Renghan Lothiu

I don't know about you, but a while ago when I was watching Gordon Ramsay's Best Restaurant series, I was cheering on tiny vegetarian family restaurant Prashad.

I knew that they had a cookbook out, but I have so many cookbooks it's sometimes hard to justify buying new ones, especially big beautiful (and expensive) hardbacks. So I was super happy to find their latest cookbook, Prashad at Home, in my local library.

I might have mentioned before what a fan of eggplant I am, so I was intrigued by a dish I found in the book for spiced chickpea flour coated fried eggplant slices. Tonight I made the dish, named Renghan Lothiu, for dinner.

First the eggplant slices are soaked in water with one teaspoon of salt. Then while the oil heats in the pan, the chickpea flour is mixed with chili powder, salt, turmeric, cumin seeds, asafoetida, ground coriander and ground cumin. Then the eggplant slices are coated in the flour mixture and fried in the oil, turning regularly to cook evenly. I think my burner plates may be too hot, as many of my slices burned a little despite my turning the heat down lower. I'd recommend a medium heat.

I served these with some white rice and mango chutney. They were spicy and crunchy and the eggplant had cooked perfectly in the centre, to a gooey soft texture. Yum!

What are your favourite eggplant dishes? 😊

Yummy tom yum and savoury samosas

This weekend I was out with a friend and we had some vegetarian tom yum soup from an Asian noodle place and it was delicious, so I decided to try making it myself. What could be more warming and happy than spicy soup in cold weather?

I didn't manage to get the taste exactly like I remembered it, but it was still pretty tasty! I used this recipe and substituted what veggies I had, which were carrots, red pepper and bok choi, and some chick'n pieces. I also added some vegetarian fish sauce in place of half the soy sauce, and a couple of tablespoons more lime juice because I like it sour. :-)

Earlier this weekend I also made some sweet potato curry samosas to freeze for my bento lunches. I found this great simple recipe and substituted sweet potatoes because that's what I had on hand. I also added some peas, corn and carrots. The pastry was relatively easy and they turned out delicious! Definitely making again, and may adapt for potato pierogies. I had some in my bento lunch today (pictured below).

The best foods for warming the soul in Melbourne pre-winter!

Week 7: Pumpkin Tomato Curry and Chandra Malai Kofta

Pumpkin curry

This was a surprisingly easy recipe from a random Penguin curry book I have, that I discovered when flipping through my cookbooks for something to do with the Pumpkin I had.

Oh man, I wish I could transmit scent through this blog because it smelled amazing, with just the Pumpkin, vegan butter and Cumin seeds. Mmm.

Quick, easy and delicious, this is going to be one of my new staples, along with the chickpea curry I love. The only ingredients in this really are Pumpkin, ghee, Cumin seeds, onion, ginger, garlic, tomatoes, turmeric and Chili. I also added amchoor powder because I had it and thought it might add to the flavour.

I was craving the Pumpkin Lakhnawi from my favourite Indian takeaway place and this really hit the spot.

Malai Kofta

This was actually a lot easier than I'd thought, providing you remember to soak the nuts or as Isa says "always be soaking"! Which I am not, but luckily I did remember.

I like that this is made mostly from ingredients I usually have on hand (except Panko Crumbs). :-)

The kofta mixture came out a little too wet, so I added some more Panko Crumbs, but then it didn't hold together super well when frying (side note: I am always frying with Coconut oil from now on. Yum.), maybe because I tried to chop the Zucchini instead of shredding it finely due to not being able to locate my grater. Oh well.

The sauce was super thick and creamy and amazing. If anything, maybe slightly too rich, but so worth the time put in. It would be equally as good just poured over some steamed veggies. Definitely making again!

Time for food porn photos: