Mélange - Appetizers

Over the last couple of weeks, we made a variety of appetizers that turned out to be insanely simple and totally delightful. Delicious enough that every time I looked at the pictures, I went "Ahhh!" and then balked at the idea of writing a post about each of these :)



So, the idea of this Mélange series was born. We often end up making an assortment of nibbles/dips/desserts, usually for a party, but these usually don't get written about. This consolidated post seems like a good idea for bunching together some of these long overdue posts.

So, without much further ado, I'll start babbling about several nibbles that were insanely easy to assemble and totally kicked ass!

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Lavash topped with Brie and Pear Chutney

Lavash is a soft thin yeast bread of Armenian origin - really simple flavours derived from a combination of flour, water and salt. It makes for fabulous wraps and rolls, and even with dips. And last week, we discovered that it makes for a crispy baked base with a variety of toppings.



Servings: 12 pieces

1 sheet of lavash bread
Several thin slices of brie
Pear preserve (recipe follows)

Fire up the oven to 350 F.
Cut up the lavash sheet into 12 pieces - these can often be torn by hand into small pieces.
Top each piece of bread with a slice of brie and a dollop of pear preserve.
Bake for 3-4 minutes till the brie is melted and the edges of the bread are crispy.

Pear Preserve

Servings: fills a pint-sized canning jar

2 pears - peeled, cored and sliced
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup water
1/2 lemon - sliced
1 stick of cinnamon
3 cloves
1 green cardamom

Heat the water in a saucepan and melt the sugar in it.
Add the pears and lemon slices along with the spices.
Simmer till the pears just start to get tender and the syrup thickens around the pear slices.
Pour the pears and the syrup into a canning jar, let it cool before sealing the jar.



Opinion?

The first time we made this snack, we used our friend Daria's pear chutney and some pepper jack cheese over lavash bread. The pear chutney was fabulous, but the jack cheese wasn't quite right. The next time around, we went with some brie and my version of the pear preserve. The combination worked much better, but I still like Daria's version of the pear chutney better - especially because it had sat around enough for the flavours to totally blend - insanely delicious!

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This goes to Raaga at Chef At Work for AFAM-March (brainchild of Maheshwari from Beyond the Usual) - the current theme is Pears. Thanks, Raaga - for organizing this edition.

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Eggplant Bruschetta with marinated vegetables

This recipe was born when we wanted to make some bruschetta-style nibbles, but had no bread to work with! But we did have a giant eggplant - obviously we often mistake one of these for a giant loaf of bread, right? :) Weeellll, not really, but we could go for a lo-cal bruschetta if we found a way to use these!

Servings: 15-20 pieces

1 large eggplant
8 oz Reduced fat feta cheese - crumbled
10 stalks of pickled asparagus
1 marinated red bell pepper
1 marinated yellow bell pepper
freshly ground pepper
2 T apple cider vinegar
1 T olive oil

Fire up the oven to 400 F.

Slice the eggplant into 1/3" thick slices and place then on a greased baking tray.
Brush the eggplant slices with a mixture of the olive oil and vinegar.
Cut the asparagus into 1/2" pieces and mix it with the crumbled feta cheese in a bowl.
Chop the bell peppers into small pieces and throw them into the mixing bowl.
Season with the pepper (and salt if needed).
Top each of the eggplant slices with a generous dollop of the veggie mixture.
Bake for 6-8 minutes till the eggplant is cooked (but still firm) and the cheese is melted.



Opinion?

Eggplants rock. Seriously. I'm often leery of Mr.Big Eggplant, but this was a perfect use for it. The tartness of the marinated vegetables and the juices of the eggplant blended quite nicely with the cheese flavour. And these slices disappeared in *no* time at all :)

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Nombu Adais

We do not celebrate nombu (another of those days where the guys get all the attention while the girls slave their asses off), but that does not stop us from working any recipes associated with nombu. Especially the salty nombu adai kind :) We attempted a variation here by skipping the coconut and garnish, instead adding some curly parsley. And we topped each adai with a few drops of thick european yogurt.


Servings: 16

1 cup rice flour
1 cup water
1/2 t ghee (clarified butter)
3 green chillies
1" ginger
1/2 cup packed curly parsley
1 t hing (asafoetida)
salt for seasoning

Roast the rice flour for 5-6 minutes till it start smelling, but before it starts turning brown.
Add water, 1 T at a time to the flour, mixing thoroughly to avoid any lumps.
Grind the green chillies, ginger and parsley into a coarse paste.
Add this paste along with the hing, salt and ghee to the flour mixture, gently kneading the dough till the seasonings are all mixed in.
Grease a set of idli plates with oil spray.
Take a small handful of the dough and flatten it to fit into one of the idli moulds.
Repeat this till all the plates are filled with adais.
Steam for 6-8 minutes till the adais are cooked.
Serve topped with some yogurt and a sprig of parsley.


Opinion?

These rocked! They were way better than we expected them to turn out. And we're becoming more obsessed with parsley by the day! Guess we added more green chillies than we realized, these adais had some serious zing to them. And given that we haven't really done much with rice lately, we were a bit worried that these adais might feel heavy on the palate. Nope! Surprisingly, they seemed light and flavourful - a happy healthy snack.

Assortment of vegetarian delights!

Still catching up on stuff we made over the last couple of weeks here, but some of these were so good, I absolutely have to talk about it :) Which calls for this condensed roundup!


I was poking around India's 500 best recipes and stumbled upon this cauliflower stew that looked really interesting. And quite simple to make. Like most south indian stews, it asked for a coconut base, but I opted for a lighter sauce and used a combination of light coconut milk and dehydrated coconut powder instead - worked better than I expected since the coconut was only the ancillary flavor and let the cauliflower dominate the dish. Yay! Speaking of cauliflowers, I *love* separating the florettes! Even more with cauliflowers than broccoli. So cathartic, and I always go through this crazy decision process - How big should the pieces be? Should I cut the florettes up? Slice them or split them? So many choices! :)

Ok, back to the stew - I love the simplicity of this recipe - the main flavors just come from ginger, garlic and green chillies, with tamarind for adding tartness. When I first stumbled upon this recipe, I wasn't quite convinced about the flavors. No coriander or cumin or fenugreek or cinnamon or cardamom or anise or any other spice? Weird!! Well, I ate my words (and plenty of the stew!) The simplicity was definitely the essence - and it tasted and smelled fabulous! :)

Cauliflower Coconut Stew

Servings: 4

1 large cauliflower - florettes separated/cut into small pieces
2 small roma tomatoes - chopped
1 smallish vidalia onion - chopped
3 cloves garlic
2 green chillies
1" ginger
1 t turmeric
1 T safflower oil
1.5 cups light coconut milk
1 cup water
1 t brown sugar
1 t tamarind pulp soaked in a 3T of warm water
salt

Grind the onions, ginger, garlic and green chillies into a coarse paste in a food processor.
Heat the oil and fry this paste with the turmeric till the aroma gets really strong, but avoid browning it.
Add the cauliflower and toss till the pieces are coated with the paste.
Now add the coconut milk, water, sugar and salt and simmer for about 10-12 minutes.
Toss in the tamarind and chopped tomatoes - cook for about 3-4 minutes before taking off the stove.

This worked great with some naan from Trader Joe's - I really meant to make some, but got too hungry :)


Next in the roundup was this pretty different daal - with beans and squash! I was a little apprehensive about trying it, but I really wanted to use up the last of the butternut squash I had sitting in the fridge, so I decided to throw it in with some green beans and make a daal. The main inspiration for this combination is the killer green beans and kabocha squash dish at one of our favorite restaurants in Seattle - Monsoon. Absolutely divine :)

Green Beans and Butternut Squash Daal

Servings: 4

1/2 lb fresh green beans
1/2 butternut squash
1/2 cup each of tuar daal, masoor daal and channa daal
4 cloves garlic - smashed
1 t sesame oil
1 T cumin seeds
1 T red chilli powder
1 t sumac powder
kosher salt
2 T lemon juice
a handful of chopped cilantro

Mix the daals and cook in 3+ cups of water till softened.
Peel and cut the squash into small chunks - this was a pain since butternut squash has a rigid skin and is hard to peel and cut - but we opted to do this instead of baking it since we wanted to preservce the chunks and not soften it completely.
Heat the oil in a wok and brown the cumin and garlic in it. Add the beans and squash chunks along with 1/3 cup of water and cook covered on low for 8-10 minutes.
Add the seasonings and salt and cook for another 5-7 minutes till the veggies are done.
Season with the lemon juice and cilantro.

This went well with mediterranean flatbread as well as the yummy pulao that follows :)


Ok, so we had a hankering for a rice dish. And we had a ton of crimini mushrooms waiting to be eaten. A long time ago, long before I fell in love with mushrooms, I tried this mushroom pulao and was pleasantly surprised at how tasty it was - and now that I'm all about most mushrooms (still not a big button and unmarinated portabello fan), we figured it was time to try out the mushroom pulao that I could smell in my head :)

Mushroom and Asparagus Pulao

Servings: 6

2 cups of crimini mushrooms - finely sliced
12 stalks of asparagus - chopped into 1" pieces
4 garlic cloves - sliced
2 cups of brown basmati rice

1 T olive oil
1 t cumin seeds
2 cardamom pods
1 2" cinnamon stick
1 T cayenne pepper
salt

Wash the rice and soak it in water for about 30 minutes.
Heat the oil in a wok and add all the spices plus the garlic and salt.
Add the mushrooms and asparagus and saute for about 4-5 minutes.
Strain the basmati rice through a colander before adding it into the wok.
Stir gently to mix things up, without breaking the grains of rice (since they are softened by soaking in water)
Add 3 cups of water and bring to a boil before lowering the heat. Cover and cook for about 15-20 minutes.
Before serving, stir up the rice gently with a fork to mix the spices up once more.

Perfect! The rice was light and fluffy, the mushrooms aromatic, the end result was immensely satisfying! :)

Quinoa and other great flavors

Peru is chockful of good things - Macchu Picchu, Cuzco, Nazca, pisco ... and quinoa! And tonight was time for a quinoa pilaf - simple, yet delectable.

After the usual ritual of rinsing the quinoa several times in cold water (the grains have a bitter coating called saponin that can often irritate the stomach lining and needs to be washed off), I cooked it in a pot of water with some salt and a few drops of olive oil. As I poked around trying to find some veggies to go with it, I found this jar of pickled asparagus. Hmm ... and a bag of frozen shelled edamame - sounds weird, but it tastes pretty good. Seems like I had the makings for a green pilaf!


The base was a bunch of chopped scallions and yellow wax beans sauteed with a spoon of olive oil and some garlic. I then threw in the asparagus spears bits and a couple of cups of boiled edamame. Once the quinoa was cooked, I tossed it with the veggies and threw in some of that fabulous Melinda's habanero sauce and a spoon of lemon-ginger juice. And garnished it with some toasted cashews.


Simple, yet delectable. Did I already say that? :)