Tunisian Chickpeas

Obviously, I added LOTS more coriander, and so should you. In photography, as in diamonds, less is more, darling, less is more.

Once, a long time ago, I went to Tunisia. It was awful; I hated it.

That may not be the best way into this, but it cannot be helped. I just have to start from where I have to start from and we'll get there eventually.

We had bad weather. The food was horrendous. I mean literally awful, appalling slop. Limp salads, dry cakes. Tacky buffet style dining. But I was on a package holiday, so I expected that. I learned from it too. No more package tours for me.

There was one time, when we took a trip on the train (which was quite the experience, let me tell you) to Tunis, that I thought it would get better. We found this place, I forget the name (trying to forget the whole day actually, we almost got kidnapped. I'm not even lying!), in a little back street, and they gave us the most amazing chickpea stew on a bed of couscous. It was hot with the flavours of harissa, thick with tomato pulp, and you have no idea how much we loved it. I still say we ate badly on the whole though, because even this lovely place went and ruined it by bringing us flan to eat for pudding.

Eaten in the garden, after being staged.

NEVER bring me flan for pudding (I mean the crème caramel-type thing, in case you aren't sure.); it really upsets me. Food with that texture is wrong on so many levels, and I have spent too much of my time on this planet gulping it down politely and trying hard not to be sick. I feel the same way about chawan mushi, but thanks be, they don't eat that in North Africa.

Anyway, I forgot about that stew until today when I made the most amazing, approximated version (meaning not authentic!) of it from the contents of my almost bare cupboards (Mr. P needs to go shopping - you cannot make lunch from chocolate chips and vanilla alone). I don't normally put 'throw togethers' on here (unless you count these), but I'm making this again for sure. It's already helped to ease the painful memories of that foul flan - I followed this with a cherry topped, spiced chocolate cupcake.

I think I might have some more lunch for dinner.

(Disclaimer: I have nothing against Tunisia - I just had a bad experience. I'm going to go back one day. Promise.)

Tunisian Chickpeas

You will need:

1 x 400g tin chickpeas, drained
1 onion
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes (mine had herbs in; add some garlic if yours are plain)
1 tsp harissa
fresh coriander

1. Drain the chickpeas. Chop the onion and fry gently in the oil with the coriander seeds and cumin for about 5 minutes until softened.
2. Add the drained chickpeas, stir, then add the tomatoes and harissa.
3. Cook for 5 more minutes, then stir though lots of chopped coriander and garnish with more.
4. Serve with couscous or rice (if like me, you're all out of the former!).

Pie of the Month - March

You never get nice photos if you just photograph your dinner. But we have a rule here not to waste anything, so pies get baked for dinner, and not at four o'clock when the light is good.

And we're back with the series you all wish he'd never started!

This month, I have once again left everything until the last minute, but you can't be mad and point waggly fingers at me, because I am only late posting this. I made it weeks ago! And the good news is that you could make these pies in a flash anyway, so if even I did leave it until the very last second, which I didn't, it still would have been OK. More than OK. Delicious.

As you've probably already worked out from the (awful) photos, this month, we are bound for Pot Pie Town.

I should say up front that I never would have made pot pies if it weren't for the fact that Lucy and Rish gave us pot pie pie pots as a house warming gift. I don't know if you can make it out in the photos, but they are Le Creuset. I have a complex and difficult to explain relationship with Le Creuset products. I seek them out. I touch them. I admire the myriad of colours they come in (not the orange ones though - surely a case where original is not best), and stare longingly.

Me in the pot. Upside down.

But no matter how desirous I am of the purchase, I never allow myself. Let's face it: they are REALLY expensive. Even the cute little silicon spatulas that say 'Le Creuset' on the handle cost a week's wages. So you can imagine my joy at being the lucky recipient of two blue pie pots. And just for having moved house! I should do that more often. (Obviously that was a joke. I'm not moving ever again, even for Le Creuset. It nearly killed me, it was months ago, and we still have things to unpack.)



Beef brisket was cheap when I was deciding what to fill these little pots with. I guess it always is actually, so don't think these are March-only pies. They are basically pastry topped stew anyway, so you can put whatever you want underneath and I won't mind. Yep. I am giving you free-reign over my pies. Enjoy it.

The pastry itself is puff. The bought kind. I was going to tell you that there's no point making your own, that everybody buys it, and then this happened, literally a day or so after I made my pies. But I still recommend buying your own. It is only shortcrust that you'd be a fool to buy. Homemade not only tastes better, it costs less too. If you're going to buy shortcrust, you may as well just pull a Henry Sugar, and throw twenty pound notes out of the window.

The collar.

Make these. You get enough mixture to make four, and one packet of pastry will do that many tops easily. You could also do just one big pie. Some peas on the side will make it look like you made an effort, except you won't actually have had to.

Beef and Mushroom Pot Pies

You will need:

500g brisket of beef, diced
3 onions
1 carrot
large sprig of rosemary
4 large field mushrooms
salt and pepper
1 can of Guinness, or other stout
1 tbsp flour

bought puff pastry

1. Dice the peeled onions, and cook in a little oil over a medium heat, with a pinch of salt, for about ten minutes. Add the chopped carrot, and cook for five minutes more.
   
2. Add the needles from the rosemary, stir, and add the beef, flour and some more salt and pepper. Then tear up the mushrooms, and add them as well.
3. Pour over the stout, and simmer the mixture for an hour or so over a low heat. You can leave the stew at this point, covered in the fridge, for a day or so.
   
4. Ladle some stew into your pie pots.
5. Roll out the puff pastry, and cut circles to top the pot with (hint: use the lid as a guide!). Also cut a collar of pastry to attach to the pot - this gives the lid something to cling to. We all need that.
6. Bake at 200°C for twenty five minutes, or until the pastry is puffed up, and golden.
   
7. Serve with green peas.
   

Food Memories: Azuki Bean Stew

Some of you reading will know this already, but for those that don't, I have been lucky enough to live abroad several times in my life (I'm not counting Wales, where I live now, although you do cross water when making the journey back to my home town of Manchester, in England, so maybe I'm technically still an ex-pat...). I say lucky and mean lucky, because although there are times when living in a foreign country can make you scream and shout to please be allowed to return to the normaility of wherever it is that you call home, on the whole I think it can be an extremely positive and even life changing experience. And what's more, you get to eat all kinds of food that usually isn't available elsewhere. For clarity, I have lived and studied once in France, and lived, studied and worked in Japan twice. We can talk about the things that made me scream and shout another time (and do let's!), but today I want to talk about food.

It's funny how food and taste memories can remind you of places you have been or people you've met. The first time I was in Japan, I did homestay with a family in Hachioji, Tokyo. My host mother is an amazing cook, and would literally cover the table with different dishes for me to try at dinner time. Every day there was something new to try, and I've said many times how grateful I am to her for making such an effort to show me her country's cuisine. Whenever I taste shiso leaves, or smell sakura-mochi, I remember the evenings we spent eating, drinking tea and talking late into the night. I learned a lot from my host family, but sadly not how to make any of their amazing food. It's not that my host mother wouldn't show me -I just never asked.

Different kinds of beans and sesame seeds on sale in Japan.

When I returned to Japan for work, this time to the Kansai area (much too far to pop round for dinner!), my host mother sent a huge package of food she'd made to my flat. I think she was worried I wouldn't be able to cook for myself. To this day it's one of the most thoughtful gifts anybody has ever given me. Along with a bag of rice, some umeboshi (which she knew I love), packages of home made stew and meat sauce, she'd also packed rice crackers, soy sauce, and confusingly (to me at least), a packet of azuki beans. When I asked her what they were for she said she must have put them in the box by mistake. I thought that was hilarious - mistaken beans - and could just picture her rummaging through her cupboards for things to put in the box. I put the packet on my shelf and forgot about it, because although the beans were beautiful, like shiny little rubies or garnets, I really hadn't a clue what to do with them.

Around this time, I met my friend Katy, and we really hit it off. I lived in an urban area between Osaka and Kobe, and she lived and worked two and a half hours away in Kurodasho, a small village set among sprawling rice paddies and fields. We each thought the other had it better - I lived close to the city and all the convenience that that brings, whereas she had a much larger house, surrounded by lush green. We quickly started a routine of visiting each other on alternate weekends. When she came to my place, we'd eat out at izakayas or noodle bars and sing karaoke all night (and well, I might add. At least on Katy's part!). When I made the journey to see her, she'd usually cook or we would go for okonomiyaki, then sit outside her house by the river drinking beer and talking. (For the record, Katy did have it better - in the Summer we'd see fireflies by the river's edge, and hear the frogs croaking in the rice fields. At my flat, if you went outside, all you got was a view of other people's washing the noise of air conditioners!)

It was Katy who first made this stew, which I think she discovered online, although I can't find the recipe anywhere now - I have it scrawled in my notebook. And for all the lovely food I ate when I was in Japan the second time, it's this relatively simple dish that most reminds me of the whole experience. I ate it all the time; once Katy had made it a few times, I started making it too, and not only used up that bag of azuki beans on the shelf, but had to replace it. From one hour in the kitchen, I would get enough stew for five meals and frequently made a batch on Sunday night to have in my bento at work during the week. I should make clear, it isn't a Japanese recipe at all - it is thick with tomato, warm with paprika, and has parsley dumplings swimming around in it. I don't know who created it (but I do think they were very clever, because I certainly wouldn't ever think to put these flavours together). In Japan, azuki beans are used in sweet foods pretty much exclusively, so my Japanese colleagues were at first surprised that I would make stew with them. But they loved it too, and some took the recipe as well.

I really hope you'll give it a try! It's a chunky, fresh-tasting stew of mushrooms, beans and chopped vegetables. But I do think there are a few important rules to follow if you are to get it right, and these are what they are:

• Try and use Japanese azuki beans (try your local oriental supermarket); the best ones come from Hokkaido. I've tried using beans from China and I think they taste different.
• Use shimeji mushrooms, which are also Japanese. I have seen these in Waitrose supermarkets, and I bought the ones in the photo from Cardiff Market (at the stall opposite the fishmonger at the front, if anybody is a local). They have a lovely texture, and buttery flavour (or so I think). Obviously, you can use button mushrooms too.
• Get everything ready before you start cooking! This doesn't take long, but you don't want to be trying to stir and chop at the same time. Unless you are female and can multi-task.

Azuki Bean Stew

You will need:

100g azuki beans, soaked overnight
50g butter
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, sliced
3 thin leeks, washed and sliced
1 carrot, diced
200g mushrooms, preferably shimeji
1 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp flour
300ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp tomato purée
400g tin chopped tomatoes
salt and pepper
chopped fresh parsley

100g flour
25g butter
2 tbsp dried parsley
3 tbsp milk

1. Simmer the soaked beans until soft. This should take around 40 minutes, but depends how old your beans are.
2. In a large pan, cook the onion in the butter until soft, then add the garlic, leeks, carrot and mushrooms. Cook gently for 5 minutes.
3. Season, and stir in the flour and paprika. Cook for another minute.
4. Add the stock, soy sauce, tomato paste and tinned tomatoes. Bring to the boil, and simmer gently for ten minutes.
5. Make the dumplings; rub the butter into the flour until it resembles bread crumbs, then add the parsley. Add milk to bind, and knead to form a soft dough. Form into 8-10 dumplings.
6. Add the cooked beans to the stew. Return to the boil, then add the dumplings, cover and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally to stop the stew from sticking to the pan (it will be thick by this point).
7. Check for seasoning, and serve garnished with fresh parsley.