Fried chickpea with crispy buckwheat shell

As a semi-permanent traveler I used to long intensively for a way to travel with beans that didn't involve cans or hours of cooking, to have always a relatively big stash in my bag. Little did I know you could fry chickpeas.

Fried chickpeas??? was one of the first things I thought when I entered my first general Asian food shop ever. I was 20 (yes, I know, but they just don't have these things where I come from, except for Japanese). I was wild. Fried chickpeas, fried peas, fried chickpea dough strips, and fried mix. Everything piping hot, making me sweat like a popping popcorn, steaming (try making popcorn with a glass lid and you will see what I mean). And it made me pop too.

Well, the thing is, I know what I will make before my next trip. If I'm too lazy I will just take canned hummus but it is very likely I will get my hands on the dough. I always do. Next time with something other than a freshly cooked meal, since it goes partly spoiled, since we like to try new flavours we find on the way and end up eating it for breakfast and not wanting to repeat it for lunch (we already ate the same thing before leaving too).

Fried chickpea with crispy buckwheat shell

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked/canned chickpeas (can be firm)
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tbsp spaghetti spices
• 1 tbsp salt (if chickpeas aren't salted yet)
• 5 tbsp buckwheat flour
• Coconut oil, for deep frying

Cooking Directions

1. Drain chickpeas, making sure they are still a bit wet.
2. Let the chickpeas marinate with spices and salt for 12 hours (1 is fine too but 12 is nicer).
3. Add the flour, mix well, making sure the flour is well distributed.
4. Heat the frying oil (my stove has 6 marks, I use the 5).
5. Throw a little piece of bread or a piece of onion peel in the oil, and if it fries immediately, the temperature is good. Take off the bead/peel (so it won't burn) and add the chickpeas carefully (so you won't burn :-) ).
6. Fry until it becomes a bit golden, about 3-5 minutes.

Buckwheat and veggie yumballs

I have grown up with croquettes, especially the kind with a ham and oozy cheesy filling, enveloped by an oh-so-yummy thin layer of dough, coming in giant (snack bar) and tiny (party) sizes and every time I had a birthday party they were always snatching my attention, and the lucky ones that survived until the next day didn't escape my merciless delight. I at them at school. I ate them in my afternoons out. I ate them whenever I could.

I have made many kinds of croquettes; I started with rice croquettes to use leftovers, when I lived in the mountains and was learning to cook with a guy that teached me to like veggies. I have tried a few times, often making them very spicy for yumminess and digestibility, and today I came up with these.

The food naming police is going to say these aren't croquettes because there is no breadcrumbs involved. You can. I just felt like calling them yumballs because that is what they are. But they are also croquettes to me.

I used leftover homemade baby food (sorry An) from yesterday which was already delicious per se. It consisted from mashed potatoes, carrots and belgian endive (witloof, if you ever come across go for it, it is delicious - if you are into bitter leafy goodness like I am, at least).


I'm a disaster with frying, even more than with baking bread, but this one actually worked (yay!)

Let's get to the business:

Buckwheat and veggies yumballs

Yield: +- 25 balls
Ingredients

• 2 cups mashed veggies (I used potato, carrot, belgian endive and egg - yes it is a veggie, on this recipe :-) )
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup + extra buckwheat flour
• 1 tsp-tbsp garlic powder or finely chopped garlic if you like it sharp
• 1-2 tbsp curry powder

Cooking Directions

1. Start heating the oil; be sure to not to let it smoke! Steam is fine. My stove has 6 settings, I put it on 5 for coconut oil and lower to 4 when it reaches the right point
2. Add the egg and the salt and spices to the mashed veggies and mix well.
3. Add half of the flour, mixing well and adding extra until it forms a dough that doesn't stick to your hands when they are well dried.
4. Make sure everything is venly mixed.
5. Throw a tiny piece of dough into the oil when it starts bubbling and if it starts frying right away - like in immediately - then make balls about 1.5" or 3.5 cm diameter (can vary), throwing each one directly into the frying oil, keeping them on a single layer and frying until golden brown. Count on a few minutes.
6. Fish them with a frying ladle or a fork and put in a plate covered wth a kitchen paper towel to keep them crispy, rolling them around a bit.
7. Sprinkle with cayenne pepper if you wish.
8. Yummier when hot but still awesome the next day; it won't be crispy but it will be still full of tasty goodness.

Making the perfect buttery popcorn

I have grown up on popcorn. Plain, with salt, at 3 in the afternoon, almost every day. I just loved it!

I still do. As a matter of fact, it is one of my standard midnight snack (the other is kuttu ki puri). That is the snack for lazy people, easier than the 5 minutes walk to the shop to get chips and much healthier, besides filling you with not much density so it is easily digestible and it won't hurt your waistline.

I have a little secret here.

If you tried to make popcorn with butter before you know how disappointing it can be to burn your last corn and having all the shops closed or far away. Making popcorn with vegetable oil and making it soggy with butter is not really fun.

My secret ingredient is ghee.  That is clarified butter, or butter fat. The butter is simmereed until the solids separate. I will post a recipe in the future, but I need to make it again (I only post tried and tested recipes and for me it was so long ago that I don't even remember anymore). In the Indian or Asian shops you can find it sometimes cheaper than butter itself, in cans, and since it can be stored at room temperature (as far as the tradition goes, and that is how I do) like olive oil and the like, since it has no water it lasts longer. Make sure you read well the package and that you are buying butter ghee, as they sell shortening as vegetable ghee.

Butter popcorn

Yield: 1 quart/1 liter
Ingredients

• 1/3 cup popcorn kernels
• 3 tbsp ghee
• Salt to taste
• Pot with fitting lid
• Bowl (optional)

Cooking Directions

1. Heat the ghee almost on maximum (wait 2 minutes)
2. Add 3 popcorn kernels
3. Put on lid
4. Wait for them to start popping
5. If they don't after 2 minutes and burn add other 3 kernels, they will pop
6. When they do add the other kernels, spreading them around so that they are in an even layer
7. Let them start to pop
8. If you want to keep them on the pot to save you dishes fill the sink or a heat resistant bowl half as deep as your pot with cold water
9. If not just sit and enjoy the show
10. Shake them every two minutes
11. When there are several (ten to fifteen) seconds between pops add the popcorn to a bowl or pot the pan into the bowl with water.
12. If you put it in a bowl, enjoy
13. If you keep it in the pan, wait five to ten minutes and enjoy!
14. It also works with coconut oil

It's quite easy, and you will probably notice that the ghee will yeld you bigger, airier popcorn. I have tried several oils  (coconut, butter, olive, peanut, sunflower, soya, grapeseed - be careful with refined oils because they carry hexane residues but that is a talk for another post) and ghee deserves by far the first place, and secondly coconut.

I usually make the double for me alone because it is just so good, and it's also great for a picnic in a sunny day (just let it cool down a bit before putting the lid on the container or use a big paper bag after making a couple of small holes in it for thee crunchiest results).

Have fun,

Beet

Kuttu ki puri (gluten free buckwheat poori)

I love Indian food. Besides being a spice junkie, I'm enticed about their ability of combining health, yumminess and variety.

I make these very often, for a nice lunch with a raw carrot, cauliflower and spring onions and mayonnaise salad (picture) and a nice green tea; and sometimes to curb my craving for chips with a much more nourishing set of ingredients at midnight while writing. I usually make dough for 2 days.

This kuttu ki puri recipe is usually made with potato to make the dough stick together. That works and it is handy, but I don't feel like cooking and chopping and mashing potato for making kuttu ki puri. So I made the buckwheat poori without potato and it worked :-) I used a very fine buckwheat flour, Doves farm. I'd say, giv it a try buckwheat flour + water and if it falls apart a bit too much add a binding ingredient (aside than potato, a spoon of psyllium husks or an egg and more flour to get the right consistency.

Kuttu ki puri (gluten free buckwheat poori)

Yield: 2 portions
Ingredients

• 1 part water or water+egg or mashed potato for coarser flours
• 2 parts buckwheat flour (depending on the flour you might need quite some more, plus extra for dusting)
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 drizzle olive oil
• Ghee/coconut oil for frying

Cooking Directions

1. In a bowl, add flour, water, olive oil and mix well with a fork until it is an even dough, adding more flour if necessary. Let it rest a bit (15 minutes) and take a ball a bit bigger than a cherry tomato, repeating with th rest of the dough, add flour to a little plate and grease your hands a bit with olive oil.
2. Add the little ball to the flour plate, roll it around a bit to coat it with flour, and flatten it on your hands until thin (you can also use a rolling pin, yet it's easier to know if the dough is sticky when you use your hands). Let the ghee/coconut oil simmer in a frying pan.
3. Check the ghee/oil for the temperature (add a tiny bit of dough and see if it starts frying immediately), and add the rolled flatbreads one by one (or more if the pan is really big). Fry it until it starts going golden on the side, and turn it around. Fry a minute more, and repeat with all the flatbreads you wish to eat soon. You can keep the rest of the dough for 1 or 2 days in a glass bowl with a lid (avoid sealing it).