Sweet Potato and Pea Samosas

Sweet potato and pea samosas

The ingredients:

1 large sweet potato

Peas

Small handful of cashew nuts

Rapeseed oil

1 onion

1 clove garlic

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp garam masala

1 handful fresh chopped coriander

1 tsp chilli powder

1 fresh green chilli

150g plain flour (I made several batches and used doves farm bread flour blend AND Juvela white flour mix)

50 butter (melted)

The recipe:

1. Score the skin of the potato and cut into large chunks and boil until cooked.  Add the peas for the last few minutes.  When cooked, drain and put the potato and peas into a mixing bowl.
2. Dice the onion and crush the garlic and add to hot oil in a frying pan.  Sauté until the onion becomes soft and translucent.  Don’t let the onion go brown.  Then add the cumin seeds and continue to sauté for a couple of minutes
3. Add the onion to the potato in the mixing bowl, along with the coriander, garam masala, chilli powder and fresh chilli.  Mix well.  (You can afford to crush the potato at this point, but make sure you leave some chunks, it’ll make a good combination of textures in the finished product!
4. 
5. Cover and pop in the fridge for the flavours to blend for up to 2 hours.
6. Take the plain flour in a new mixing bowl, add 1 tbsp of rapeseed oil and bring together with a fork, adding small amounts of cold water to the flour until it comes together in a dough.  Take care not to add too much water, but if you do, just add a sprinkle more flour to balance it out.  You end up with a dough like this:
7. 
8. Cover in cling film and pop in into the fridge to rest for 15-30 minutes.
9. Make a floury paste with a little flour and enough water to make a thick sticky paste (try to avoid making it too lumpy, too thick or too runny)  this will be the “glue” to keep you samosas in shape.
10. When ready, roll out the dough to about 1mm thickness.  If you find the dough crumbles a bit too easy, just add a tiny splash more water.
11. Cut the dough into circles the size of a tea plate, then cut in half to make semi circles.  (Top tip: If you are not immediately making the dough into a samosa, cover with a damp cloth or the cling film to keep it from drying out.)
12. Take a semi circle of dough, imagine cutting it into 3 slices of pizza (but don’t cut!!)  fold the 1^st third over the middle third like this:
13. 
14. Then fold the last third over the centre third, using a little of the flour paste to stick it together.  You should now have a little cone.
15. 
16. Take a spoonful of the potato samosa filling and gently put it in the cone, taking care not to overfill the cone
17. 
18. Now add a little more of the flour paste to the top of the cone and push the edges of the cone together to close the samosa
19. Brush with melted butter and pop in the over at 220 degrees celsius for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown
20. Serve with chutney as a yummy snack

Falafel

Falafel

As a vegetarian, I am very familiar with falafels.  An Israeli/middle eastern favourite showcasing the beauty of the humble chickpea.  Delicious eaten alone as a little snack, or as part of a meal with salad and hummus with a pitta and maybe a few grilled veggies, aubergines, peppers, courgettes and the like.

Sadly now I can no longer eat the pitta, so I decided to replace it with sweet potato chips when I was making dinner the other night and it worked perfectly (although I say so myself)!

I was tempted to play around with the falafel, maybe adding a bit of sweet potato, or a few different herbs and spices.  Then I changed my mind.  Sometimes you just don’t need to play with a dish.  Falafel are amazing in their pure form. Having said that, maybe if I had more time on my hands…

You’ll also notice that I baked these falafel rather than fried them.  This is simply because I’m not a fan of deep fried foods.  You could deep fry the falafel for a couple of minutes until golden brown (about 4 minutes).

The ingredients:

1 tin Chickpeas

1 medium onion

2 cloves garlic

1 tsp ground coriander

1tsp ground cumin

Small pinch of chilli flakes (optional)

Parsley

1 egg

½ lemon

The recipes:

1. Dice the onion and crush the garlic
2. Sauté over a medium heat until soft and translucent
3. Add the cumin, coriander and chilli and cook for a couple of minutes
4. Drain and wash the chickpeas and add to the onion mix, off the heat.
5. Mash the chickpea mixture and add in a handful of chopped parsley and squeeze in the lemon juice
6. Whisk the egg and add in bit-by-bit to the chickpeas and mix until it sticks together to form a dough-like consistency (if you find the mix is too sticky/wet, use a bit of gluten free flour – chickpea flour (aka besan/gram flour) to bind the mixture.)
7. Lightly grease a baking tray
8. Using 2 tablespoons, shape the mix into balls and place onto the baking tray
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes (or until golden brown) at 180 degrees Celsius

Vegetable Crisps

Vegetable Crisps

The ingredients:

Any root vegetable will probably suffice, but I used a potato and a parsnip

1 tbsp Butter, melted or olive oil

Salt and pepper

Smoked paprika

The recipe:

1. Using a mandolin, or your finest knife skills, thinly slice the vegetable (about 2 mm thickness)
2. Lightly grease an oven tray with butter/oil
3. Coat the vegetable slices with the melted butter or oil, using your fingers as the slices are quite delicate (and it’s always nice to get close to your food!)
4. Lay the vegetable slices out on the oven tray (careful not to overlap)
5. Pop in the oven for 10 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (or until nicely browned.  Not burnt)
6. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a rack.  They will crisp up as they cool
7. Gently shake the crisps with the flavouring of your choice (salt and pepper, smoked paprika, toasted and ground cumin seeds… experiment away!)

Sweet Potato Chips

Sweet Potato Chips

• Have you ever felt the pressure of entertaining, knowing you really need to put something on the table with a bit of a “wow factor”?
• Have you ever thought you need something to add a bit of excitement to a meal but you’ve no idea how?
• Have you felt like you can’t be bothered to spend hours slaving over a hot stove, but dinner still needs to be on the table and everyone still expects to be fed?

Well this is my attempt to break through kitchen fatigue and to give you a recipe which is nearly impossible to get wrong.  I just hope you like it as much as I do (and as much as my willing subjects liked them).

The ingredients (this serve 2 people as a side dish):

2 Sweet potatoes (1 medium potato is probably enough for 1 person, so base your calculations on this)

½ tsp Smoked paprika (more if you’re like me and love a bit of heat)

1 tbsp Olive oil

Pinch of Salt and pepper

1 tbsp Polenta (either the coarse or the fine will suffice, it is just for a bit of extra crunch)

 

The recipe:

1. Put the oven on at 200 degrees Celsius
2. Slice the potato into thick chunky chips
3. Throw the potato into an oven tray and add the smoked paprika, oil, polenta, salt and pepper.  Toss, making sure the potato is nicely coated.
4. Put the potato in the oven for 25-30 mins.
5. Serve