This is number one in an occasional series dedicated to using up half-opened and often forgotten packets of dry goods from the back of, for the sake of this blog, we’ll grandly call the larder. First up the cheap, nutritious, humble, and ever dependable chickpea. The convenience and ready availability of the tinned variety has meant its shrivelled cousins have …
Yoghurt
Braised aubergine with yoghurt dressing – Banjaan borani
Having acquired a taste for lockdown travel we thought we’d take a relaxing last-minute weekend break to Afghanistan. Along with the Speedos, flip flops and factor 50, we packed Parwana – Recipes and stories from an Afgan kitchen – the latest addition to the culinary wing of the Yumblog library. Banjaan borani is the first recipe taken from this book, …
A celebration of Europe #25 – Greece
Sorry Greece, we didn’t forget you, just somewhere along the journey we forgot to write you up. And to add a dash of insult to injury, for authenticity we consulted that Athens-born Hellenic super chef, Jamie Oliver. Asos, Greece.
Kefir
‘So what precisely is kefir?’ I don’t hear you ask. Well according to the top boffins here at Laboratoires Yumblog, kefir is a scientifically proven magic drink packed full of friendly bacteria so affable they’ll transform your stomach into a fragrant wonderland of probiotic loveliness. ‘Hmm, sounds interesting’ you quizzically reply, ‘but by what devilish witchcraft does one contrive this …
Chana masala (chickpea curry)
Consider the humble chickpea. Nutritious, ubiquitous, tasty, cheap, and as versatile as a 46-piece socket set. It can be stir-fried, casseroled, tagined, enstewed, devilled, saladated, hummouserised, soupified, and in this case, masalaed. If you’re contemplating doing something interesting with a tin of chickpeas this weekend, we here at Yumblog Villas urge you to give this a go.
Baked aubergine with tahini yoghurt and coriander dressing
We have been doubly blessed since we moved here to sunny Brighton, for not only do we now have casual access to a Waitrose, but a mere 20 strides away on the opposite side of the street is the Taj grocer, a large independently owned store offering a cornucopia of (eastern) international ingredients the likes of which we’ve not seen …
Strained yoghurt (labneh #2)
Like the yoghurt, this is our second posting for Labneh and also like the yoghurt this uses a simpler Valentine Warner-inspired process.
Yoghurt #2
It was way back in May 2009 when we first wrote a post on homemade yoghurt – that was 218 miles, 4 houses, 2 floods and one small child ago. I am ashamed to say the whole knit-your-own yoghurt thing was a short lived fad due no doubt to this early technique requiring thermometers, sterilised jars, a Bunsen burner and …
Flat bread
There are as many varieties of flat breads as there are varieties of Heinz products, or indeed bi-pedal humanoid aliens living amongst us – 57*. I can’t vouch for all of them, but this particular variant is tried, tested, easy to make, and very tasty. We laced ours with cumin although you could of course flavour yours with whatever spice …
Calpis
As a rule I tend to avoid drinks with the suffix pis, but this sounded so intriguing I had to give it a try.