mushrooms and Brussels sprouts with creamy hemp sauce

Blender Alert

I love Brussels sprouts and it always seems a bit of a shame to use them as an addition on the side rather than star of the show. They go very well with mushrooms and mixed with this thick hemp sauce, shine in a really good combination to go with pasta.

Hemp seeds, aka hemp hearts

Hemp seeds, also known as hemp hearts, are one of the latest wonder foods, but I particularly like them for making vegan milk and a cream for cooking, because there’s no need to soak them first. Hemp is also a very low-impact crop to grow, requiring little water and no fertiliser; it doesn’t have to be grown in the tropics and processing the seeds doesn’t mean (generally) women are using caustic chemicals, often with inadequate protection, so we should certainly use it in preference to cashew nuts. To serve, linguine, or fettuccine are my choice.

Unfortunately, you really do need a blender or this sauce, although, of course, you could take the concept and use some other form of cream.

Serves 2

Ingredients

olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 medium onion, diced

200 ml water

1/2 cup hemp seeds

1/2 tsp mushroom stock powder

2 tbsp nutritional yeast

1/4 tsp salt

generous grind black pepper

2 cups Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved

6 or 8 button mushrooms, thickly sliced

fettucine or linguine – about 25mm/1” dia. stacked on end

Parmesan cheese to serve

Method

• Heat some olive oil in a saucepan over a medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and cook for a couple of minutes, until the onions become translucent. Remove from heat.
• Now add the cooked onion and garlic to a blender, together with the water, hemp hearts, stock powder (if using), nutritional yeast, salt and pepper. Blend for a minute or so to make a smooth and creamy sauce. Taste and adjust seasonings.
• Put some more oil in the saucepan, and add the Brussels sprouts and cook for a few minutes, until they start to brown on the edges.
• Meanwhile, add water to another saucepan and bring to the boil for the pasta. When it’s boiling, cook the pasta as usual.
• Now add the mushrooms to the sprouts and fry for a few more minutes, stirring frequently, until they are browned. A pinch of salt might help here.
• Lower the heat and add the prepared sauce to the vegetables and stir to combine. Gently cook the sauce until it’s thick. When the pasta is cooked, add it to the pan, saving the pasta water, into a jug. Use some of this water to rinse out the blender and add to the pan.
• Cook the sauce a little longer: if it seems too thick, add more of the pasta water.

Serve immediately with extra hemp seeds and/or Parmesan or vegan "Parmesan" cheese.

Notes:

• The pasta sauce will thicken quickly once heated. Keep a close eye on it. If it is too thick, add extra pasta water to loosen it up.

Variations:

• You could use other vegetables, such as asparagus, green beans, mange-tout peas, etc instead of the Brussels sprouts. But the latter are particularly good!

• One alternative I would recommend is broccoli, but cut it into very small florets, the same size as half a sprout, otherwise the sauce won’t coat everything evenly.
• Substitute dried mushrooms for fresh, if these are unavailable.

 

Pasta with chickpeas and vegetables in tahini sauce

I have just suggested 'Pasta' for his recipe, because it will really go with just about any short pasta.  Indeed, if you make more sauce, it would also successfully coat a longer type of pasta.  While I've suggested specific vegetables, this is essentially a meal that can be made using ingredients you’d have in your lockers, with whatever vegetables you have to hand. There is, however, one proviso to this: I suggest sprinkling black sesame seeds over the meal when it’s served: white sesame seeds can be used as a substitute, but the black ones look and taste great!

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

1/2 cup of chickpeas, soaked and cooked

olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

about 4 button mushrooms, sliced

1/2 red pepper, chopped

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp chilli flakes, or to taste

about 6 florets from a head of broccoli

4 handfuls of pasta, such as fusilli

2 tbsp tahini

reserved water from the pasta

salt and pepper

1 tbsp black sesame seeds

 

Method:

• Cook the chickpeas in the usual way and set aside.
• Add olive oil to a large saucepan over a moderately high heat.
• Add the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes until the onions are softening, stirring frequently to ensure nothing burns.
• Add the mushroom and red pepper and sprinkle with salt, stir into the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes until there is some colour on both the onions and red peppers, then lower the heat. Add in the chilli flakes, stir well and cover. Leave over a low heat while you cook the pasta.
• Bring salted water to boil in a saucepan and throw in the pasta. Stir well to ensure that it doesn’t stick together. Bring back to the boil, cover and lower the heat so that it doesn’t boil over. Set the timer for 5 minutes
• When the timer rings, add the broccoli florets and cook until both pasta and broccoli are just not soft. If you like crunchy broccoli, wait a bit longer before adding it.
• While this is cooking, put the tahini into a small, together with generous amounts of salt and pepper. When the pasta and broccoli are done, remove them from the water, using a slotted spoon, or drain the water into a jug, and add them to the vegetables.
• Add a tablespoonful or so of pasta water to the tahini and mix to a smooth consistency. Tahini varies tremendously in how thick it is, but you want to end up with a sauce that pours easily and will coat the pasta and vegetables. Mix with a butter knife or mini whisk until it becomes a creamy colour, then add to the pan.
• Stir gently until everything is mixed and serve.

Garnish with a generous amount of black sesame seeds.

 

Note:

• If you have no black sesame seeds, substitute with white.
• I'm not sure the pasta water has the same effect when used with gluten-free pasta, but it can't do any harm!
  

Variations: 

• Use white beans instead of chickpeas.
• Replace the broccoli with cauliflower florets.
• For a voyaging variation, use chopped cabbage.
• Add green beans or asparagus with or instead of some of the other vegetables.
• Replace the red pepper with carrot.
• Add a couple of tbsp of freeze-dried peas with or instead of some of the vegetables.
• Use bulgur wheatinstead of pasta. In this case you will have to cook the broccoli separately.
• Add chopped fresh herbs, if you have some.

Voyagers' pasta

In a cool, damp place, or when, as is usually the situation on a boat, you’re watching your water consumption, the conventional way of cooking pasta is far from satisfactory.  The instruction tell you to fill a large saucepan with water, bring it to a full rolling boil, plunge in the pasta and boil it, uncovered for the apppropriate length of time.  In anywhere that isn't actually hot, with all the hatches open, this method steams up the boat and in any situation, it uses far too much water. I have two ways of cooking pasta, which both yield very acceptable results without resulting in a steamed-up boat or using excessive amounts of water.

 

Even North American cookbooks bottle out and resort to ounce measures when including recipes for pasta, because it's usually fiendishly difficult to guess how much to make.  a thrifty voyager doesn't not want to waste pasta and it's one of the least useful leftovers unless you happen to have a passion for pasta salad.  Of course, if you have a new pack, you can work out that you need a quarter, or whatever, for 2 servings, but many voyagers – and I am one of them – decant their pasta into large, plastic containers to save them from weevls.  Moreover, once you've taken out the first serving, it becomes more and more difficult to divide up what's left, let alone remember how many servings have already been removed. I am therefore assuming this is the situation and as we can’t use scales underway, I am giving my measurements by the handful. I generally use about 4 handfuls of pasta for 2 people, assuming a generous amount of sauce, because this is a main course, rather than the smaller amounts used more to flavour the pasta, of traditional Italian cuisine.  I have small hands, but after experimenting, I reckoned that a handful is about the equivalent of a cup. Of course, this only works for small pasta, but if you follow the same plan, I’m sure you’ll soon work out what is appropriate for you.  I'm afraid it will be a matter of trial and error.  With spaghetti, or linguine: pull it out of the container and make a column of pasta with a diameter of about 25 mm (1 in). this seems to be about right for two.  You can actually get sticks with holes in them for measuring long pasta, and they're very good.  I've had two in my time, but both got thrown overboard (not by me!).  I generally use Method 1, but Method 2 is useful when preventing the cabin from steaming up is really important.

 VOYAGERS’ PASTA

 

Serves 2 

3 cups water + 1/2 tsp salt OR 2 cups fresh water, 1 cup seawater

4 handsful pasta OR 25 mm (1 in) column spaghetti, etc

1 tbsp olive oil

Method 1

• Heat water to boiling point.
• When the water is boiling rapidly, add the pasta and stir several times to separate the pieces from one another. If you are using long pasta, plunge one end in the water and then gently press down the other end until it’s all in the water. Then stir vigorously so that it all separates.
• Cover and turn down the heat so that the pan doesn’t boil over – it needs to be very low and often you need to move the lid slightly to let excess steam escape. Cook for +/- 10 minutes until the pasta is the texture you like. The only way to check this is by sampling a piece. A pasta spoon (the type with spikes) or kitchen tongs are ideal for this.
• Drain and serve with butter or olive oil and plenty of coarsely-ground black pepper.

Method 2 uses a pressure cooker and although unconventional, keeps steam to a minimum.

• Heat water to boiling point. Add olive oil or a knob of butter to help prevent the pasta from frothing up and boiling over.  This will mean that the sauce won't cling to the spaghetti as well as you'd like, but it will stop the vent from getting clogged.
  
• When the water is boiling, add the pasta and stir several times to separate the pieces from one another. If you are using long pasta, plunge one end in the water and then gently press down the other end until it’s all in the water. Then stir vigorously so that it all separates.
  
• Put on the lid and clamp it; keep the heat fairly high until the cooker comes up to pressure.
• Lower the heat and cook for no more than 3 minutes - you may need some trial and error with this, depending on how hot your flame is, how big the pressure cooker and at what pressure it cooks.
• Remove the pressure cooker from the heat and let the pressure reduce gradually – if you de-pressurise rapidly, the pasta collapses. The pasta will cook perfectly with this method.
• Drain and serve with butter or olive oil and plenty of coarsely-ground black pepper.

Notes:

• If you’re cooking for more than 2 people, keep a careful eye on things when you close the lid, to ensure that the liquid doesn’t froth up into the vent. This is unlikely to happen unless the pressure cooker is more than half full and you forgot the oil. 

• If you’re very concerned about condensation, lift the pasta from the pressure cooker with a pasta spoon or tongs, rather than tipping it through a colander, which always produces clouds of steam.

Oddly enough, I had only just finished writing this post when I came across an article on the Guardian website about cooking pasta.  It bore out my method!  https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/jun/28/10-food-rules-you-should-ignore-felicity-cloake

Mushroom Strogonoff, with lentils and pasta

Even ‛traditional’, meat-based strogonoff seems to vary considerably. In USA, it’s usually swamped with sour cream (which is generally both thickened and soured artificially); in Europe they are more likely to stir a couple of tablespoonfuls of crème frâiche into the sauce. They also include a little tomato purée and Dijon mustard is essential: although mushrooms and onions weren’t included in the original recipe, mustard most certainly was. Neither tomato purée nor mustard is generally mentioned in USAnian recipes. A little white wine or brandy can be added for special occasions.

Apparently allspice was in the original recipe. I also include paprika for its earthiness, which I really like.

Many vegan versions of this don’t use a ‛meat’ equivalent at all, so couldn’t really be much further from the original. I like the combination of textures of either seitan or lentils with the mushrooms and I cook this meal in two different ways. The seitan looks more like the original, the lentils are quicker to prepare. I decided to put them as two separate posts, because they need slightly different cooking and also, different pans.

Serves 2

Ingredients

olive oil

4 or 5 medium/2 cups sliced button mushrooms *

1 small OR 1/2 onion finely chopped or sliced

1/2 cup whole lentils

1 cup water

1 tbsp flour

1/4 cup brandy or white wine

1/4 cup mushroom stock or water

salt and black pepper to taste

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp Dijon or brown mustard

2 tsp tomato paste

1 tbsp (vegan) crème fraîche

Method:

• Heat some olive oil in a pressure cooker, over a medium-high heat and add the sliced mushrooms. Cook them for about 5 minutes. Remove them from the pan and set aside.
• Add some more olive oil and when it’s hot, add the onions. Cook until just turning translucent but not browned.
• Add the lentils and stir around with the onions for a minute or so, pour in a cup of water, put on the lid and bring up to pressure. Cook for 10 minutes and let the pressure come down gradually.
• Put the pan back over the heat, remove the lid, sprinkle on a little flour and stir to coat everything and cook off some of the raw flour taste.
• Add the brandy or (far more likely!) wine to the pan.
• Stir in the mushroom stock or water, salt and black pepper, allspice, paprika, mustard and tomato purée. Mix well and simmer gently for about 10 minutes so that the flavours combine.
• Stir in the crème fraîche and the reserved mushrooms, and cook for a few more minutes. Don’t let it boil.

Serve with pasta, mashed potatoes, fried potato wedges or whatever takes your fancy. (I like either fettuccine or smashed potatoes.

Notes: 

• *If you have lots of mushrooms, or they’re cheap, feel free to use a lot more! Other varieties would be as good, not better, than button mushrooms.
•  Instead of crème fraîche, use yoghurt, or vegan cream plus 1/2 tsp lemon juice or vinegar.