Cilantro Chutney (an herb sauce)

Some yeas ago, Edward Hamann, a culinary expert on food from the Asian subcontinent and a wonderful cooking instructor who is now at Sur La Table, taught a small group of us how to make his fabulous Fresh Cilantro Chutney (Dhaniya ki Chatni ).  I started with his amazing recipe, added turmeric, black pepper, and made a few other minor changes, and that’s how this Cilantro Sauce recipe came to be.

This delicious sauce transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary – and it’s easy to make. We love it! For a while this sauce was the new “ketchup” at our house. I served it with everything from scrambled eggs to pan fried fish, and, of course, curries. In fact, it was this Cilantro Chutney that made me want to learn more about herb sauces and led me to create the other herb/vegetable sauces on this blog: Charmoula, Arugula Pesto, and Artichoke Lemon Pesto.

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ cup freshly squeezed lime juice
¾ cup chopped walnuts
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon peeled and roughly chopped fresh ginger
4 cloves peeled garlic
2 Serrano peppers, stemmed and roughly chopped, including some of the seeds
½ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ – ½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
3 bunches (about 7/8 pound) fresh cilantro, including all but the very ends of the stems

Note: I like to add dry ground or finely chopped fresh turmeric (and freshly ground black pepper) wherever I can get away with it. It’s so healthy! Adding 2 teaspoons of ground turmeric to this recipe does not negatively affect the taste, in fact you hardly even notice the turmeric, so why not add it?!

DIRECTIONS

Food processor

Add all the ingredients to the food processor fitted with the metal blade and process to desired consistency.

Blender

Place the ingredients into a blender – in the order given above — but do not put all of the cilantro into the blender at one time. Blend and then add more cilantro and blend again. If needed, stop the blender; push the cilantro down toward the blade; then place the cover on the blender and blend until a lovely smooth sauce results.

HOW TO STORE

• Store in the refrigerator for a few days

• Freeze in 100% food grade silicone muffin pans. When frozen, just pop the frozen “muffins” out, and place them in a plastic freezer bag; store in the  freezer for use anytime.

A FEW OF THE MANY WAYS YOU CAN USE THIS CHUTNEY (SAUCE)…

• Use as a condiment to liven up almost everything, including fish, chicken, eggs, or tofu.
• Use as a hot or cold sauce to go with almost everything.
• Mix with ripe avocado to make a lovely dip or spread. I just put some of this Cilantro Sauce-avocado mixture on slices of daikon and it was fabulous. The next time I need to bring an appetizer to someone’s party, this is what I plan to bring – it’s delicious and a great conversation starter too!
• Sauté any vegetable in olive oil and mix some of this sauce in at the end.
• By the way, I just mixed some of this sauce with some sautéed greens. Superb!
• Add to soups — bean soups, chicken soups, vegetable soups, fish soups.
• Add olive oil to make this sauce into a salad dressing!

Charmoula!

Charmoula (a Moroccan herb sauce) is truly amazing! Packed-with fresh herb flavor, the umami of anchovies, and the bite of garlic and cayenne, it’s all you need to make the ordinary taste extraordinary.

This recipe is based on the recipe, Green Charmoula, in the New Moroccan cookbook by Murad Lahlou.

Note: I add dry ground or finely chopped fresh turmeric (and freshly ground black pepper) wherever I can. Turmeric is so healthy! So why not add it?! And, I always add black pepper too, because black pepper greatly enhances the body’s ability to absorb turmeric. After all, if you don’t absorb turmeric, you can’t benefit from it.

INGREDIENTS

Note: I love Charmoula and keep playing with this recipe. So the recipe you see here may change from time to time. 

2 cups very tightly packed fresh cilantro (thick stems removed)
1/2 cup very tightly packed cup fresh Italian parsley (most of the stems removed)

1-2 tablespoons diced preserved lemon 
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 ounces anchovy fillets (drained and rinsed briefly under cold water)
7 cloves garlic (peeled and stem ends removed)
1/4 cup capers (drained)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon cayenne
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

4-6 ounces frozen artichoke hearts

Comments about ingredients:
Preserved lemon: The chart at the top of this post lists preserved lemon rind but I have since found that I prefer to use the whole preserved lemon – rind and pulp – without the seeds. If you don’t have preserved lemon, you could use some lemon zest (from organic lemon) plus a bit more lemon juice, to taste.

Artichoke hearts: I have made this Charmoula many times, but recently when I tasted the final result, the preserved lemon was overpowering and the sauce was thinner than usual. For inspiration on how to doctor up the charmoula that was staring at me from my food processor, I turned to my earlier post, How to Create Fabulous Fresh Herb Sauces and chose artichoke hearts from the list of possible thickeners. So I grabbed a bag of Trader Joe’s frozen Artichoke Hearts; cooked them according to package directions; added some cooked artichoke hearts to the food processor and gave it a whirle. Wow, the result was fantastic – better than ever!  From now on, I’m making Charmoula with artichoke hearts!!!

 FOOD SAFETY TIP –  Before you head to your kitchen, please read this Food Safety Tip! When you combine garlic and oil, you create an environment in which botulism (a deadly food-born bacteria) can grow. According to the University of Colorado Extension Service, to prevent the possible growth of botulism when mixing oil and garlic, you should always “add an acidifying agent such as lemon juice or vinegar to the recipe at the rate of one tablespoon per cup of oil.” Also you should “discard infusions after one week, or sooner if apparent cloudiness, gas bubbles, or foul odor develop

DIRECTIONS

Blender: Place all ingredients into a powerful blender (such as a Vitamix or Blendtec) and process to desired consistency.

Food processor: Place all ingredients, except the extra virgin olive oil, into the work bowl of a food processor fitted a metal blade and start to process. While the food processor blade is turning, pour the olive oil into the work bowl and process to desired consistency.

STORAGE

• Refrigerate: Cover and refrigerate for up to a week.
• Freeze: A great way to store extra fresh herb sauce (or for that matter, leftover portions of any liquid) is to freeze it in silicone muffin pans. For details, see the post, Silicone Muffin Pans – a Kitchen Staple – but not for baking!

MANY WAYS TO USE CHARMOULA!

• Serve charmoula with fish, pork, lamb, or chicken that’s baked, broiled, or sauted.
• Mix charmoula with chopped organic spinach (I use frozen spinach). Serve with eggs in the morning!
• Mix with canned tuna or salmon and plenty of diced celery and onions. Makes a really sophisticated fish salad (sans mayo).
• Stuff charmoula under the skin of chicken before cooking! Then pass the charmoula at the table.
• Saute fish, for example monkfish, in olive oil, and then add charmoula during the last minute of cooking. Pass the charmoula at the table.
• Add olive oil and fresh lemon juice to charmoula for a great salad dressing.
• Mix charmoula with mashed avocado for a sensational dip.
• Mix charmoula with bite-size pieces of cooked new potato for a great potato salad.
• Mix charmoula with chopped salad of your favorite veggies plus some fresh mozzarella cut into bite-size pieces.

Chopped Salad (cucumber, tomato, bell pepper, avocado) and bite-size pieces of mozzarella cheese mixed with Charmoula

• And here’s yet another way to use charmoula: Mix charmoula into an unalted chicken or vegetable stock, add some cooked veggies, and you have a fabulous fresh herb soup! Serve hot or cold.

Other fresh herb sauces / pestos found on this blog:

• Artichoke Lemon Pesto
• Arugula Pesto
• Cilantro Chutney (Indian)
• Basil Pesto(Italian)

Enjoy and be healthy,

~ Leni

Desi Chickpea Recipes — with my comments and changes

 

Showmethecurry.com’s Kala Chana Curry
I just made this Kala Chana or Black Chick Pea Curry and loved it – but that was with some changes. So here’s how I changed their recipe to make the dish we loved:

• Instead of using a pressure cooker to cook the black (whole) desi chana, I used the crock pot method described on the Mendosa page (see yellow highlighted box, “Preparing and Seasoning Chana Dal” found at bottom of the webpage.) Note: Since in this Desi Chickpea recipe, we are cooking the whole bean, not the split bean (chana dal), I prefer to soak the desi chickpea overnight in cold water, drain the water, and then cook the soaked desi chickpea per the directions given for cooking in the slow cooker on the Mendosa website.
• I used twice as much: asafoetida, ginger, and garlic.
• I used 4 times as much turmeric (1 teaspoon instead of 1/4 teaspoon) and I added 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. (For why turmeric and black pepper should always be used together, see Monamifood: Why turmeric and black pepper .)
• I used 1/4 more garam masala (1 1/4 teaspoons instead of 1 teaspoon)
• I used half as much salt.
• I used canned organic diced tomatoes instead of pureed tomatoes, and when I added the tomatoes to the dish, I smashed the tomatoes with a potato masher. It worked fine.
• I did not cook the tomato mixture down “until the oil separates from the mixture,” because I thought I might burn the mixture and my pan, so I just cooked it down until there was very little liquid left.
• Note: The showmethecurry.com recipe calls for chili powder, but they must be referring to red chile powder (ground red chiles), not chili powder (a mixture of ground spices used to make American style chili).

At the table, we passed chopped fresh tomatoes, chopped fresh onions, and chopped fresh cilantro so everyone could mix these into their curry as they liked. This mixture of cooked and fresh ingredients made the dish superb.

• Note: Early in the harvest season, onions are relatively sweet and when they have been stored a long time, they become sharp. If you want to take the edge off of sharp onions, just soak the chopped onions in cold filtered water for 15 minutes and then drain well.

I like serving this desi chickpea curry with (or over) steamed kale and along with slices of baked sweet potatoes. If you want rice, then a little brown basmati rice would be my choice. I also like to serve this with Monamifood’s Cilantro Sauce (chutney).

Vegetable Platter Blog’s Chana Dal Tadka
This is a really delicious dish! I will definitely make it again!

I made this recipe with the following changes and specific ingredients:

• The green chiles I used were green finger hot chiles (a chile that’s common to Indian cooking).
• I used the seeds of 2 green cardamom pods (not the whole pods).
• The cinnamon stick I used was Ceylon cinnamon (which is soft and can be ground up as specified in the recipe).
• Instead of cashew nuts I used walnuts (because they are a good source of the pre-cursor to omega-3 fatty acids).
• Instead of ghee I used canola oil.
  I used less red chile powder (only 1/2 teaspoon) instead of 2 teaspoons red chilli powder (by which I think the recipe writer must have meant red chile powder).
• I added freshly ground black pepper because I always use it in combination with turmeric.
• I “ground” the mixture in a food processor fitted with a metal blade. And next time I make this recipe, I will be sure to process the mixture until the pieces of cinnamon have become tiny. (I left a few big pieces this time and just removed them before serving.)

Enjoy and be healthy!

~Leni

VEGETABLES FOR BREAKFAST: Sauted Herb Flavor Cubes

Why vegetables for breakfast?

Just about everyone in the field of nutrition and cancer today agrees that the anticancer diet is composed primarily of vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains. Specifically, we’re told that we should have 5-10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day (and, I would add that at least five of those servings should be veggies). What I’ve found is that if I don’t have veggies at breakfast, it’s hard to have had five servings of vegetables in a day. But if I have some veggies for breakfast, it’s easy to have five or even six servings of veggies a day. And…furthermore, if veggies are good for you, it just makes sense that it’s good to give your body a veggie “infusion” all through the day – not just at dinner.

With a little pre-planning, having veggies for breakfast is easy – and delicious!

SAUTED HERB FLAVOR CUBES

I got the idea for this recipe from the Persian (Iranian) Kookoo Sabzi, a wonderful egg and herb omelet. While my recipe doesn’t contain eggs, it goes very well with eggs…and that’s the idea.

Ingredients

1 bunch green onions (scallions)

1/2  bunch fresh dill

1 bunch fresh Italian (flat leaf) parsley

½ bunch fresh cilantro

1/2 teaspoon of turmeric, optional

• I have found that adding 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric (a potent anticancer spice) to this herb mixture doesn’t change the flavor, so I like to add the turmeric.

About 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black or white pepper, to taste

Food prep tips for food safety

Here’s how to get rid of the visible dirt and the invisible bacteria that’s in the dirt, including E. coli:

• Use two cutting boards — one for cutting the unwashed herbs and the other for slicing and chopping the rinsed herbs.
• Use two knives (chef’s knives work best) — one for cutting the unwashed herbs and the other for slicing and cutting the rinsed herbs — or just rinse your knife after you cut the unwashed herbs.

• Green onion – steps to cleaning properly
  

1. Trim off the root end of each green onion.
2. Cut the green onion in two, separating the green and white parts.
3. Thinly slice the green part of the green onion on the diagonal so as to expose as much surface area as reasonably possible. You will see dirt you never knew was there!
4. Place the sliced green onion into a large strainer with small holes (a metal mesh one works well) and place the strainer inside the basket of a salad spinner.
5. Now you are ready to give your green onions a good rinse. Here’s how: Fill the salad spinner up with cold tap water and using your hands agitate the herbs in the water. Then lift out the mesh strainer with the herbs in it and pour the dirty water out of the salad spinner.
6. Rinse one or two more times and pour off the dirty water after each rinse.
7. Place the lid on the salad spinner and spin dry the herbs in the mesh strainer. Note: Since a metal strainer is slightly heavy, you have to be careful when you spin the salad spinner or it will go out of control. To avoid having to be careful, I simply do the spinning in the corner of the sink (using the two sides of the sink to help keep the basket in place).
8. Now you have very clean and decently dried off sliced green onions!
9. Slice the white part of the green onion thinly, but not on a diagonal; it’s not necessary. Place the sliced white part into the mesh strainer inside the basket of the salad spinner, and spin dry.

• Bunches of Herbs — dill, parsley and cilantro
  

1. With the herbs still tied together in a bunch, use your knife to cut off the thick stems — all in one cut.
2. Set the stems aside for another use such as making soup stock.
3. Untie the herbs and place them into the plastic strainer basket inside the salad spinner.  Rinse and dry the herbs as explained above.
4. Chop the clean herbs.

Directions

Thinly slice the white and green parts of the green onion, keeping the white and green parts separate; set aside.

Chop the dill, including the tender stems; set aside.

Chop the parsley, including the tender stems; set aside.

Chop the cilantro, including the tender stems; set aside

• Place the less tender stems from the dill, parsley and cilantro in a plastic bag (the kind for the freezer) and freeze. Later you can use these stems and other vegetables when making a veggie soup stock.

Use a large heavy-bottomed sauté pan and cover the bottom of the pan with a thin layer of olive oil. Heat the oil over medium heat (or just a little hotter) and when the oil is hot add the white parts of the green onion and sauté until softened. Then add the green parts of the green onion and sauté for 30 seconds. Add the turmeric, if using, and mix it in. Then add all of the chopped herbs and sauté for about a minute or two. When the herbs are gently wilted but still nice and green, remove the pan from the heat.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Let this herb mixture cool and then scoop it up by the spoonful (an ice cream scoop or a cookie dough scoop works well) and put it into a silicon mini muffin pan (or an ice cube tray). Note: Press down on the herb mixture to compact it.

Freeze your green muffins (flavor “cubes”) until hard.

Remove the muffin pan from the freezer and let it warm up for a minute or so at room temperature. Then just pop your Sauted Herb Flavor Cubes out of the muffin pan and place them into a plastic bag suitable for the freezer. Keep frozen until ready to use. Then just take out one, two or more cubes and heat them in the microwave until defrosted and just hot enough to serve.

Many ways to use Sauted Herb Flavor Cubes

• Spread on toasted bread, including sourdough bread;
• Serve with scrambled eggs, egg whites or sauted tofu for great flavor and color.
• Mix with Sun-Dried Tomato Flavor Cubes and spread on toast or serve with eggs as suggested above;
• Mix into hummus or any bean spread/dip;
• Mix with a little goat cheese and spread on crackers or stuff into hollowed out cherry tomatoes;
• Garnish a butternut squash soup with these sauted herbs;
• Mix with green beans or peas for a gourmet touch.

Enjoy and be healthy,

~Leni