From the category archives:

dips spreads sauces condiments

Garlicky Hummus with Olive Oil Crackers

March 15, 2010

Garlicky Hummus with Olive Oil Crackers

Over the weekend I had this sudden craving for hummus. With a bottle of tahini paste on my kitchen shelf, and a box of beans soaked and reserved for chole masala, I got down to fulfill the sudden craving. I just love times like these when every thing that I need is within arm’s reach and/or doesn’t keep me waiting endlessly while it soaks, proves, rests, chills, or whatever not.

I pretty much eyeballed the hummus and kept adding flavour and seasoning as I went along. As for the olive oil crackers – I had bookmarked the recipe in the Ottolenghi cookbook when leafing through it, and making them with the hummus felt like the perfect opportunity.

And when I was finally done making the hummus, I couldn’t stop dipping my finger into it for “one last lick”. I even packed a small box of it in the secret-handbag-compartment-that–the-security-lady-doesn’t-check when I went for a movie yesterday! If you heard a girl munching on crackers and filling the movie theatre with the smell of garlic, then I might know her. As for the crackers – they were just brilliant! I never thought that using baking powder instead of yeast would result in such an amazing, light, lavash-like cracker in a lot less time than lavash would! This recipe is a keeper.

Hummus

250g chickpeas, soaked, boiled and pureed with the water reserved from boiling
½ cup tahini paste
½ cup water
Juice of 1 lemon
6-8 cloves of garlic, minced
Extra virgin olive oil, to serve
Sumac, to serve (optional)

In a large bowl, add the tahini paste, water and lemon juice and mix well until it forms a uniform paste. Add the minced garlic to it and mix it well.

Now add the chickpea paste to the tahini sauce a little at a time, making sure everything gets incorporated evenly.

In a plate, spoon the hummus and create a canal with the back of the spoon to hold the olive oil, as seen in the photograph.

Sprinkle with sumac and serve with crackers.

Olive Oil Crackers

Adapted from: Ottolenghi Cookbook
Yield: 25 crackers

250g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
115 ml water
25 ml olive oil
Freshly ground pepper (I used a mix of black, white and pink!)
Sea salt to taste
Coarse sea salt for garnish (I used pink Himalayan salt)
More olive oil for brushing

Preheat oven to 220C.

In a large bowl, or the bowl of a Kitchen Aid add the flour baking powder, water, olive oil, salt and pepper. Knead the dough for 5-6 minutes until it all comes together.

Make walnut sized balls and roll them out as thinly as you can into long, oval shapes.

Place the rolled out crackers on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with pink Himalayan salt (or sumac, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, za’atar, etc).

Bake for 5-6 minutes, or until the crackers are golden brown in colour.

Serve with the hummus!

{ 34 comments }

Strawberry Butter

February 17, 2010

The best things to come out of my kitchen from last year’s strawberry madness were without a doubt the strawberry pop tarts and the supremely creamy frozen strawberry yoghurt that I made over and over again (and I don’t think I can ever get enough of. Ever.)

Just when I thought nothing could possibly outdo these favourites of mine, I was in for a pleasant surprise in the form of strawberry butter. Strawberry Butter! How could I not have thought of this sooner? My favourite fruit + butter, lots and lots of butter, come together to give me straaaaawberry buttttaaah! Okay, enough of the dramatisation, but I cannot tell you how this ridiculously simple butter will change the way you have your ho-hum butter on toast. Heck, I’m not even a butter on toast kind of person, but with this strawberry butter, I’m a convert.

I made bite-sized buttery (more butter!), flaky biscuits from Dorie Greenspan and dolloped a generous amount of the butter on top . Warm biscuits, crisp on the outside, and melt-in-the-mouth soft inside, heavily scented with the strawberry butter. Betty couldn’t make a better butter breakfast.

While I’m off to pull out the butter from the refrigerator to spread on some toast (you don’t need to wait for it to soften! It’s soft and spreadable!) , I’ll leave you with the recipe.

Strawberry Butter

Note: It is important to have all the ingredients at room temperature, otherwise you might end up with a strawberry butter that looks like ricotta cheese, which I actually prefer over the uniform texture, but it won’t have the smooth buttery texture you set out to achieve. If you do end up with the ricotta-like butter and want to smoothen it out, place the bowl with the butter over a water bath on a low heat and keep stirring it so that the heat is evenly distributed at all times. Soon you will see that the butter and strawberry puree come together to give you a homogeneous mixture.

100g butter
30g Philadelphia cream cheese (optional, use butter if you don’t have it)
30g icing sugar
60g strawberries, washed, hulled and pureed

In a bowl, whip the butter and cream cheese until it looks light and fluffy. Add the icing sugar and mix until evenly incorporated.
With the mixer still on, pour in the strawberry puree and mix together. You can either go for the marbled look and not mix it up entirely, or go the whole hog.

Buttery Biscuits

Adapted from: Baking From My Home To Yours, Dorie Greenspan

Yield: 12 biscuits

Note: Super easy to make and comes together so quickly. Just make sure to sift the flour with baking powder; nothing can be more nasty than getting a piece of biscuit concentrated with the flavour of baking powder. I wish I weren’t talking from experience.

2 cups / 250g all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
2 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt
3/4th stick / 80g butter
3/4th cup / 175ml light cream (25% fat)

Line a baking sheet with parchment or Silpat and preheat the oven to 425F/220C.
Sift the flour and baking powder together. Whisk in the sugar and salt.
Working quickly (don’t want the butter to melt), with a pastry blender, cut the butter into the dry ingredients. You will have irregular shaped chunks, flakes, pebbles and whatnot. This is how it should be.
Pour the cream over the mixture and lightly knead together, until everything has come together. Dust extra flour if required.
Dust a work surface and roll out the dough to a ½ inch thickness.
Using a 2 inch cutter (in my case, I used a 1 inch cutter for bite-sized biscuits) cut out as many biscuits as you can. Use the scraps to roll out the dough for the second time.
Transfer the cut out biscuits to the baking sheet and bake for 14-18 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown. Serve warm with the strawberry butter!

{ 32 comments }

My Favourite Tomato Basil Sauce

October 10, 2009

I despise eating food off the shelf – the boxed, canned, frozen, heat-and-eat kind. I always wonder what sorts of preservative must have been used in it to maintain that shelf life. I especially think that something like a tomato sauce should never be bought because it is so easy to make!

Let the onion and garlic work their magic with some extra virgin olive oil and then add to it some flavourful, ripe tomatoes and a handful of fresh basil and you have yourself some delicious tomato sauce ready in no time.

I make this tomato sauce often and use it a lot for pizzas and pastas. I especially love adding extra basil. And now that I have it growing on my window, I can go plucking as many leaves as I want. The next step of course would be using my own tomatoes (seeds have sprouted and the plant is growing beautifully, thank you for asking).

Tomato Basil Sauce

4 tbsp / 60 ml extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
2 green chillies (optional – depending on how hot you like your sauce)
2 lb. / 900g tomatoes
1 oz. / 30g basil leaves

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and plonk in the tomatoes. Cut an X on the bottom of your tomatoes for easy peeling.
Place them in the boiling water for a minute and then remove with slotted spoon and place in ice bath for the skin to easily peel off.
Cut, core and seed the tomatoes.
Heat the olive oil over medium heat and add the onions. Cook until translucent. Add the minced garlic and chillies, if you are using them.
Add the tomatoes and salt and simmer for about 20 minutes. You can whizz it up with a stick blender to get the consistency you like (I like a blend of smooth and chunky).
Chop the basil leaves just before adding to the sauce so that they’re still green. Simmer for another 2 minutes.
Use as a sauce for your pasta or pizza within a week.

{ 50 comments }

Spicy Mango Chutney

June 29, 2009

With the monsoons setting in, the mango season is nearing its end. While mangoes aren’t my favourite fruit, I do have a special place for them because they remind me of childhood summers when I’d visit my grandma’s hometown with her. They had a huge house and the area surrounding the house was thick with mango trees. I couldn’t climb the mango tree (the most I could was a stunted guava tree), so I’d aim my hand catapult at the closest raw mango. Many attempts later, I’d get my much prized mango back home, slice it and sprinkle it with salt and red chilli powder. Simple pleasures of childhood.

A few days ago I had my last chance and bottling the summery mango in the form of chutney – an opportunity I just couldn’t miss! Mom got me chutney/pickle mangoes and I got down to business.

Mango Chutney

2.2 pounds / 1 kg firm green mangoes, pealed, skinned and grated*
1/2 kg sugar
5 cups / 1.2 litres water, more if you’d like it thinner
4-5 bayleaves
2-3 cinnamon sticks
1 tbsp Cumin seeds
3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tbsp chilli powder (spicy kind, not the Hungarian paprika kind)
1 tsp turmeric
salt to taste

In a heavy bottomed saucepan add the mango, sugar and water and let it sit for about 30 minutes and let it rest.
Post 30 minutes, let the mixture simmer on a low heat for about 30-40 minutes. Keep stirring. Add water if necessary to maintain consistency.
Now add the spices and salt and let it simmer away for the next 10-15 minutes.
Let it cool and transfer to a sterilised jar.
This can be refrigerated but is best had at room temperature.

* You can squeeze out the juice from the grated mangoes by either putting it in a muslin cloth and wringing it or simply squeezing it between your hands. I kept the juices in because I enjoy the tartness, but my mom usually gets rid of it so that she can have her batch to be less sour. Plus, lesser sugar is used.

The next time around (which won’t be until next year!), I think I’d tweak this a bit with some ginger. I can imagine the ginger bringing in warmth and adding depth to the flavour.

I love this chutney spread on roti and rolled up for a breakfast on the go. Sometimes I like to add some zing to the dal rice meal with this instead of a pickle. This would be great with grilled chicken, too. Some even like it with crackers and cheese. I’d say just keep the jar in sight and eat a little of the chutney with anything you’re eating and figure out for yourself what it tastes better with in your local cuisine.

{ 23 comments }

Strawberry Coulis

January 18, 2009

With the strawberry season in full swing, I was most tempted to try the recipe shared by Miriam – a reader and now a friend after several rounds of e-mailing. She first got in touch with me when she was looking for a Chocolate Cake recipe for her husband’s birthday a couple of months ago. She served it with Strawberry Coulis, or as she puts it “a berry liquidy thing a neighbor does well!” which went very well with the cake. She shared her version of the recipe with me and I was more than willing to try it since I’ve never made coulis before (I know!).

Her recipe involves heating and using cornstarch to thicken when water is added. I didn’t want the natural strawberry flavour to be affected with the heat or use cornstarch, so I skipped that bit.

Strawberry Coulis

500g / 18 oz. strawberries, hulled
3 tbsp sugar (alter thing according to how sweet the strawberries are)
1 tbsp lime juice

Puree the strawberries in a food processor or using a stick blender till it’s got a uniform consistency.
Add sugar a little at a time, till it’s sweet enough.
Stir in the lime juices

This finger lickin’ coulis will last in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. Next time I’m going to add chunks of strawberries for an enhanced texture.

You can serve this with a whole lotta things – pancakes, waffles, cakes, spooned over ice cream, any dessert you fancy! But the best pairing for me would be with a flourless chocolate cake. YUM!

Notice something weird about the coulis? I couldn’t believe it either! Since I had to take a photo with the coulis dripping from the spoon, I set the camera timer on. When it clicked – this was the end result. The spoon vanished!

{ 16 comments }

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