I'd been thinking of doing this for a while, but feorag gave me a useful push today, so here it is.

This page links to all the recipes I've posted on LiveJournal, and I will keep it updated with any recipes I might post in the future. I will also put a link to this post in the link list in the sidebar, so I can access it easily from any page on my LJ -- and so can anybody else who might want to do so.

The recipes are all vegetarian; the ones marked with (v) are also vegan.

Pasta
Peperonata (v)
Pasta con le uvette (pasta with sultanas) (v)
Pasta coi pinoli (pasta with pine nuts) (v)
Pommarola (tomato sauce) (v)
No-cook pepper sauce (v)
Pasta con le zucchine (v)
Pasta coi borlotti (v)
Orecchiette alle cime di rapa (pasta with turnip greens) (v)
Pasta ai peperoni con la panna (pasta with pepper and cream sauce)
Pasta con le olive (No-cook sauce with olives) (v)
Pasta with zucchini and feta
Pasta ai peperoni e basta (simple bell pepper pasta) (v)

Soups
Mushroom and tofu clear soup (v)
Tamarind soup (v)
Mestüa (v)

Rice
Rice and seaweed (v)
Steamed rice - the foolproof method (v)
Risotto con le ortiche (Rice and nettles)

Pulses
Chana Dal (curried lentils) (v)
How-to: Pressure-cooking chickpeas (v)

Vegetables
Peperonata (v)
Poireaux citronnette (leeks with oil and lemon) (v)
Bombay aloo gobi (Spicy cauliflower and potatoes) (v)
Stir-fried choi sum (v)
Stuffed gem squashes (v) (experimental and vague, mostly useful as inspiration)
Cauliflower cheese
Caponata (v) (nothing to do with capons, it's a yummy aubergine dish from Sicily)

Omelettes and fritters
Bhaji alla livornese (chickpea flour fritters) (v)
Frittata di ortiche (nettle omelette)
Frittata with radish leaves

Everything else
Pseudo-Chinese salad (v)
Baba ganoush with an electric cooker (aubergine purée) (v)
Mayonnaise (the hand-made version)
Indo-japanese condiment (v)

[Originally posted on 13 July 2007; updated on 23 June 2008]

I'm making dinner most evening lately, since my mother is quite wrecked by the time we come back from the hospital and this is something I can do to help. Also, we come back rather late, so dinner is a quick pasta or rice dish followed by salad, cheese, or other cold food.

This is a recipe my father makes sometimes -- we asked for details while we were visiting, but it's really simple. Quantities are for 2 people. Takes about 20 minutes to cook.

Clean about 1/2 a bell pepper (yellow, red or orange: avoid green) and cut it into very thin strips (about 2-3 cm long, 2-3 mm wide). Chop a clove of garlic quite small (alternatively, use a whole clove, peeled and crushed, then remove before serving).

On medium flame, heat a couple of tbsp of olive oil in a largish pot (we use an earthenware pot here, for most pasta sauces: the result is nice, but other pots can be used, e.g. non-stick pans). Put in the garlic and one or more dried chilli peppers (to taste; you can crush them for more heat), with a pinch of salt to bring out the flavour.

After a few seconds, add the bell peppers. At this point you can start heating the water for the pasta. Keep the heat on medium-high and stir from time to time. It's ok for the peppers to scorch slightly, but they shouldn't burn (nor should the garlic).

When the water boils, put in salt (if you haven't done it before) and the pasta. We used farfalle (butterflies), but other shapes should work too.

Add a pinch of dried origano to the peppers. Add salt, taste, adjust.

When the pasta is cooked, drain it and add it to the sauce in the pot. Stir for a minute or two to spread the flavour.

Remove the dried chillies if you left them whole (unless you like chewing on dried chillies). Serve.

Yes, I know tofu isn't Indian. But I had some tofu that needed using. If you have paneer, go ahead and use paneer instead.

This morning I went to the organic veg market, and came back with the usual supply of fresh veg, which today also included a bunch of radishes[1] with really beautiful fresh leaves.

The leaves are a good indication that the radishes are fresh, but the thing to do as soon as they're bought is to remove the leaves, pack the radishes in a plastic bag and stick them in the fridge. The leaves would rot within 1-2 days -- they're really delicate.

But it seemed a pity to throw them out. So I washed them, had a quick google for inspiration, and cooked them.

The whole thing, once the leaves were washed and spin-dried, took about 15 minutes -- the time it took the rice to cook in the electric cooker.

Ingredients for one portion:
Leaves from 1 bunch of radishes (about 2 handfuls -- you could also use twice as much with no ill effect...)
1 cube of fresh firm tofu
2-3 tbsp olive oil or ghee[2]
Ginger (about 1.5x1.5 cm cube)
1 1/2 tsp brown mustard seeds
3-4 dried chillies (or to taste)
Salt to taste

Wash and chop the leaves finely. Peel and mince the ginger. Dice the tofu (~1 cm cubes).

In a seasoned wok or non-stick frying pan, heat 1 tbsp oil/ghee until it's very hot (I used olive oil here).

Add a pinch of salt.

Add the chillies and swirl them around for about 10 seconds to flavour the oil. (You don't want to burn them, they get bitter.)

Have a lid handy. Throw the mustard seeds in the oil and cover with the lid. They will pop.

When the seeds stop popping (about 20 seconds), add the ginger and swirl it around for about 10 seconds.

Lower heat to medium. Add the tofu and stir-fry it for a couple-three minutes, until it starts changing colour slightly.

Move the tofu to the side, add the rest of the oil/ghee (I used ghee here), and add the chopped leaves. Stir-fry them in the fresh fat for a minute, then mix in all the other ingredients and keep stir-frying for another couple of minutes.

At this point you can serve, or you can lower heat to very low and wait until the rice is cooked :-)

Oh, and you can remove the dried chillies before serving, unless you enjoy playing "find the chilli" at the table. Chopsticks are very good for removing unwanted bits from food before serving.


NOTES:

I had planned to add about 1/2 tsp of turmeric after adding the leaves, but forgot. It's quite good without turmeric. I'm just mentioning this for your information :-)

You can of course do exactly the same recipe with any kind of greens. Mustard greens (the Asian type) should be really good, and in fact I plan on trying this next time I see them in the Chinese supermarket. Also leaves from beets or turnips. But also spinach or any other kind of green should work, really.

Footnotes:

[1] The small red kind. Recipes for radish leaves I found online assumed the large Indian radishes (mooli I think), but I can confirm that small European radish leaves work well and probably taste similar, i.e. slightly bitter.

[2] Use ghee if you want to be Indian about it. Use olive oil if you prefer the taste or if you want to be vegan about it. (Or of course, you can use vegetable ghee if you want to be Indian and vegan, thanks feorag for reminding me that such a thing exists.) The taste will be different, so go with your favourite taste. Or you can use both like I did. In any case I strongly recommend using a flavourful fat.

That is, risotto with nettles. Traditional dish from Northern Italy. Very simple to make (though cleaning the nettles can take time) and very tasty.

Ingredients for 2 servings:
200 g nettles
200 g risotto rice (Carnaroli, Arborio, Vialone...)
1 lt veg stock
1 small onion
1-2 cloves garlic
olive oil
salt
pepper
butter
parmesan

1) Wash nettles. This can help keep your dish vegetarian :-). Use gloves while handling raw nettles: cooking will make them safe, but at this point they still sting. (Gloves don't need to be heavy/thick: latex gloves work perfectly well).

2) Chop nettles fairly small.

3) Chop onion and garlic, also fairly small.

4) Heat olive oil in a pot with a heavy bottom (ideally, a glazed earthenware pot, but metal will do -- it just needs more care to avoid sticking). Meanwhile, warm up the stock (or make hot stock from powder/cube).

5) Start frying the onions and garlic in the oil, on medium heat, then add the nettles. They will reduce, a bit like spinach but not quite as drastically.

6) When the nettles are well reduced, add the rice and stir about for a while. You don't actually want the rice to change colour, just to heat it up a bit.

7) Add about 1/3 lt of stock, stir well, and when it's back to the boil, turn heat to low.

8) Keep cooking for about 1/2 an hour, stirring from time to time, and adding ladlefuls of stock when it dries.

9) Adjust salt, stir, turn off, and add some butter some grated parmesan, and some black pepper. Stir again, cover, and let sit for 5-10 minutes. Eat.

For the second week in a row, I actually managed to be organised enough to prepare food before going out to choir practice so that it would be basically ready when I came back (later than my usual dinner time). There may be freak waves on the coast of Ireland.

I made a cauliflower bake, which is a kind of thing I hadn't made in ages. In fact, I hadn't made a white/cheese/béchamel sauce in ages, either. It's a bit more elaborate than my usual cooking, but not really more labour-intensive or difficult. I improvised it, and it worked out really well, so I'm making notes.

I think what really "made" it was the onions.

[ETA: This made 2 generous portions. One of them is for tomorrow.]

So, there are three separate components that need to be prepared -- this is why I'm calling it elaborate. On the other hand, they could all be done at the same time (I didn't because I was making it up as I went along, and I wasn't pushed for time anyway.)

(1) Cauliflower; (2) Cheese sauce; (3) Fried onions.

(1) Take 1 medium-small cauliflower (or 3 positively tiny ones, which is what I had today), cut into medium-large florets, wash. Boil some salted water, throw in the cauliflower, boil for about 8 minutes, drain.

(2) For the cheese sauce, I used a recipe I found and modified it from my memory of making béchamel a long time ago[1].
Initial quantities: 2tbsp butter[2], 2tbsp white flour, 1 cup milk. (Might need more milk or not, see below)

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan on medium-low (on 3 in my case).
Add the flour, stir and cook this for a few minutes.
Add half the milk, bring to the boil stirring. At this point it's likely to turn into a solid ball that sticks to the spoon: don't panic, that's supposed to happen.
Add the rest of the milk and a teaspoonful of stock powder (my addition, not necessarily appropriate for every recipe but I thought this one could do with it.)
Bring back to the boil stirring.
At this point, add more milk if it seems too thick (it will thicken a bit with the cheese).
Take off the heat and add any amount of grated cheese between 1/2 and 1 cup. Cheddar works just fine.
Put back on the heat just long enough to melt the cheese.
Adjust salt and add some grated nutmeg. Not a lot. This doesn't seem to be included in recipes over here, it really makes a difference and it's delicious.

(3) Chop an onion finely and fry it in olive oil until browned.

At this point the dish can be assembled.

Butter a pyrex dish. Coat the bottom and sides with porridge oatflakes. Layer 1: cooked cauliflowers. Layer 2: fried onions. Layer 3: cheese sauce.

At this point I covered it and set it aside, and went to choir practice. When I came back I put it in the oven at 200C for 30 minutes and ate. (Could probably have done it at 180C.)

It was delicious as it was, but next time I might want to add some pasta (pre-cooked and mixed with the cauliflower) to make it into a more complete one-dish meal.


[1] I don't actually know the difference, if any, between a béchamel, a white sauce and a cheese sauce. We'll call this one a cheese sauce because that was the name of the recipe I started from. But now I'm curious and I might look it up later.

[2] Yes, that's what the recipe said. And it didn't seem to refer to pre-melted butter, either. Whatever: it does convey a general idea, and absolute precision isn't necessary.

Mestüa

A traditional soup from Garfagnana (between Liguria and Tuscany, in the hills -- where my mother is from). I got this recipe from my mother a long time ago, but I haven't made it very often -- the three simultaneous boiling pots put me off, I suppose. I should remedy that.

Yield: 6 servings

250 g cannellini beans
250 g chickpeas
250 g spelt
2 garlic cloves
1 onion, cut in half
2 celery sticks
extra virgin olive oil
salt, pepper

1. Soak pulses overnight.

2. Boil separately: the beans with the onion (about 1 hour from when it starts boiling), the spelt with the garlic (about 40 min), the chickpeas with the celery (forever... or use a pressure cooker, I suppose).

3. When they're all done, put them all together with their cooking waters, add salt, and cook for another ten minutes.

4. Serve with olive oil and freshly ground pepper and optionally croutons.

Notes:

Quantities for onion, garlic and celery are approximate. (Well, really all quantities are approximate.) I've seen a version made with wheat instead of spelt, in which case the wheat needs to cook as long as the chickpeas.

When I tried to make this by cooking everything together (adding the ingredient at appropriate times), it didn't work out very well. It may have been a fluke, or there may be a reason why they are traditionally cooked separately :-)

I've decided that I should use the pressure cooker more, so I'm learning. Making notes so I remember next time...

[Edited 30 Sep 07: The experiment went well, and I edited the instructions to adjust for things I learned from experience. Mainly that the cooking time could be shortened slightly.]

Note: I'm using one of the "classic" Italian Lagostina pressure cookers. New-fangled American high-pressure cookers probably require different cooking times, and quite possibly different procedures. They're easy to find on the Web, what I'm doing here is precisely writing what works for me with my cooker.

Soak chickpeas overnight.
Put in double-cooker inside pressure cooker[1] and/or add a spoonful of oil to the water to help avoid clogging the valve.
Bring to pressure.
Cook at pressure for 20 minutes (turning down to mark 2 or 3).[2]
Release pressure ("quick release").

The chickpeas are now ready to be used in a recipe that calls for cooked chickpeas. Or you can just add olive oil, salt and pepper, and maybe pressed garlic or thinly sliced onion/scallion/shallot if you like them, and eat them as a salad.

[1] A metal bowl on a trivet on the bottom of the pressure cooker. Water goes in the p/c; pulses go in the bowl, with some more water.

[2] I cooked them for 25 minutes, and while they didn't quite disintegrate, I believe that they could have done with a bit less cooking. Next time I'll try 20 minutes.

A link to a recipe for chana chat (chickpea salad) that I've found online. I intend to do a chickpea-only version, but actually what I'm most interested in is the recipes from chat masala and for tamarind chutney linked from the recipe.

I would have made the chaat masala tonight, but I don't have ginger powder, and from my memory of the very nice chat I ate in Dun Laoghaire at the festival, it would be a pity to skip it.

This is not primarily a pasta sauce, but it can be used as such. By itself, it can be eaten hot, warm or cold, as a starter or a side dish -- or as the centrepiece of a vegetarian meal, for example with a potato salad.

It takes a lot longer to make than all the other recipes I've posted today: it should cook four about 1 hour. However, it can be made in advance and reheated if needed. It also keeps in the fridge for a couple of days.

Quantities for 4 servings (as a separate dish: if used as a sauce for pasta, it will do at least for 6)

4 red or yellow (sweet/bell) peppers (usually made with mixed colours for visual variety)
4 medium-sized tomatoes or tinned tomatoes
1 onion
1 clove garlic
extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp wine vinegar (or to taste)
1-2 bay leaves (optional)
2-3 dried chillies (optional)
salt to taste

1. Clean the peppers (remove stem, seeds and the white pith) and cut into pieces approx 2x2 cm.
2. Chop the onion to whatever size you like (I like it medium-fine).
3. Heat the oil in a pan that has a lid, adding the garlic (bruised or chopped), a pinch of salt and the chillies (if you're using them).
4. Fry the onion in the oil until soft.
5. Add the peppers and fry for about 5 minutes on medium-high heat, stirring.
6. Add the tomatoes (chopped if fresh, if using tinned just squash them with a fork), lower the heat and cover. Add the bay leaves at this stage if you're using them.
7. Cover and cook for about 45 minutes on low heat, stirring occasionally and adding some water (or tomato juice from the tin) if they're too dry.
8. Add about 1 tbsp of wine vinegar, stir and cook for another couple of minutes uncovered. Check and adjust salt after the vinegar has had a chance to blend in.
9. Serve immediately or when it's cooled. Or use as a sauce for pasta.

Uvette means raisins/sultanas. This is a recipe my father used to make a lot (probably still does), I think he invented it himself but I'm not sure. His version uses anchovies; mine uses capers instead.

Quantities for 2 servings

200 g spaghetti or bucatini
2 small onions, chopped really thin
30 pine nuts[1]
30 sultanas[2], soaked in warm water for at least 15 minutes (preferably 1/2 hour)
5 capers, chopped small (these are easy enough to count)
2 dried chillies
extra virgin olive oil
salt to taste

1. Boil water for pasta. Use a bit more salt than you normally would.
2. While the water heats up, fry the onions, capers and chillies in a little olive oil on medium heat until the onions are soft.
3. When the water boils, throw in the pasta.
4. When the onions are soft, add the sultanas and pine nuts. You can also add a bit of salt.
5. Drain the pasta, add the sauce, mix well and serve.


[1] This is how you tell I got this recipe from my father. "How many pine nuts, dad?" "30." A small handful will do, you don't actually need to count them. He doesn't either, really.
[2] As above, but note that given the different size of the ingredients 30 sultanas is more like 1-1/2 or 2 small handfuls.

This is a variation on the simplest pasta sauce of all, which is called "aglio olio e peperoncino" (garlic oil and chilli) and also "pasta dello scapolo" (bachelor's pasta) -- which is exactly the same minus the pine nuts. It's just as easy but somewhat more interesting.

A note about pine nuts: the Asian variety is a lot more common outside Italy, and usually much cheaper. They are in fact different plants and the taste is completely different -- or rather, the Asian variety has almost no taste, to my Italian palate at least. Do yourself a favour and look for the Mediterranean version -- they're long and thin, rather like giant grains of rice, and they have a pine-like taste which the Asian variety doesn't have. Interestingly, Wikipedia has a picture of the the Mediterranean variety in the Italian article, and a picture of the Asian variety in the English article.[1]

This is always made with spaghetti. You can probably be shot for making aglio & olio with any other kind of pasta, so I suppose it's best to play it safe and use spaghetti for this version as well.

Quantities for 2 servings

200 g spaghetti
extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic
2-3 dried chillies
a small handful of pine nuts

1. Boil water and start cooking the pasta. Use somewhat more salt than usual in the water, because there's no salt in the sauce.
2. While the pasta cooks, heat the oil in a pan. Add garlic (either peeled and bruised or peeled and finely chopped), chillies and pine-nuts and fry for a few minutes, without burning any of the ingredients.
3. When the pasta is ready, drain, add the sauce, mix well and serve. (Mixing in the individual bowl doesn't work very well with this.) Take care to distribute the pine nuts fairly -- they tend to congregate in the pan.

[1] Nostalgia moment. When I was a child, we always used to come back from our summer holidays with at least one large jar of fresh pine nuts collected "in the wild". Washing them and shelling them is quite a lot of messy[2] and boring work, but it's also great for keeping the children occupied in the long summer afternoons... and the taste is something else.

[2] Freshly-gathered pine nut shells are covered in (a) resin and (b) a dark purple powder that sticks to everything. Especially when "everything" is already covered in resin...

[Edited 16 July 2007 to include garlic in the ingredient list -- I had forgotten...]

"Pommarola" means tomato in Neapolitan, or so I'm told. It's the basic Italian tomato sauce, most traditionally eaten with spaghetti. The traditional version is made with onion, which sweetens it. The other version, without onion, is what I use because I prefer its slightly sharper taste; it's also a very common Italian recipe, but it's not "properly" called pommarola.

Both versions of this tomato sauce keep very well for a few days in a glass jar in the fridge: I always make more than I need (using a whole tin of tomatoes). In that case, it's better to add the fresh basil only to the quantity you're going to use immediately, and then add it to the stored sauce when you take it out to use.

They can be used as they are on pasta, or used as a base for other sauces (e.g. adding mushrooms or pretty much any other vegetable), or in completely different recipes (e.g. adding to peppers and/or aubergines and stewing for a while, or with refried beans).

I always make these sauces with tinned tomatoes. Tinned whole tomatoes. In my opinion, it works a lot better than using fresh tomatoes that are either (a) not ripe enough, or (b) not a proper "sauce" variety. Since finding ripe, juicy sauce tomatoes in Dublin is pretty much impossible, I just use tins. It's ok, it's entirely allowed and it's done by most Italians I know :-) Of course, if you happen to have the right tomatoes, go right ahead and use them!

Quantities for 2 servings

Version 1: traditional pommarola

1 tin tomatoes (~250 g.) or same quantity of ripe plum tomatoes
1 small-medium onion
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
a few fresh basil leaves

1. Slice the onion thinly and sweat it in the oil until golden.
2. Add the tinned tomatoes and squash them with a fork, and then add the juice from the tin (or add the chopped fresh tomatoes with their juice). (You can throw the pasta in the water at this point.)
3. Cook for about 10 minutes (the tomatoes should dry up a bit, but not completely -- add water if they dry up too much).
4. Add fresh basil leaves and serve on pasta (or put in a jar minus the basil).


Version 2: simplest tomato sauce

1 tin tomatoes (~250 g.) or same quantity of ripe plum tomatoes
1 large clove garlic, peeled and bruised
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1-3 dried chillies, depending on how hot you like it (oh all right, you can leave out the chilli completely if you prefer...)
a few fresh basil leaves

1. Heat the oil in a pan, add salt, garlic and chilli and fry for a couple of minutes.
2. Add the tinned tomatoes and squash them with a fork, and then add the juice from the tin (or add the chopped fresh tomatoes with their juice). (You can throw the pasta in the water at this point.)
3. Cook for about 10 minutes (the tomatoes should dry up a bit, but not completely -- add water if they dry up too much).
4. Add fresh basil leaves and serve on pasta (or put in a jar minus the basil).

This is a very quick pasta sauce which requires no cooking. I made it up one night for dinner and noted it down on a piece of paper -- this was before I had LiveJournal... easier to find here :-)

It would probably work pretty much with any kind of pasta, though I tend to use penne or fusilli.

Quantities for 2 servings

1/2 red (sweet/bell) pepper
5 salted capers
1 spring onion/scallion
1 ts lemon juice
2 ts extra virgin olive oil
fresh parsley
salt to taste
1 ts brandy (optional)

1. Put pepper, capers and spring onion in a blender and buzz briefly. It shouldn't be a puree, just finely chopped. (Of course, you can also do this with a knife or mezzaluna -- the blender is just faster)
2. Put the chopped ingredients in a bowl and add the lemon, salt, oil and chopped parsley -- and the brandy if you like. (Since it's not going to be cooked, the alcohol isn't going to be burned off in this recipe.) Mix well. Leave to blend for a while before adding to pasta.

Possible variations: Fresh basil should work well instead of parsley. A few green olives could be added to the peppers and stuff in the blender. (I haven't actually tried these variations, they just sprang to mind as I was writing...)

Quantities for 4 servings

400 g pasta (e.g. bucatini, penne, farfalle)
800 g - 1 kg zucchini/courgettes
extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 dried chillies (optional)
a handful of fresh parsley (flat-leaf is nicer, but curly leaf is fine), chopped fine.
salt to taste

1. Chop the zucchini into thin rounds, or half-rounds if you have large zucchini. Make them as thin as you can.
2. Boil salted water for pasta; unless you're using fresh pasta, you can do all of the next step while the pasta cooks.
3. In a wok/large pan, heat the oil with (bruised) garlic, salt and (if you like) chillies. Add the zucchini when the oil is hot and stir-fry while the pasta cooks.
4. Drain the pasta when it's cooked and add to the zucchini in the wok/pan. Mix well together for a couple of minutes. (As usual, you can remove the garlic just before adding the pasta. You can also remove the chillies at the same time...)
5. Add the chopped parsley at the last minute, mix and serve.

Borlotti is a variety of beans which is very popular in Italy. These days, they're usually bought canned, and that's the kind I always use -- partly because I've never seen them fresh or dried here in Dublin, but also because the canned version is very good anyway. Apparently they're the same thing as American "cranberry beans", and they're similar to pinto beans (not the same, but I suspect pinto could be used for this recipe). Here's what they look like when they're raw and when they're cooked. I've also made this with pre-cooked blackeye beans (called blackeye peas by Americans, I think, just to confuse things).

If you haven't tried borlotti, do! They're delicious, quite mealy and meaty. They're used in lots of Italian recipes, and they can also be eaten on their own as a salad (extra free vegan recipe!! Drain and rinse canned borlotti, add extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, and chopped spring onion/scallion, leave to blend for a while and eat.)

This is a very simple and quick pasta recipe which I love and make quite often.

To work properly, it requires a pasta with a somewhat rough surface. I usually make it with tagliatelle (fresh if possible, otherwise dried -- but note that most fresh tagliatelle are non-vegan. Doesn't bother me, especially since M&S make nice fresh tagliatelle with free-range egg, but I'm mentioning it since otherwise the recipe is vegan). Orecchiette (as in the previous recipe posted) also work very well. Lasagnette (or broken-up lasagne) and similar flat, rough-surfaced pasta also work. And most fresh pasta works for the same reason.

Quantities are for 4 servings.

300-400 g tagliatelle (or see above for other types of pasta)
1 tin (~250 g) of borlotti beans
extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste
3 dried chillies (not really optional, but you can reduce the quantity if you must...)

1. Drain the beans in a colander and rinse well. Leave in the colander to drain, with some salt sprinkled over them.
2. Boil a large pot of salted water. If using dried pasta, throw it in and cook it for 5 minutes before starting the next step; if using fresh, start the next step immediately after the pasta is in the pot.
3. In a wok or large pan, heat up the oil with the (peeled and bruised) garlic cloves, salt, ground black pepper and chillies.
4. When the pasta is cooked, drain it on top of the beans (so they heat up). Get rid of as much water as possible.
5. Toss the pasta and beans into the wok/pan and mix well with the flavoured oil. Remove the garlic (easier to do it just before you add the pasta, in fact). Fry together for a couple of minutes and serve.

If you're not vegan, you can add grated pecorino or parmesan on the table. (Totally optional: I only do it occasionally, and I'm not vegan.)

(Note that this recipe is not at all the same as "pasta e fagioli", which sounds very generic but is in fact a fairly specific traditional recipe. It also uses borlotti, but it's completely different. It also doesn't really work as a vegetarian recipe, much to my chagrin -- it can be done, but it's not the same.)

I posted a different variation of this pasta last year, but now I decided to post a more traditional version, largely because I've come to the conclusion that it works a lot better with greens than with broccoli. Also because in the previous version the procedure was rather more complicated than it needs to be.

Ingredients for 4 servings (see note on ingredients at the end of the recipe)

300-400 g orecchiette
600 g - 1 kg turnip greens
3-4 cloves garlic
a dozen salted capers (not vinegar-pickled!)
extra virgin olive oil
salt
2-3 dried chillies (optional)

1. Clean and wash the greens; remove the tougher stems (can be used for stock).
2. Boil a large quantity of salted water and throw the greens in when it boils.
3. Cover the pot; as soon as it boils again, throw in the pasta and cook together until ready. (This is for "regular" dried pasta. If using fresh orecchiette, they cook much faster, so cook the greens for 5 minutes before adding the pasta.)
4. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a wok or large pan. Peel and bruise the garlic cloves; rinse and roughly chop the capers. Add garlic, capers and salt to the oil and fry while the pasta cooks. (Add chillies too if you like. I do.)
5. Drain the pasta and greens and add to the flavourings in the wok. Cook together for a couple of minutes and serve.

(Long) note on ingredients:

This is a very traditional recipe from Puglia (the heel of the boot), except for the detail that the traditional recipe uses anchovies, and I've replaced them with capers (as I always do to adapt Italian recipes that are otherwise vegetarian: it works very well.)

Turnip greens ("cime di rapa") are the traditional ingredient, but they're very seasonal and they're not available everywhere. A few days ago I made this pasta with mustard greens and it worked wonderfully. I assume it will work just as well with any kind of bitterish greens (spinach is probably too bland, much as I love it). And there's the "almost-traditional" version with broccoli, which is basically what Italians do when cime di rapa aren't available. (For the broccoli version, it's worth separating stalks and florets and boiling the stalks for a few minutes before adding florets and pasta together.)

Orecchiette are a special kind of pasta from Puglia. Frankly, I can't imagine making this recipe with any other kind of pasta. There are several Italian brands available: I have no difficulty finding them in Dublin, don't know about elsewhere... I suppose in an emergency farfalle could be used though.

Also traditionally, grated pecorino is added on the table; elsewhere in Italy, people often use parmesan instead. Obviously, this makes it non-vegan. The dish doesn't need pecorino to be very tasty: I just mentioned this for completeness :-)

I keep thinking I have posted this recipe, but it seems I haven't. I learned it from my father who learned it from the office canteen's cook in Ascoli Piceno, who used to be a restaurant chef. Very quick and easy, tastes great, and can be used to impress guests. (Well, unless they're vegan, in which case they're unlikely to appreciate it...)

The recipe is for 4 servings because that's the way I wrote it down many years ago...

Pasta (~400 grams) -- preferably penne, fusilli or farfalle (I have also made it with fresh tagliatelle and it works, but penne or fusilli is best)
Butter
2 cloves garlic
1 red (sweet/bell) pepper
salt to taste
brandy
250 g cream
powdered chilli (optional)

1. While the water boils, mince the pepper in a blender (almost to a puree).
2. Heat butter in a large pan with the garlic (bruise the cloves; they will be removed later).
3. Add minced pepper to the butter and --
4. Put the pasta in the boiling salted water (unless it's fresh pasta, in which case it cooks faster and you'll need to start cooking it later).
5. Add salt to the pepper; if you like it, add chilli.
6. When the pepper dries up, add a splash of brandy. This is a good time to remove the garlic, before it gets a chance to hide in the pasta.
7. Drain the pasta when it's cooked (should be about now) and add it to the sauce.
8. Cook together for a couple of minutes to blend. Add the cream at the last minute, stir and serve.

Nettles can be treated pretty much like spinach, with a couple of difference: the obvious one (they sting), the less obvious (they don't shrink quite as much as spinach), and the taste-dependent (I remove stalks from nettles, not necessarily from spinach). They have a distinctive taste which is not like spinach -- they remind me of zucchini a bit.

The traditional recipes for nettles back home are risotto, frittata and soup. I guess they could also be used as filling or for pies (like spinach), but I've never had them that way. Today I made frittata. I used about 1/2 pound of nettles, so the quantities are based on that.

So, first catch your nettles. I cheated and bought them from the organic market, because I'm not anywhere near a good "wild" source. You want to get your nettles somewhere clean, which means far from the city and not too close to the road. Use gloves (they don't need to be heavy, the stinging hairs are tiny and soft); collect young/top leaves by preference (this is a spring vegetable, really -- early June is pushing it, but I guess we're in Ireland.)

Wash the nettles well in a couple of changes of water, remove thick stalks, if any, while you're at it. In fact, they're not as dirty as spinach, but you still don't know where they've been :-) Use gloves -- latex gloves are quite enough. I suspect that they become harmless at some point during this process of soaking and handling, but why risk? I just keep the gloves on until they're in the pan, at which point they're definitely safe. Drain and dry (or spin) -- you don't need the extra water.

Slice 2 small onions thinly. Roughly mince 1 or more cloves of garlic.

Heat some olive oil in a non-stick frying pan with a pinch of salt. Add onion and garlic and (if you like) some chilli, and fry on medium until the onions start to go transparent. Add the nettles and cook for another 5-10 minutes, until they look cooked :-)

Meanwhile make the batter. My standard proportions are 1 tbsp flour and 2 tbsp milk per egg. (I used 2 eggs for this). Mix flour and milk until smooth, add eggs, salt and pepper to taste, and beat. Grated cheese can be added. Herbs are sometimes added too, but I didn't think they would improve the nettle version so I didn't use any.

When the nettles+onions are cooked, pour them into the egg batter and mix very well. Adjust salt.

Then put the pan back on the cooker and pour in the veg-and-egg mix. (No extra oil is needed if it's a non-stick pan). With these quantities, the frittata is definitely more veg than egg -- which is quite right for a green-leaf frittata. Spread the stuff around the pan so it's uniform.

Cook on medium-high for about 5 minutes on one side, flip and repeat for the other side. A frittata is generally meant to be about 1 or 1-1/2 cm thick, so choose a pan accordingly... but it's not a disaster if it's thinner or thicker.

Eat hot or cold, it's quite nice either way. All frittatas are, and they're also traditionally used as filling for panini for a snack, on their own.

3 jobs delivered. Hell of a way to celebrate Mayday, but on the other hand it's not a holiday in this country... (One of the jobs is a partial, the last bit is for Thursday SoB, so tomorrow is going to be busy too).

However, I did manage to take some breaths. Specifically, on my mother's suggestion, I had lunch sitting in the sun in the (communal) garden. Lunch was a very large bowl with 3 salads in it (potato-and-parsley, mixed lettuce, and tomato-and-feta). It was extremely nice. So nice that I decided to remain sitting there for my daily meditation session. The garden is surprisingly quiet for something only a few metres away from the quays.

For dinner, after an emergency panful of homemade popcorn (I was starving around 7 pm), I had poireaux citronnette (I feel posh tonight. It's really leeks with oil and lemon). Here is the recipe: couldn't be simpler, and it's delicious. And it can probably be done with other vegetables too, which I intend to confirm soon...

Poireaux citronnette
Cut off most of the green part of the leeks (you can leave some; the discarded bits can be used for veg stock), remove the outermost skin, and clean the leeks (they gather soil between skins; the way I clean them is by cutting them lengthwise for about half their length and then rinse them well separating the tops of the skins).

Boil a pan of salted water and cook the leeks for about 7 minutes. (I overcooked them slightly, which made them messy but didn't actually spoil the taste.) Drain and arrange on a plate.

Mix together olive oil, a little bit of salt and a generous amount of squeezed lemon; add a dash of chilli powder (this is a touch I found in a recipe book and it works really well!). Mix well and pour over the leeks. Leave the leeks to cool and get flavoured for a couple of hours at room temperature. Eat.

Lunch worked well, so I'm making notes. Sorry I'm not detailing quantities much, I went by feel and by what I had handy. The few that I do detail refer to one large portion.

I picked the name because it's a kind of a cross between Bombay aloo and aloo gobi (with a few extra tips from yet another recipe).

Boil some baby potatoes in salted water for about 10 minutes. Drain, cool with water, chop each into half, and set aside. (No need to peel.)

Boil some cauliflower (cut into florets, stems cut into small chunks) in salt water for 5 minutes or less. Drain, cool with water, set aside.

Grate a generous amount of ginger and a couple of cloves of garlic. Chop one onion fairly thin.

In a small cup mix about 1 tbsp tomato concentrate (or double that if tomato puree), juice of one lime (or half a lemon: I had lime), 1 tsp sugar. Add water if necessary to a consistency that will be easy to pour.

At this point the ingredients are ready and the rest of the cooking will take about 10 minutes.

Heat olive oil in a wok. Add salt, asafoetida, cumin seeds (fairly abundant) and 3 whole dried chillies (this produced a fairly hot result).

Add the onion and fry, stirring from time to time, until it starts to go golden.

Add the ginger and garlic and stir about for 30 seconds or so.

Add the potatoes, some turmeric, and some ground black pepper. Stir and fry for a couple-five minutes.

Add the cauliflower and a generous amount of sesame seeds. Stir and fry for a couple more minutes.

Add the tomato and lemon mix, stir, adjust salt, wait until the liquid is absorbed (half a minute should do it), and serve. (You may want to remove the dried chillies.)