Dal, that gorgeous spiced lentil soup, is one of those dishes that I revert to on a cold day outside. When I want something full flavoured that requires little attention, something that I can make a big batch of, and eat for the next couple of days, treasuring every bowl. It is also one of the most frugal bowls of food that you can eat. Just pulses, water and spice and some garlic. In season, I add chopped tomato too. If I have it in the fridge, I will add some fresh coriander. Curry leaves are wonderful with dal too, fried a little with the spices. Dal is one of the dishes that I make when I don’t have the time or the inclination to get to the shop, so I work with what I have. To make a meal of it, I add a boiled egg on top, better still gorgeous perky quails eggs, boiled until just set with the yolks still soft.

I use moong dal for this, occasionally chana dal. I prefer moong dal as it is mushier when cooked, whereas chana dal tends to hold its shape. A combination of the two works well too. This time I added some pumpkin, well a kabocha squash to be precise. I love the rich deeply flavoured orange flesh, and the gentle creamy texture it acquires when cooked through. Some coconut milk gives it a layer of richness and mellows it out.

Recipe: Pumpkin & Coconut Tadka Dal

Ingredients

makes enough for 3-4 bowls

200g moong dal
200g chopped peeled pumpkin
1 tsp turmeric
200ml coconut milk
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp brown mustard seed
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 chilli, finely chopped (and extra milder ones for decoration if you like, as I did)
light flavourless oil like groundnut or sunflower, coconut oil works too

Method

Cover the dal and pumpkin with water in a sauce pan, ensuring that the water covers the dal to an inch higher than it. Add the turmeric and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and allow the dal to simmer gently. It will take about 20 – 25 minutes to cook. Top up with water if you need to, a little at a time.

About 10 minutes in, toast the cumin seeds in a dry hot pan for about a minute. Grind in a pestle and mortar or spice grinder.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in the frying pan and add the garlic and chilli for a minute. Then add the ground cumin and mustard seeds and fry for a couple of minutes. Turn the heat off.

When the dal is almost tender, add the coconut milk and stir through. Allow to cook further. When the dal is tender it is ready. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. The black pepper is important as it enhances the absorption of curcumin in turmeric, which is a natural powerful anti-inflammatory agent and anti-oxidant. It tastes good too.

Serve the dal with a teaspoon of the spices and garlic (and some extra chilli too if you like, fry it first). Garnish with whatever else you fancy as per the blurb at the top.

Enjoy!

It was one of those mornings. I was out of eggs – what, how could I let that happen?! – and out of coffee beans. I was staring glumly at a bag of Moomin coffee, a hasty Helsinki airport purchase, and wondering how nasty that might be and what I could have for breakfast. On my counter were some very brown bananas, barely a patch of yellow left. I had some buckwheat flour, but not a lot, and a bag of hazelnuts. I thought I might try a new take on banana bread.

It is worth buying bananas and letting them go really brown to make banana bread and pancakes. This is when they are at their best for cooking, rich and syrupy sweet. I never do this intentionally. I buy bananas and let them sit on the side. I feel guilty when I see them every day. I worry about waste, and then eventually they go completely brown, and they become banana bread or pancakes.

I love the flavour of buckwheat, I use it a lot. For pancakes, waffles, bread and now banana bread, the nutty flavour goes very well with the bananas here. It is gluten free as it isn’t actually a wheat, and as I used coconut oil too, this bread is dairy free also.

A quick word on coconut oil, I know it is being heralded as a new discovery and superfood, but you know, in Asia they have been using this forever, and in Asian shops it is very easy to buy, and much cheaper too (ok, so it isn’t extra virgin, but you know). Often in bottles, which in Asia wouldn’t be a problem as it being warm, the oil would be liquid. Here, I put mine in a pot of hot water so that it melts a bit and I can pour it. You can get jars too.

Once I discovered that coconut oil was a good butter substitute (I am lactose intolerant so I must take care), I started using it for fruit curds and in cakes that demanded to be dairy free. Texturally it is similar, unlike oils, and so it works very well. I should really share my lactose free life hacks with you some day. I have many! Of course you can use butter instead, if you prefer. Buttery bananas are good.

Lets crack on with the recipe, shall we? This banana bread is dense and fruity with nutty pops of hazelnut. It didn’t last a day in my flat, and I ate most of it. I am going to make more this weekend.

Enjoy – recipes now have their own page in my new website design, so that you can save and print the recipe on its own. PDF downloads are coming soon too. Both reader requests, and good onse I think! Let me know if there are any bugbears or things that you would like to see changed too!

Oh and you know what, the Moomin coffee was actually ok! :)

Buckwheat and Hazelnut Banana Bread [Gluten & Dairy Free Recipe]
makes one loaf

Ingredients

175g buckwheat flour
100g soft brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp good vanilla extract
4 very ripe bananas, mashed (mine came to 250g when peeled)
75g coconut oil (or butter if you prefer)
50g blanched hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

one loaf tin, I actually used a pie dish as I couldn’t find my loaf tin :)

Method

Preheat your oven to 180 deg C.
Mash the bananas and mix in the sugar and coconut oil. Beat with a wooden spoon until well combined.
Add buckwheat flour, a pinch of salt and vanilla and mix through until you get a well blended batter.
Stir through the hazelnuts and spread he batter into your greased tin.
Bake until a skewer comes out dry when the cake is pierced with it. Mine took 30 minutes, keep an eye on it from 25.
Lovely as is, hot, cold or toasted.
Enjoy!

Got the buckwheat bug? Here are some more buckwheat recipes to try:

Buckwheat Pancakes with Plums, Almonds and Honey

Buckwheat Waffles with Rhubarb, Apple & Candied Hazelnuts

Homemade Matcha Soba Noodles & A Recipe for Matcha Mari Soba

Love Bananas?! Me too! 

Black Sticky Rice with Banana & Coconut Cream

Banana, Coconut & Lime Bread

Chef Baka’s Banana Fritter Recipe (from Palm Island)

Corn with Lime & Chilli Butter and Feta

This morning something joyful, simple and full of flavour. I was thinking about corn, how wonderful it is and quick, and remembering how I had had corn in some Mexican restaurants. With a fresh tangy crumbled cheese on top, and of course, a kick.

I am working on a whole slew of BBQ recipes this week, and some sides are warranted, so let us start here. Working with what we have, instead of a Mexican cotija cheese, I use feta. Feta, a Greek cheese, is protected, and can only be called feta if it is the traditional cheese produced in specific areas of Greece from sheep’s milk, or sheep and goat’s. You, of course, know it, and it is widely available in supermarkets. The real stuff is aged for a minimum of 3 months resulting in a salty firm & crumbly cheese with a bit of a tang. Imitators pale by comparison and sometimes taste odd, but there are some fantastic British & Irish sheep’s cheese you can use too. Like Irish Knockalara (from my home county of Waterford).

Corn, well that is simple enough. Buy whole corn that is fresh and still luscious and moist, not dry. Preferably with the green husks still on as they keep it nice and fresh. Good juicy limes and a fresh bouncy chilli. As hot as you like, I went for a fresh jalapeno. Continue reading

Sunshine Rice & Eggs

Sunshine rice! Cheesy, isn’t it? But why is cheesy a bad thing when cheese is just so good? Shall we try and reclaim that? Like I was doing with Like a Girl when I decided to title this blog Eat Like a Girl . Which is now the subject of a viral advertising campaign, I notice, which is a very good thing. As Like a Girl is, and it is something to be proud of. Now, lets work on cheesy. Or, maybe we have other things to do? Like finish books and things. (Yes, nearly there with Project: BACON, and more on that soon!).

I looked at my breakfast this morning and thought, oh, that looks like a gorgeous perky sun, within another one peeking cheerfully from inside of it. And so, a sunshine breakfast was declared, and devoured.

The rice was leftover from my dinner the night before (pan fried mackerel with habanero, curry leaf & lime butter sat on top of it, that recipe soon, once I have tested it again). It is fairly speedy to put together though, and you should cheer your breakfast table with it so I will share the rice recipe here too.

I like to use short grain brown rice which is tense, fat and nutty, but really any rice would do here, so go with whatever you have in the cupboard. Turmeric gives it the underlying golden hue. I use turmeric because it is delicious (in small amounts though, and especially when using fresh turmeric), but also because it is so healthy. With anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties, I hope that turmeric can somehow offset some of the more unsavoury habits of mine. Sweetcorn gives it further acute pops of yellow, spinach, finely shredded and added just as you turn the heat off, freshness and texture. I freshened it up by frying it in some extra virgin olive oil with some lovely diced ripe tomato and chilli. When hot and toasty, I cleared some holes, and fried some eggs in each. One egg per person is enough for me, but if you need more, go for it.

Enjoy! And do tell me what you have for sunshine breakfasts? :) Continue reading

Rigatoni with Bolognese Style Ragu & Crispy Kale

Can you handle another ragu recipe? So close to the last? I ate this ragu several days in a row last week, which is normally something that I am loathe to do, but this was so delicious and utterly more-ish, that I couldn’t resist it. It has a little twist too. Normally ragu is served with parmesan, but I chose something else, also intense, oven crisped kale with paprika and sea salt, for a wonderful textural and flavour contrast. It is something that I do quite often, I have blogged about it before too.

One of the things that I love about Italy is their adherence to tradition. They love their recipe rules and stick stringently to them. Very much so. Do not break the rules! They eat so well as a result. Who wouldn’t want to be Italian?

One of the good things about not being Italian is that I can come home and absorb all of the different influences and stories and concoct something new. I can make something inspired by tradition, but not wedded to it. Italians, I know you are shrieking, but without this attitude my beloved Spaghetti Corkese would never have been born. I think you might even like it! Nor would today’s dinner, with the wrong pasta shape and a Bolognese inspired ragu that was a little too wet to be Bolognese, and that I finished with cream before topping with crispy kale.  I know, cream. Cream! But you know, delicious.

The rigatoni was the wrong pasta shape but it was a lovely one from Gragnano that I bought in Italy (the best dried pasta comes from there). It was there, and it was the perfect size tube for the ragu to snuggle and hide in. The cream was my Irish and indulgent take on finishing a ragu with milk. Just a lick of cream gives each portion a decadent texture and roundness, and when cooked in, you may not even know it is there. Now that I have done it, I am fairly sure that one of my favourite Emilia Romagna trattoria ragus was finished like this.

The recipe is based on the ragu that I made with Walter in Bologna. Walter is from Lazio and we cooked a ragu based on the one that his father taught him, but adapted so that it was Bologna style. I made it a little Irish, I think, but it is still more authentic than most you will get outside Italy.

Try it. Enjoy it. Make lots and eat it all week. And make lots of the crispy kale, as you won’t be able to stop eating it. Unless you don’t like kale, of course!

As the Italian say, cook with love and passion. Which I translate as: enjoy it, give it time and patience, and be tender. Continue reading