Tag: #healthyfood

Pre-cooking Lentils…
Alliyah Dawud
August 2, 2019

Why I pre-cook and freeze gram lentils….

I love cooking however I don’t always have time to leisurely cook and that’s where my kitchen short cuts come in.

I use gram lentils quite a bit. They are the base ingredient of vegetarian kebabs, Pakistani Bun kebab and also my favourite spinach and gram lentil curry. But I’ll be honest with you. I dislike having to watch food simmer on the stove for hours. It’s just not in my nature. I’ll happily place something in the oven and leave it for hours but on the stove? Nope. Just not happening.

I discovered a while ago that you can pre-cook and then FREEZE gram lentils to create meals that slash the time on stove top simmering. A revolution!

Since then I boil approximately 900 grams of Gram Lentils in my rather large Slow Cooker on high for a good few hours (mine took 5 hours to cook to the tenderness level I required), cool then and then freeze them up in portion sizes I know I will use.

I also do this with green lentils (for my tacos). If a lentil is going to take hours I’d rather go through the pain of pre-boiling in a slow cooker, cooling and freezing instead.

So here is my method:

1) I wash the lentils and then soak them for around a hour.

2) I place them in the slow cooker to boil HOWEVER I add the following ingredients to my 900 grams of lentils for a bit of flavour penitration. Here’s my recipe:

900 grams Gram Lentil
As much water as you can add to the slow cooker. If you find your slow cooker is on the small side boil half the amount of daal. Simples.
1 onion-halved
1 large piece of ginger-whole (skin can be kept on)
4 whole cloves of garlic peeled only
Salt-to your own taste
1 TBSP chili powder OR 5 dried red chilies
1 TBSP turmeric (Haldi)

2) Place all the ingredients in the Slow Cooker and turn to high. Check on your lentils every hour or so and give them a stir.
3) After a few hours your Lentils will be tender. I don’t let the lentils turn to ‘mush’ and leave a little bit to allow me to ‘cook them out’ when I use them on the stove.
4) Drain the lentils (because if you leave them in the Cooker they will cook further) and allow to cool. Fish out the garlic, ginger and onion. Throw them away.
5) Decant the lentils into suitable freezer bags (or containers), label and freeze!
6) To defrost: you can do this in the Microwave or leave the bag overnight in the Fridge.

Enjoy.

Super Green Alu Tikkis
Stylemesisteradmin
May 11, 2019

Super Green Alu Tikkis…..because green is glory.

Green vegetables in a Tikki you say? Really? Indeed! My girls love these so much we use the mixture to create Burgers too.

Getting some children to eat anything green and ‘healthy’ looking can be tiresome. This recipe takes the classic Alu Tikki (potato Tikki) and rammed it with good stuff (being spinach and peas). These Tikkis taste like Spring…so enjoy.

To make enough to serve 4 people you will need:

  • Ingredients
  • 80 grams peas or petite pois cooked, drained and cooled
  • 40 grams baby spinach cooked (I cook it in the microwave as it takes minutes. I place the spinach in a microwaveble dish, add a couple of tablespoons of water and cover with microwavable cling film. I poke a few holes in the film to let steam escape. Takes a few minutes. Job done).
  • 200-250 grams potatoes-boiled (that’s two medium potatoes if you are not fussed my weights). Mashed OR riced.
  • 2 spring onions (green onions) washed and thinly sliced.
  • Salt-to taste
  • 1 & 1/2 TBSP cornflour
  • 1 heaped TBSP coriander leaves chopped finely
  • 1 TSP cumin seed powder
  • 1 TSP coriander seed powder
  • 1/2 TSP chili powder
  • 1 heaped TSP garlic granules
  • 1 TSP amchoor (green mango powder-I add this to give a tang. If you can’t find this ingredient don’t panic and just leave it out and squeeze over some lime before serving the tikkis).

Oil-to shallow fry

1) Whiz together the peas and spinach to create a rough mixture. You can roughly chop the mixture by hand if you haven’t got a processor.

2) Place the mashed potato in a bowl and add all the tikki ingredients. Using your hands get in there and combine the ingredients (don’t forget to wash your hands properly after as there is chili in the mixture).

3) Using wet hands shape your tikkis. You can make medium ones using a walnut size amount of mixture. Or if you want to serve these as canapes/starters make them smaller.

4) In a large pan heat the oil on a medium heat. Fry the tikkis on a medium heat until lightly golden brown. Do not keep turning the tikkis over as this will increase the chances of breaking them.

5) Once brown on both sides drain off on kitchen paper (the tikkis should take about 5 minutes maximum on each side).

6) Serve with chutneys and sauces of your choice.

NOTES: the corn flour is added to help keep the tikkis together. If you cannot get your hands on it replace with Basan (gram flour).

This mixture makes great vegetarian burgers.

These Tikkis do not freeze well. This in my humble foodie opinion is down the the spinach but still. These badboys make awesome burgers (including veggie dirty burgers…recipe coming soon).