Falafil with 'Persian' rice.

Confession: I have no actual clue how Persians do their rice, but I'm reading a memoir about an American-Persian girl's return to Iran and whenever they talk about food is sounds both delicious and decadent. My rice is just saffron and cardamom rice with toasted pine nuts and some cinnamon sprinkled on top. I figure adding the cinnamon takes the rice outside out Arabian territory. Of course I could have looked a recipe up but I'm only writing up what I cooked on the fly last night, when looking things up was the last thing on my mind.

A note on chickpea preparation: you can buy these canned (it's a good idea to have a can handy for disorganised days), or you can buy them dried they'll be much more economical. What I do is either leave them to soak in the morning and then boil for ten minutes (this is necessary to kill the enzyme that causes gas) or text Mr Umami to do a 'quick soak' ready for when I come in (otherwise I'd have to wait an hour, and I just can't see that happening). A 'quick soak' goes like this: boil for ten minutes then let the chickpeas soak for an hour in the hot water. Then change water and boil again for 10 minutes. The secret is to do twice the amount needed and keep the rest in rinsed out jars, water and some salt in the fridge so they're ready for next time!

Note on falafil preparation: will need a blender! If all you have is a hand blender, use that to mash up the chickpeas and mix the rest in by hand. It's be a lot more chunky, but that's ok.

How to make Falafil:
1 cup soaked, boiled chickpeas.
50g doves gluten free flour
1 teaspoon cumin
2 garlic gloves (I like my falafil garlicky! If you don't, use 1 clove)
1 teaspoon coriander (I use Barts ready made coriander paster)
1 egg or egg replacer (I use Organs No Egg to save on cholesterol and so I can hopefully delay developing an egg allergy)
Oil for frying. I use Bertollie extra light olive oil for baking and frying.

First put the chickpeas in the blender and pulse until it's a chunky meal, along the lines of buckwheat texture. Then add all other ingredients and blend until just mixed. I used a falafil maker to shape the falafil, but you can spoon out the mixture into little balls then flatten into chunky disks.  Fry for about 2 minutes each side or until golden. I like to put mine in a heated oven for about ten minutes on temp 200 to make sure the middle part is done because I don't deep fry them.

For the Faux Persian Rice:
half a cup white rice
2 cardamom pods, cracked
a good pinch saffron
cinnamon, to sprinkle after.
Pine nuts

Rinse rice three times, then put in pot with twice the volume of water, the cardimom and saffron. Bring to boil then simmer ten minutes. when time is up and the rice is done, take off the heat and let the rice settle.
Using a frying pan, toast the pine nuts a little so they brown. I use the same pan as I've used to fry the falafil so it's still got some oil in it at this point. Spoon out the rice into mounds and top with the pine nuts, then sprinkle with cinnamon.

To serve: I like my falafil with tahini paste and some lemon juice over them. Tahini paste is a great source of calcium and omega threes (oh, and it's yummy) so don't hesitate to add some to your pantry.

Sweetcorn Chili Fritters with Home Made Salsa

We're in sweetcorn season for sure now! The weekly veg box seems full of them, and yet we're still getting a reassuring amount of tomatoes too. That's what I love about autumn and seasonal food.

I thought I was running out of sweetcorn steam until I came across this recipe and added just a pinch of red and green chillies and a few inches of leeks to give a little more flavour. If you don't tolerate heat well, just use the original recipe as it's perfect. The home-made salsa is a perfect accompaniment, and we served it with some Spanish style potatoes: simply peel, dice, and boil them before drizzling a little extra virgin olive oil and a good sprinkle of paprika. It's a kind of Latin/Spanish fusion but I like it. I've also substituted half the amount of flour for chickpea flour for extra protein. If you buy chickpea flour from an ethnic shop (it's called gram flour of channa flour) please be aware that it may not be packed in a gluten free facility. Some coeliacs will be fine with this level of contamination, others won't be. It's also possible that you start out being ok with it and find over time that you do eventually need to switch to certified gluten free flours.

Sweetcorn Chili Fritters:
Serves 4
Time: 20-25 minutes.

• 50g Doves gluten free plain white flour
• 50g Doves gram flour (chickpea flour)
• 1 tbsp gluten free baking powder, or make your own.
• Seasoning
• Medium egg (or you could use a gluten free egg replacer like Organ No Egg)
• 150ml non dairy milk (I used Rice Dream, fortified with calcium)
• 2 kernels from 2 ears sweetcorn, boiled for ten minutes and drained. 
• (optional) 1 small green chilli, chopped finely
  
• (optional) 1 inch of a red chilli, more if you can handle the heat! Chopped finely as above. You can use a sweet pepper instead if you prefer. Just chop it finely.
• (optional) 2 inches of a medium thickness leek, chopped finely.

  1. In a frying pan gently brown the chopped leeks, green pepper and red chilli on a medium heat. About 3-4 minutes should be ok.
   2. Mix the flour, baking powder and seasoning into a large bowl, add the egg and gradually beat in 150ml milk to form a smooth batter. It'll be quite thick. 
   2. Add the leeks, chilli and sweetcorn kernels to the batter add to the batter mix.
   3. In a frying pan, add a good glug of light olive oil (I like Bertoli extra light. You could use extra olive oil but it froms free radicals at high heat, which isn't so healthy). Once hot, use a ladel or large spoon to fry spoonful of mixture for about 2 mins each side until golden and crisp on each side. They'll puff up a little bit likes scotch pancakes so don't worry if at first it looks very lumpy.
   4. Serve the sweetcorn fritters with a salsa and spanish style potatoes or brown rice.

Here's the recipe I used for the raw salsa. It's lovely!

Sweet potato and Sweetcorn Soup

Serves 4
Time: 15 minutes in thermomix or 20 + prep on the hob

a good glub of extra virgin olive oil
1.5 large sweet potatoes, skinned and cubed
1 ear sweetcorn, kernels removed.
half an onion, chopped fine
1 clove garlic, smashed and chopped.
1 thick inch of fresh ginger, chopped fine.
chicken stock cube
quarter teaspoon of nutmeg
20 grams chickpeas (soaked and boiled). I had these leftover from another recipe. You can omit them if you like but I think it adds protein and thickness.
Non-dairy milk of choice, to add creaminess later

I did all of this in the thermomix, as I came home much later than usual due to a bad combination of work insanity, trains and buse tardiness + traffic woes.  I'll put how I would do this on the hob at the end but you'll need an immersion blender (hand blender) for the final mixing and it'll take longer: about 20 minutes on the hob.

In the thermomix the whole thing took 15 minutes from getting out the ingredients to the table, and on days like yesterday when I'm tired, stressed and starving, that's a lifesaver.

Thermomix recipe:
1) Onions garlic and ginger went into thermomix at speed spoon, temp 100 C, 2 minutes.
2) Cubed sweet potato and sweetcorn, stock cube, chickpeas, nutmeg and 500ml of boiled water go in, speed 1, temp 100, 12 minutes.
3) When time is up, blend at speed 5 for thirty minutes. It'll be a smooth, very thick consistancy.
4) I like to put the soup into bowls first then add the non dairy milk to the desired consistancy. I also added a dash of cyane pepper for some kick on top.

Hob Recipe:
Fry the onions, garlic and ginger on medium heat for 2 minutes, then transfer to a pot. Add all the other ingredients, bring it to boil then put on medium simmer for 20 minutes with lid slightly off.  Take the soup off the hob and let it cool a little before blending with an immersion blender and add milk substitute as desirred.