Becca's Bistro

Hoummous

Having bought a bag of chick peas for the falafel, I decided to plough on with the chick pea/Middle East theme and make some hoummous.  My local supermarkets have, for some reason, suddenly stopped selling hoummous.  It is not very popular here so perhaps it was an unprofitable line.  Homemade hoummous is nice because you can adjust the flavours to your own taste and if you have a liquidiser or food processor it is very simple to make.

The secret is not to follow the recipe too closely, but to add the ingredients gradually, stop and taste.  If you like more garlic, add more, if you don't like tahini, leave it out.  If you like it dry and coarse add less liquid, if you like it really creamy, add more oil.  Usually it is served with a dip in the middle filled with olive oil. 

Hoummous is better left out of the fridge, but obviously it should be finished up quickly, not left on the counter for days!

Ingredients for hoummous (makes two bowls)

400 g tinned chick peas or home cooked chick peas
2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
one third of a glass of olive oil
juice of one lemon
1 dessertspoon tahini
salt and pepper

If cooking your own chick peas, soak overnight then boil in plenty of fresh water for about 1 hour or until tender.  In two batches, pulverise in the processor then put all back in the processor bowl and switch on again. While running, add the garlic, wait a minute then start to add the olive oil, tahini, lemon, salt and pepper.  When it reaches desired consistency and flavour it is ready to serve.

How to Make Successful Falafel

I love falafel.  These tasty fried snacks are served over most of the Middle East, but are sadly hardly known here in Turkey.  They are a great cheap and filling vegan meal or snack.  They can be served in flat pitta bread or in a baguette.  They are usually accompanied by salad and dressed with either yoghurt or tahini.I have had several failed attempts at falafel in the past but I now think I have hit on a pretty good formula.  The main problem with falafel is the tendency to disintegrate in the oil.  This can be overcome if some simple rules are followed strictly.

1. Use UNCOOKED chickpeas that have been soaked for about 24 hours in water.  Tinned chickpeas will not do, even if some recipes do recommend them.

2.  Use flour as a binding agent.

3.  When the balls have been formed, chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before frying.

Ingredients for falafel  makes about 10 falafel

1 large cup of soaked, raw chickpeas
1 small onion grated (or equivalent chopped spring onion)
2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
salt and black pepper
2 tablespoons plain flour
half a teaspoon of baking powder.

In two batches pulse the chickpeas in a food processor until finely ground.  You could do this manually but it is not for the faint hearted.Put the two batches together in the processor bowl and add all the other ingredients.  Pulse again until evenly mixed.  With your hands form the mixture into balls.  If they are crumbling, process again and add a little more flour.  Put the balls on a plate and chill in the refrigerator.

Meanwhile heat the oil either in a deep fat fryer or in a saucepan.  I did it on the stove top by putting about 1 cm deep sunflower oil in a saucepan and heating until a piece of bread sizzled and turned brown when added.

Put the falafel balls in the oil a few at a time.  Turn down the heat if the brown too quickly, you do not want them hard on the outside and raw in the middle.  Turn over half way through cooking.  Drain on kitchen paper and keep warm in the oven while completing the frying.

Jammy Biscuits/Cookies

Yes, two posts in one day!  I am excelling myself.  But the truth is it is raining stair rods outside so what to do?  My husband braved the elements to run some errands, so I decided to bake something for us to have with a hot cup of tea when he returned.  These biscuits (cookies to my US friends) were a wonderful find on the BBC Good Food site.  Minutes to make and minutes to bake, a great standby for unexpected visitors.

Ingredients for Jammy Biscuits

200 g self-raising flour
100g butter
100g caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
about 4 tablespoons jam (I used a sugar-free raspberry jam)

Set the oven to 190 C/gas 5/375 F

Sieve the flour, cut the butter into small chunks and rub in with your fingers or pulse in a food processor until like bread crumbs.  Stir in the sugar until evenly distributed.  Mix in the egg and combine until a dough is formed.  This whole process can be done in a food processor if you have one.

Bring the dough together and put on a floured worktop or a piece of silicone paper. Pull out into a sausage shape and roll until it is fairly evenly round and about 4 cm in diametre (they really spread in the oven so if you want dainty biscuits make the roll thinner).  Take a sharp knife and slice at about 1.5 cm intervals. 

Place well-spaced out on a baking sheet.With the back of a teaspoon make a depression in the centre of each biscuit.  Fill the depression with a little jam.  Place the tray in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes.  Cool on a wire tray.

Makes about 14 large biscuits.

Tahana Soup

It was not my intention to follow up Fish Stewp with another soup post, but that is how it has worked out.  Today is cold and very wet so we felt like some hot soup to cheer us up.  I remembered the jar of crumbled tahana dough that Ayşe Teyze had given us (see previous post Sun-Dried Tahana).  The crumbled tahana looks like this:

To convert this crumbled sour dough into soup is very easy: Heat some olive oil in a pan.  Add a generous pinch of salt and a large crushed garlic clove, half a teaspoon of chilli flakes and about a desertspoonful of tomato puree.  Stir until mixed.  Add half a cup of the tahana and stir for another couple of minutes.  Add four cupfuls of water and heat stirring all the time until thickened.  Be careful to keep stirring as lumps form easily. Serve with some grated cheese or crumbled feta if you like.

 The soup is quite heavy and filling and the taste of the yoghurt really comes out.  I realise that my readers don't have their own 'Aunty' Ayşe to provide them with sour dough and I doubt whether it is commercially available in most places so my next job is to find out how to make the sour dough from scratch.