Witchy Kitchen

Tag: carrot

  • Chickpea, Carrot and Pea Samosas

    Chickpea, Carrot and Pea Samosas

    Samosas are one of those foods that are easy to buy but fun to make at home, even if they are a little labor intensive. You just have to put yourself in the mindset of it being a compliment that the dish you spent forever working on gets gobbled up in seconds. They’re universally popular, and can be filled with all kinds of yummy ingredients – tandoori chicken, keema, or fluffy potatoes. These particular ones have a mixture of chickpeas, carrots and peas that are lightly spiced and delicious with chutneys.

    Since these were for our Ms Marvel menu, I made some very cute little lightning bolts for the outside of some of the samosas. I had no idea how they’d turn out – I’d made samosas before but this part was a pure experiment. I colored the dough for the lightning bolts yellow with turmeric which turned out to be wholly unnecessary as they got nice and toasty brown; they looked great regardless!

    Chickpea, Carrot and Pea Samosas

    Adapted from Jasmine in Her Hair by Huma Saddiqi

    For the dough

    • 2 cups flour
    • 1/2 teaspoon salt
    • 1/2 teaspoon nigella seeds (kalonji, or black seed)
    • 2 tablespoons flavorless oil
    • 1/4 cup warm water

    Whisk together flour, salt, nigella seeds, and oil to sandy crumbs. Pour in water, and form into a ball. Knead on a floured surface until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Set aside in a bowl covered with a damp towel.

    For the filling

    • 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
    • 1 large carrot, diced
    • 1/2 cup peas
    • 1-2 tablespoons flavorless oil
    • 3 green onions, sliced, white and green divided
    • 1 teaspoon cumin
    • 1/2 teaspoon coriander
    • 1/2 teaspoon red chili
    • salt to taste

    Bring a small pot of salted water to a boil. Add chickpeas and carrots and simmer until carrots are soft. Add peas and cook another minute, then drain and rinse with cold water.

    Meanwhile, heat oil and gently saute the whites of the onions. Add cumin, coriander, and red chili and cook for a minute until fragrant. Add in the drained chickpeas, carrots, and peas and cook until mixture is fairly dry. Transfer to a food processor and pulse, scraping down the sides, until mixture is combined but not homogenous and still has lots of texture.

    To assemble samosas

    • Several inches of oil for frying

    Heat oil on medium in a pot or wok (I like using a wok, you get more surface area and need less oil).

    Optional, pinch off a piece of the dough to use for lightning bolts. I colored this with turmeric, but I’ll skip this step next time as it gets browned too much to tell. Divide remaining dough into 12 balls. Keep them on a plate covered with a damp towel so they don’t dry out while you work.

    Roll each ball out to about 6 inches and slice down the center so you have two semicircles. Fold the sides of the semicircle to the center of the curved side to form a triangle, and seal with water. Hold the dough in your hand to make a cone, and fill with a spoon or two of the filling. Roll the open side together and seal with water. You can reshape your samosa to a triangle at this point. (And if this all sounds crazy, watch this video at about 9:30 for folding technique).

    Fry in batches, turning, until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate. Serve hot with green chutney, tamarind chutney, yogurt, or ketchup!

    Check out the whole Ms Marvel Menu

    See more of the The Comic Vault’s Comic Kitchen

    Photo credit: Jonathan Hartzell

  • Hasty Trail Mix

    Hasty Trail Mix

    There are lots of foraged ingredients in the game you can use to create ability-enhancing dishes and elixirs and it’s so much fun to test combinations. I had an idea to make a trail mix, mostly because I was excited to see speed-enhancing fleet lotus seeds as an ingredient. Puffed lotus seeds, or fox nuts (I love that name), you can find in Indian groceries, and by toasting them and tossing them with spices or just sea salt you can make a tasty snack! I thought to make this trail mix even speedier with some speedy carrot; crunchy fried carrots is a fun technique I first experimented with to create a garnish for carrot fennel soup, and their sweetness really rounds out the flavors here. Toasted nuts complete the trail mix, and it’s perfect for you to throw in your pouch and take on an adventure.

    Hasty Trail Mix

    • vegetable oil for frying
    • 5 or 6 medium carrots, peeled and trimmed
    • 1/2 cup cashews
    • 1/2 cup peanuts
    • 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
    • 2 cups puffed lotus seeds (phool makhana)
    • 1/2 teaspoon chaat masala (or a sprinkle of sea salt)

    Heat about a half inch of oil in a pan and line a plate with paper towels. Shave carrots into thin strips with the peeler and fry in batches, stirring gently until just turning golden; remove and drain on the plate.

    After carrot is done, pour all but about a teaspoon of the oil off the pan. Toast cashews, peanuts and pumpkin seeds until just starting to color, then remove to a bowl. Toast lotus seeds until golden, and add to the bowl as well.

    Toss nut and lotus seed mixture with chaat masala, and lastly add in the carrots and gently mix so they don’t crumble. Serve warm for movie night or room temperature for adventuring.

  • Margoog

    Margoog

    This is my month to host the MENA Cooking Club; I was excited to volunteer for Qatar because it’s one of the only Middle Eastern countries I’ve actually been to, if only for a layover in Doha on our way to Pakistan. Qatar, may I say your airline is amazing, and extremely accommodating to travelers with babies!

    I had no idea it would be difficult to find Qatari recipes (it’s just Googling, right?), but the recipes I suggested all got rejected, even those straight from a Qatar-based website! There appears to be a lot of misinformation out there (shocking, I know – something on the internet is wrong). And the recipe they decided to use instead says it’s from the Najd region, which is in Saudi Arabia? So who knows 😉

    A little frustrating, but I guess this experience just highlights why Noor’s goal to bring more awareness to Middle Eastern food is valuable. Good job, Noor!

    Anyway, I may be a terrible hostess, but I’m a decent cook, and I love to try new ingredients. This time it was black lemon, which are actually dehydrated limes, and I just loved the flavor they imparted to this dish. I often squirt lemon or lime juice at the end to lighten up a heavy curry; this was the same concept only less sharp, more mellow, the sweet tartness cooked right in. I used three because I didn’t know how strong they would be, and I think it came out well (although I would have liked a fourth for an extra-lemony broth).

    Margoog is traditionally served either poured over thin flatbread (I love the concept of bread soup, see my Spring Ribollita) or else baked with a dough stretched over the top like a pot pie (edit: I misunderstood, it’s actually thin discs of dough that you drop into the hot pot, and they cook in the liquid like dumplings).

    However, I forwent this very important step (blasphemy!) because we’ve just started this low-carb meal plan at home to help my mother-in-law, who is diabetic, get her blood sugar under control. She’s made really good progress, so as much as I would like to make a lovely crust for this fragrant steamy stew (sigh, that sounds like pure comfort food)…I instead added extra vegetables.

    Margoog

    Note: this doesn’t include the dough which is a key part of traditional margoog, if you are interested see this recipe for method

    • 2 pounds bone-in goat, cut by butcher into 1 inch pieces
    • salt & pepper
    • olive oil
    • To flavor the broth: 2 smashed garlic cloves, 1 stick cinnamon, and 3 black lemons, slit
    • 3-4 shallots, sliced
    • 3 cloves garlic
    • 3 medium tomatoes, chopped
    • 1 teaspoon cumin
    • 1 teaspoon coriander
    • 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
    • 1/2 – 1 teaspoon kashmiri chili (less spicy, I did this so kids could eat it) or cayenne (more spicy)
    • 1 head cauliflower, cut/broken into florets
    • 3 carrots, peeled and cut into thick chunks
    • 3 zucchini, cut into thick chunks

    Season goat with salt and pepper. In a heavy-bottomed pot, heat a tablespoon or two of olive oil and brown the goat on both sides, in two batches, removing the first batch to a plate. When they are all browned, deglaze the pot with a little water, then add the rest of the goat back in, plus garlic, cinnamon and black lemons, and water to just cover. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer, covered, for an hour to an hour and a half, until goat is very tender, adding more water when necessary.

    Meanwhile, in another cooking vessel (I used a wok), heat another three tablespoons olive oil. Saute shallots until very golden, being careful not to burn. Add garlic and stir for a minute or two, then add tomatoes, cumin, coriander, turmeric, and kashmiri chili. Cook until tomatoes are broken down, thick and jammy, and most of the liquid has evaporated.

    Combine the goat and tomato mixtures in whichever pot is bigger so you have room for all the veggies (I put the goat into my wok). Add cauliflower and carrot and mix well, adding water so they are not quite covered. Cook, covered, for 10 minutes, then add zucchini and cook, covered, 10 more minutes, until all veggies are tender. Simmer uncovered for about 10 more minutes, until stew has thickened up a little (but still a little brothy).

    Garnish with a little chopped mint (optional) and and serve hot!

    This was lovely, but I am wickedly looking forward to pouring leftovers over naan at my desk lunch tomorrow.