Posts tagged cumin

Spice Roasted Sweet Potato Soup, Lime-cardamon Yoghurt, Coconut Flatbread

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Spice Roasted Sweet Potato Soup, Lime-cardamon Yoghurt, Coconut Flatbread

 

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Some relaxing blogging always starts the weekend off well. After a long week, it was nice to slow down and take my time over lunch instead of dashing home from work and being caped in my apron and up to my eyes in ingredients before I could even take off my coat! I love to constantly use different flavours and it really is the easiest thing to inspire a standard recipe by adding a few flavourful touches. If you haven’t got a stocked pantry of store cupboard ingredients then I highly recommend investing in a few essentials to be at hand and add to your cooking (see here). My store cupboard is by no means complete…storage space and budget don’t allow my dream pantry so for now I stick to the most useful ingredients.

This warming soup is smooth, creamy and cinnamon scented. Sweet potatoes have natural sweetness which goes really well with cinnamon and ingredients like maple syrup so the lime and cardamon yoghurt is a lovely fresh addition to top it off. Coconut flatbreads (just because) are heavenly.

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Serves 4

Soup

  • 800g sweet potato, peeled, chopped into chunks
  • 2-3 garlic cloves
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • 1 onion, chopped finely
  • 2 pints of good, hot chicken or vegetable stock

Lime Cardamon Yoghurt

  • 150g plain natural yoghurt
  • ½ lime – zest and juice
  • Few mint/coriander leaves
  • 3-4 cardamon pods

Coconut Flatbreads

  • 15g dessicated coconut
  • 75-80ml coconut milk/water
  • 125g flour
  • Salt and pepper
  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Peel and chop you sweet potatoes into chunky pieces and add to a large roasting tray. Throw in your garlic cloves, whole and unpeeled.
  2. Drizzle with a couple of generous tablespoons of olive oil or sunflower oil and scatter over the cumin seeds, cinnamon and some generous seasoning. Mix until coated in the spices and roast for 30 minutes. Toss half way through cooking.
  3. Meanwhile, sweat and soften the onion in a little oil in a saucepan over the hob and prepare your stock.
  4. Make the flatbreads by combining the flour, seasoning and coconut in a large bowl. Add in your liquid and mix with a fork until combined. Bring together to form a smooth dough, adding a little more liquid if needed. Knead for a few minutes and then set aside to rest.
  5. For the yoghurt, combine in a bowl with the lime juice, zest, finely chopped mint and some salt and pepper. Bash the cardamon pods to remove the seeds inside. Grind these as fine as you can in a pestle and mortar and add to the yoghurt. Stir to combine then set aside.
  6. Once the potatoes are ready remove from the oven and pick out the garlic cloves. Add the potatoes to the sweating onion. Squeeze the roasted and sweet garlic pulp from their skins and add with the potatoes.
  7. Add the stock and simmer for 5-10 minutes until the flavours are combined and the potatoes are really tender.
  8. Puree with a hand blender until silky and smooth. Add a little more stock to thin the soup if you like.
  9. Keep warm while you cook the flatbreads. Heat a frying pan over a high heat. Divide the dough into four equal pieces and roll each out thinly on a floured surface. Fry each in a the dry hot pan for a few minutes each side until a lightly charred and they begin to puff up slightly.
  10. Serve warm immediately (or keep warm in the oven) with a generous warming bowl of spiced soup drizzled with the fresh yoghurt.

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Dukka

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Dukka

I’ve never been to Egypt but this is how I imagine it tastes…….Dukka is a ground blend of spices and nuts and is eaten in Egypt as a pre-dinner nibble with bread and oil. The idea is to dip chunks of bread into some good quality peppery extra virgin olive oil then dunk greedily into the dry spice mix and gobble in one! However, I also add it to salads and roasted vegetables such as carrots and beets. It can also be used as a dry rub for lamb or to top fresh bread dough before baking.

I first saw this recipe in Hugh’s River Cottage Everyday book and immediately loved it! Hugh we love you but I have adapted the recipe and added some extra flavours of my own which I think go nicely. As we found out this sunny summer weekend, this nibble goes down a bit too well with a chilled glass of pinot and some jovial company….

  • A handful of hazelnuts OR a large handful of chopped roasted hazelnuts
  • 1 tbsp cumin seeds
  • 1 tbsp coriander seeds
  • 1 tbsp fennel seeds
  • 1 tbsp fenugreek seeds
  • 1 tbsp sesame seeds
  • ½ tsp dried chilli flakes
  • ½ tsp sea salt
  • Small handful shredded mint leaves
  1. Toast the hazelnuts in a hot oven for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and roll them in between a tea towel to remove the skins. Add to a pestle and mortar and crush coarsely or chop into small pieces
  2. Toast the seeds spices in a dry frying pan until fragrant and they just begin to crackle. Add the to the nuts in the pestle and mortar along with the chilli flakes and salt. Grind coarsely
  3. Shred some fresh mint and stir into the spices.
  4. Enjoy with oil and bread for dipping

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Roasted Carrot and Avocado Salad

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Roasted Carrot and Avocado Salad

Today the sun made a rare and facetious appearance in this so-called summer season we seem to be laden with this year. So naturally as Brits, we grabbed the opportunity to have a barbie. My most inspiring idol in the food industry, Jamie Oliver, has been the backbone of my passion for food and cooking ever since receiving a copy of Jamie at Home when I was a teenager. The titled spine of this book, after many years of use, is holding tightly (but dare I say unsuccessfully) to the binding of the splattered cover and greasy pages. This book is a staple in my assembly of cookbooks and always makes an appearance especially in the summer sunshine. This tasty and delicious little salad is therefore courtesy of my mate Jamie (I wish) which went down guilt free with our charred meat and roasted beets and goats cheese.

  • 500g small carrots (mixed varieties if available)
  • 2 tsp cumin seeds
  • 1 tsp crushed dried chillies
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 garlic cloves, peeled
  • 4 thyme sprigs, leave picked
  • Red wine vinegar
  • 1 orange, halved
  • 1 lemon, halved
  • 2 ripe avocados
  • 4 x 1cm thick ciabatta/sourdough slices, toasted
  • 2 handfuls of mixed salad leaves
  • 1 punnet cress
  • 4 tbsp mixed seeds
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Parboil the carrots whole, in salted water for about 10 minutes. Drain and place into a deep roasting tin
  2. While the carrots are boiling, grind the cumin seeds, chillies and salt and pepper in a pestle and mortar. Add the garlic and thyme and smash to a paste. Add a swig of oil and a splash of red wine vinegar.
  3. While the carrots are still warm in the tin, cover with the this paste. Place the halved orange and lemon cut side down in the tin and roast the carrots for 30 minutes.
  4. While the carrots are roasting, toast the bread slices. Tear into pieces and add to the sliced avocados on a serving plate. Add the salad leaves and cress and toss.
  5. When the carrots are ready, remove from the oven and, using tongs, squeeze the juice from the lemon and orange into a jug and add an equal amount of oil and a swig of red wine vinegar and season.
  6. Add the carrots (along with the spices and marinade left in the roasting pan) to the bread and salad mix. Drizzle with the lemony dressing and scatter with toasted seeds. Serve!image