Lemon, tomato & cardamom dhal

December 17, 2022

   

   

We're always on the lookout for more dhal recipes, and with the weather staying cool almost all the way to Christmas we delved back into Anna Jones' One Pot, Pan, Planet to try this one out. I made a lazy version of this recipe and basically skipped the fancy little topping, instead just sprinkling some roasted cashews on top with the curry leaves. I've reproduced the basic version below, but I'll probably try the proper version next time, incorporating finely chopped cashews, chilli, coriander and lemon on top. Even in easy mode this was an excellent addition to our dhal repertoire - full of flavour and easy to prepare. We made a bigger batch than the measurements below and the leftovers were perfect last-week-of-work lunches.

Lemon, tomato & cardamom dhal 

(adapted from a recipe in Anna Jones' One Pot, Plan, Planet)

2 tablespoons coconut oil

2 red onions, finely chopped

1 red chilli, finely chopped

1 green chilli, finely chopped

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1 tablespoon black mustard seeds

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

200g dried split red lentils

400ml coconut milk

500ml vegetable stock

100g baby spinach

4 tomatoes, roughly chopped

juice of 2 lemons

20 or so curry leaves

oil

salt and pepper, to taste

roasted cashews

Heat the coconut oil in a saucepan and fry the onions with a sprinkle of salt until soft, about 5 minutes or so. Add the chillies and cook for a few more minutes before adding the cumin, coriander and mustard seeds. Once the seeds start to pop, stir in the the turmeric and cardamom - you should have a rich, fragrant spice paste going.

Add the lentils, stock and coconut milk and bring the mix to the boil. Simmer over low heat for 30 minutes or so, until the lentils are nice and soft.

Stir through the spinach and chopped tomatoes and the lemon juice, cooking for just a minute or two until the leaves are wilted. Taste and add salt and pepper as required.

Finally, make the crispy curry leaves - heat some oil in a small pan until it's nice and hot and quickly stir fry the leaves for 30 seconds or so until they crisp up. 

Serve the dhal on rice, topped with crispy curry leaves and some roasted cashews.

Chang-ed up wombok slaw with plum sauce

November 28, 2022

   

   

Cindy picked this crunchy noodle salad out of Alice Zaslavsky's In Praise of Veg partly because of a nostalgic enthusiasm for the classic side-of-the-packet Chang's noodle salad and partly because we had a bottle of plum sauce in the fridge that wasn't otherwise getting used. This is really only a slightly tweaked version of the original - the dressing leans on plum sauce rather than sugar and vinegar and you get a few fancier ingredients in the salad itself (radishes, honey cashews). Why mess with the best though, right? This has the same joyful combination of sweetness and crunch, and takes almost no time to throw together. The noodles loose their punch pretty quickly, so keep some spare to jazz up the leftovers.

Chang-ed up wombok slaw with plum sauce

(based on a recipe from Alice Zaslavsky's In Praise of Veg)

3 spring onions, sliced on an angle

6 small radishes, thinly sliced and halved

1/2 a big wombok (about 600g), shredded

100g crispy fried noodles

50g honey roasted cashews

dressing

1/3 cup plum sauce

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon tamari

2 teaspoons sesame oil

Soak the spring onions and radishes in cold water for 5 minutes and then drain and toss in a large bowl with the wombok.

Whisk together the dressing ingredients.

Scatter half the noodles and half the cashews over the salad and drizzle with half the dressing. 

Serve, topped with the remaining cashews and noodles and with the leftover dressing added to the plated salad.

Sautéed corn with chillies, radishes & pine nuts

November 27, 2022

   

Alongside the jalapeño poppers, I whipped up a serve of pretty basic nachos using this old BBQ beans recipe and Cindy suggested this simple corn side, from another cookbook she's been scanning through: Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg's Six Seasons. This is barely even worth a recipe: it's corn kernels fried in butter and then jazzed up with a few trimmings, but it's an excellent accompaniment to a Mexican-themed feast and has a very high reward to effort ratio.

Sautéed corn with chillies, radishes & pine nuts

(a recipe from Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg's Six Seasons)

1 tablespoon of butter

4 ears of corn, kernels cut off

1 large green chilli, seeded and sliced thinly

5 radishes, trimmed, scrubbed and cut into small chunks

1/2 cup toasted pine nuts

1 lime

salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a cast iron frying pan over high heat. Once it's all melted and stopped foaming, throw in the corn kernels and the green chilli with a pinch of salt and cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring the corn occasionally. You want the kernels to start caramelising a bit. 

Kill the heat and stir through the radishes and pine nuts, before squeezing a generous burst of lime juice over everything and adding a bit more salt. Serve.

Jalapeño poppers

 November 27, 2022

   

Cindy's been working her way through recipes she bookmarked from In Praise of Veg and, when a surprise delivery of fancy vegan cream cheese arrived at our house, she knew it was time to bust out these poppers. The original recipe takes regular dairy cream cheese and fancies it up with smoked paprika, garlic powder and coriander, but we just used the pickled red onion and dill Damona cream cheese. We lazily used real cheddar on top for guaranteed meltiness.

With the cream cheese substitution it's a very simple recipe, that really comes down to your dexterity in stuffing the little jalapeños -  I managed the stuffing reasonably well, but then half of them tipped over in the oven and needed a bit of emergency re-stuffing. The final result was great: our jalapeños still packed a bit of a punch, and the Damona and cheddar only partly smoothed it over, so it's a spicy treat, but definitely a treat.

Jalapeño poppers

(based on a recipe from Alice Zaslavsky's In Praise of Veg)

12 jalapeño chillies

200g flavoured vegan cream cheese

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika (for sprinkling)

100g cheddar, grated

Preheat the oven to 200°C and line a baking tray with paper.

With a small knife cut a long panel out of one side of your chillies - a little pointy oval maybe 1-2cm wide at its widest point. Scrape out the seeds and innards - rinse them to make sure you get as many seeds out as possible.

Press the cream cheese into the peppers, trying to smush it right into the hollow, but leaving a little indent on top and then stuffing the cheddar into it.

Stand the poppers up on your baking tray - try to arrange them so they're supported by each other or the tray edge so they don't tip over and leak out all the melty cheese. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the cheese goes golden on top. 

Sprinkle with smoked paprika and serve.

One For The Crow

November 26, 2022

   

When we and our friend Steph had some westside errands to run, we made time for lunch at One For The Crow. This vegan café has been running for over four years but this was our first visit. It's tucked unexpectedly into a suburban shopping strip and has a nice combination of indoor and outdoor seating.

The menu is an appetising mix of breakfast (bagels, granola, waffles, scrambled tofu) and lunch (sandwiches and toasties) with a trusty display cabinet of sweets to have you wondering if there's room for dessert. There's mock chicken, mock bacon, and a housemade vegan egg on the menu, and a few ways to focus just on veges if that's what you prefer. There's a decent proportion of well-marked gluten-free options.

   

Michael had a go at the 'egg' within a bakon n egg roll ($18.50). It didn't taste precisely of egg, but he was impressed with the runny yolk and said he'd be interested in ordering it again as part of their build-your-own breakfast option.

   

I seriously considered the apple pie waffles, but ultimately preferred a chick'n sandwich with avocado ($16 + $4 for avo). Every ingredient - the large chicken nuggets, the avocado wedges, the tomato and the lettuce - seemed determined to slide out one side or another, but it was a satisfying and balanced sandwich once wrangled.

One For The Crow is a surprise vegan treat on a westside suburban street. We only have occasional cause to be in the neighbourhood, but it'll be high up our list for a revisit when we are.

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One For The Crow received positive blog coverage when it opened in 2018 from messy veggies, Consider the Sauce, mamma knows west and TOT: HOT OR NOT.

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One for the Crow

9 Commercial St, Maidstone

9080 1806

food, drinks

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Accessibility: There is a small step on entry. Tables are regular height, chairs have backs, and they're quite densely arranged with a very wide pathway through the middle of the café. We ordered and paid at a high counter, and didn't visit the toilets.