Koshari

I first had koshari--a popular Egyptian street food--while visiting my brother when he was studying abroad in Cairo.  This traditionally-vegetarian dish combines a bunch of staple foods into one, resulting in a satisfying, though starchy, meal. 

Koshari: So many components, so few vegetables.

Recipe:    
Koshari

• 1 - 14.5 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1.5 cups white rice (plus water to cover)
• 1.5 cups lentils (plus water to cook)
• 1 pinch salt, or to taste
• 1 pinch pepper, or to taste 
• 8 ounces ditalini pasta (plus water to cook)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 1 - 14 ounce can crushed tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon vegan butter
• 3 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
• 1 small package or can French fried onions

 

First, marinate the chickpeas.  Combine the chickpeas, vinegar, and spices in a container with a tight-fitting lid.  Store the container in the refrigerator while preparing the rest of the dish, shaking occasionally to stir up the chickpeas.  

 

Next, in a small bowl, combine the rice with enough cold water to cover and allow to soak.  After 20 minutes, carefully drain the rice.   

 

Meanwhile, add the lentils to a medium saucepan and add enough water to more than cover the lentils.  Season with salt and pepper.  Bring the lentils to a boil and cook until tender (about 30 minutes, depending on the type of lentils you use).  If all of the water is absorbed before they are finished cooking, add a bit more water. 

As the lentils cook, prepare the pasta according to package instructions.  When the pasta is done cooking, drain and set aside. 

As all of these ingredients cook, prepare the tomato sauce.  Heat the olive oil and garlic in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. When the oil becomes hot, stir in the onion and sautè for about 5 minutes.  Add the crushed tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste.  Reduce the heat to low and allow the sauce to simmer until the rest of the dish is ready. 

Once the rice has soaked for 20 minutes, you can begin to cook the rice.  Melt the vegan butter in a medium saucepan over high heat.  Add the rice to the pot and fry, stirring constantly, for about 4 minutes.  (Don't be too concerned if the rice starts to stick--the vegetable broth will deglaze the pan).  Add the vegetable broth while stirring, and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat to low, cover the pot, and cook until the liquid has been absorbed (about 18 minutes).

Finally, when all of these components are ready, mix the rice and lentils together.  To serve, spread the pasta over the rice and lentil mixture and top with chickpeas, tomato sauce, and the French-fried onions.

 

Yields 8 servings.

Comments:

Taste:          

This is a really tasty dish with a rich yet earthy flavor.  Ours came out a bit mushy (I think we overcooked the rice by a few minutes), but the chickpeas and French-friend onions add some nice textural variation.  Overall, it was a pretty heavy dish.  

Accessibility: 

This dish makes use of numerous easy to find staple foods.  It would be a great dish to make in the winter when high-quality fresh ingredients are scarce.

 Ease of Preparation:       

There are many pieces to the koshari puzzle, as you can see.  However, most of the ingredients can cook at the same time; or, you could even make the lentils, rice, and pasta a day in advance.  Once all of the components are cooked, the assembly is quite easy. 

Non-vegan friendliness:      

This dish is extremely substantive.  I wouldn't serve this as a one-pot meal, however, as it's quite blatantly missing vegetables of any kind. 

Falafel

As a vegan, falafel balls (Middle Eastern chickpea fritters) play a noteworthy role in my life.  Finding a satisfying vegan meal at a non-vegan restaurant can be challenging, but falafel often saves the day as one of the only vegan-friendly items on non-vegan menus.  I've tried to make falafel myself a few times in the past, but something always went wrong.  The balls would be too crumbly, usually, or it just wouldn't taste great.  Tonight, my luck turned.  We tried a new recipe for falafel and it yielded the BEST falafel I've ever made.  We ate it on pita with toppings, as you can see below.  Yum.

Falafel Balls

Falafel Pita

Recipe: 
Falafel

• 1 can chickpeas
• 1 red onion, diced
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley (or more cilantro)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 8 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup flour
• peanut, vegetable, or olive oil, for frying
• Pita bread and any toppings you'd like

First, pulse together the chickpeas, onion, herbs, salt, red pepper flakes, garlic, and cumin in a food processor until blended but not puréed. (You could also mash the ingredients together by hand or with a potato masher.)  Add the baking powder and flour and pulse to combine.  The mixture should be able to form a small ball and hold its shape, so add more flour if needed.

Then, heat about an inch of oil on high heat in a large skillet or saucepan.  While the oil is heating, form the chickpea mixture into balls about the size of golf balls.  Drip a tiny bit of water into the pan to see if the oil is hot: if the water sizzles, the oil is ready.  Place one ball into the oil to test--if it falls apart, add a little flour.  Then place the balls in the oil and allow them too cook for a few minutes before turning them over using tongs.  They should be golden brown.  Line a plate with paper towels and place the cooked falafel balls there when they're done.  

Serve hot on a pita with lettuce/tomato/red onion/hummus/hot sauce/tahini sauce/other toppings.  Yields 20 golf ball-sized balls.  

Comments:

Taste:      

These falafel balls were delicious.  They're crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and the flavor is great.  None of the spices are overpowering, though there is a strong onion-y taste.  (You could reduce the amount of onion used, if you prefer.)  Of course, the fact that they are fried surely has something to do with their deliciousness.  I might try baking them next time to reduce the fat content. 

Accessibility:     

We used 1/2 cup cilantro as the only herb in the recipe in order to avoid buying whole bunches of both cilantro and parsley for just 1/4 cup of each.  You could also try using just parsley if that is more appealing to you.   

 Ease of Preparation:    

This is a really quick recipe.  Simon commented that he now understands why people fry things: it's so much faster than baking.   

Non-vegan friendliness:    

The three of us really enjoyed this recipe.  Then again, what's not to like about fried, flavorful fritters?

Wannabe Ful Mudammas

Originally, we had planned to make ful mudammas--an Egyptian fava bean stew--for dinner tonight.  Unfortunately, we had trouble finding fava beans at the grocery store.  Such is life.  We settled on a bastardized version of the dish made with a variety of beans and served with pita bread.  While I'm not sure how close this tastes to the real thing, it was still a good dinner. 

"Foule Mudammes" with pita bread

Recipe:
Wannabe Ful Mudammas

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
• 1 - 15 ounce can lima beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 - 15 ounce can butter beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 - 15 ounce cans Roman beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• 1 heaping teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground corriander
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeri
• 3 green onions, chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• more olive oil to drizzle (optional)

First, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Once the oil is hot, add the onions and sauté for about 5 minutes.  Add the bell and jalapeno peppers and cook for another 4 minutes.  Then add the beans, tomatoes, and spices and cook, stirring occasionally, for a few more minutes (the mixture should become thick)--as you stir, mash up the beans a little bit.  Finally, add the green onions, cilantro, and garlic and cook for a final 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and drizzle with olive oil, if desired.

Serve with pita bread or rice.  Yields 4-6 servings. 

Comments:
Taste:      

I really enjoyed this dish.  None of the flavors were overpowering: it was neither too spicy nor too cinnamon-y.  Again, I'm not sure if this dish had any sort of authentic flavor to it, but it was good nonetheless.  The turmeric gave the dish a nice color, adding to the already colorful array of veggies involved, and it was also a nice change of pace to eat with pita bread rather than rice. 

Accessibility:       

The ingredients we ended up using for this dish are all pretty easy to find (it's funny how that happened).  There are only two drawbacks to this recipe in terms of accessibility.  First, it involves several spices, and second, it calls for a small amount of cilantro compared to the amount of cilantro that comes in a bunch.  If you don't have cilantro, you could also use parsley.      

 Ease of Preparation:   

Even though a fair amount of chopping goes into the preparation of this dish, it's a simple recipe to follow.    

Non-vegan friendliness:   

As Simon put it, it wouldn't make much sense for meat to go anywhere in the dish--and as far as I know, the traditional Egyptian dish lacks meat as well.  That said, Simon did put feta cheese on his.  I thought the pita bread went really well with the ful, adding something to bite on.  I would make this dish again! 

Moroccan Israeli Couscous

Last night Simon and I tried out a new recipe for Moroccan Israeli Couscous to use up some of our couscous.  I was intrigued by this recipe because it includes several vegetables that I don't usually eat.  Plus, I'm warming myself up to Israeli couscous:  I usually prefer Moroccan couscous (the smaller variety) to Israeli couscous (the larger variety) since my primary experience with the latter is in mediocre dining hall dishes.  This recipe for Moroccan Israeli Couscous combines Moroccan flavors with Israeli-sized couscous.   

As you can see, the end product looks pretty good! 

Recipe:
Moroccan Israeli Couscous

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
• 2 carrots, julienned
• 2 turnips, peeled and julienned
• 1 sweet potato, julienned
• 1/2 pound frozen peas
• 1 red bell pepper, julienned
• 1 - 15 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 - 15 ounce can tomato sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 pinch saffron
• 1 pinch curry powder
• 2 cups Israeli couscous, prepared according to package directions

First, heat the oil in a large saucepan or stockpot over medium-high heat.  Add the onion and sauté until golden.  Pour in the vegetable broth and bring to a boil.  Then stir in the carrots, turnips, and sweet potato, reduce the heat to medium, and simmer (uncovered) for 15 minutes.  Next, reduce the heat to low, add the peas and bell pepper, and simmer (covered) for 20 minutes.  Finally, stir in the chickpeas, tomato sauce, and spices and simmer until the mixture is heated through.  

Serve over Israeli couscous prepared according to the package directions.   

Comments:
While I did enjoy the texture and mouthfeel of the couscous,  I didn't love this recipe.  To me, it was a bit bland.  The flavors were nice but they weren't very strong.  I decided to doctor the final product by adding a bit of salt and crushed red pepper flakes, though, and these two small additions made a big difference.

Simon generally agreed with me and wasn't thrilled with the original recipe.  On the other hand, Rachel liked both the texture and the taste of the couscous.  She also thought the dish was visually appealing, due to the differently prepared vegetables and the varied colors.  As Rachel said, "I'd eat that again."  (And she did--well, we all did--for dinner tonight!)