Pumpkin Soup

My cubiscremesuppe [recipe to follow]

Cooking With Friends

Maybe the most important ingredient of all.....

Bread

Good bread is an essential. These are from Taborini and Multari in Nice

Salad

Fresh, mainly organic salad

Risotto Aux Fleurs de Courgettes

The basic recipe is as for Asparagus Risotto. Details to come

Venky's Recipes

My dear friend Venky is a consummate cook and has shown me several of his basic Indian recipes, for which I am most grateful.

Some of them appear here
Venky's Rasam
Venky's Pepper Rasam
Venky's Vegetable Sambar
Venky's Potato Podimas
Venky's Baby Potato Curry

I shall add more in time!

A Venky Dinner!

Venky's Rasam

Cook 1/4 cup mung or tuvar dal well

Add 1/4 teaspoon tamarind paste, tomatoes, two spoons chili powder, 1/2 teaspoon tumeric, salt, asfoetida, fresh coriander
Cook well

Add four cups water.

When it comes to the boil, add fried mustard seed

Venky's Potato Podimas

Boil potatoes in water until cooked.
Peel the skin and mash

Fry mustard seeds and urid dal with three red chillies in a pan

Add fresh chopped ginger and salt

Mix the mashed potatoes with this podimas

Venky's Pepper Rasam

For this soup, cook
1/4 teaspoon of tumeric powder
2 spoons black pepper powder
and salt in one glass of water.

Add fried mustard seeds and Jeera.

Add three cups of water and bring to the boil.

On boilng, the soup will be ready

Venky's Vegetable Sambar

Cook three/four cups of dal (tuvar or mung) until it becomes mashed

Take any of the following vegetables (but others are also good)

Zucchini
Broccoli
Pumpkin
Drumstick

In two cups of water cook tamarind paste (one teaspoon) along with tumeric powder (half teaspoon), sambar powder (4 teaspoons), chilli powder (3 teaspoons) and coriander powder (2 teaspoons), chopped vegetables and salt.

When the vegetables are well cooked, mix the dal with the vegetables, add dessicated coconut (4 teaspoons), mix and bring to the boil.

When boiling, add asfoetida (half teaspoon) on top. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Switch off and add fried mustard seeds and methi.

Venky's Baby Potato Curry

Fry mustard seeds with urid dal and add small pieces of fresh ginger
After three minutes add three tomatoes and make a puree. Salt

Add baby potatoes to the puree and half a glass of water

Allow to cook over a low heat until ready

Sesame Ginger Carrots

3 tablespoons of oil (or less)
Pinch of hing (asafetida) optional
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger or1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3 cups (360 g) thinly sliced carrots (slice on the diagonal)
1/4 cup (35 g) sesame seeds, salt

Melt the oil in a wok or large skillet. Add the hing and saute over low heat for 30 seconds, until fragrant.
Add the ginger and carrots and saute over low heat stirring frequently, until the carrots start to become tender.
Add the sesame seeds and a sprinkling of salt and continue sauteing, stirring constantly until carrots are tender.

Variation
Replace the carrots with green beans or snap peas.
Quinoa
1 cup of quinoa and 2 cups of water and cook for about 15 minutes.
You can put on some toasted sesame oil and a little bit of Kikkoman soya sauce and eat it with tofu or steamed vegetables etc.

Asparagus Risotto

Risottos are among my favourite dishes. They are simple and delicious; a meal in themselves. But they are not so easy to make well, and so I add mine to the many recipes which one finds in cookbooks. This is based on asparagus, but the basic recipe is the same for almost all risottos.

A bunch of green asparagus
A carrot
Some bay leaves
Some peppercorns
A vegetable stock cube
Salt is usually unnecessary as the stock cube is salty.

2 -3 pints of water
Onion
Butter
Olive oil
Arborio or caranoli rice
Parmesan cheese

Add the carrot, cut into pieces, the bay leaves, some peppercorns and the stock cube to the water in a medium-sized pan, cover and set to boil. (If you have asparagus stems already chopped up from another dish, add them as well).

Trim the asparagus by chopping off the woody stems that will never be edible however much you cook them and put them in the stockpot. Then cut off the tips and reserve them, as they will need least cooking. Put the remaining middle part of the asparagus in a sieve and cook them in the stock pot. The sieve allows you to remove them after cooking without picking all the pieces out singly. When they are cooked through, put them to keep warm in the oven. Also cook the tips for a few minutes the same way, being careful not to overcook them as they should remain al dente even after being added to rice in the final stages of the risotto

Grate sufficient parmesan cheese to half-fill the bottom of a soup bowl.

Chop the onions and fry them in olive oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan until slightly brown.

Add a cupful of rice (enough for 2/3 people) and coat well with the hot oil. Cook for three minutes, adding some butter (which will foam) and stir to avoid burning.

Add a ladleful of the stock and continue to stir the rice/onion mixture until the stock is absorbed and then continue to add the stock by the ladleful every time the rice appears to have absorbed the previous one.

Add the reserved asparagus and the tips after about twenty minutes. Add most of the parmesan and continue to stir. Continue adding the stock until the rice is cooked but not completely soft and the risotto almost runny, not solid. Add a final dob of butter to glisten the risotto and the remainder of the parmesan to taste. The cooking will have taken about twenty minutes from the time the rice went in.

Serve with lots of ground black pepper and a green salad.

NB Risottos are usually made with garlic as well as onion. However, garlic doesn't go with asparagus.

Salad d'Artichaut Cru

This simple salad is one of the signature dishes of La Petit Maison, the famous Nice restaurant. It has always been a favourite of mine as the subtle crunchiness of the chopped artichoke is perfectly matched by the rich nutty flavour of the shaved parmesan cheese.

Find a 'hand' of baby blue artichokes in the market. (Not the larger artichokes which are boiled for the stems of the leaves and the 'heart'). They are not easy to find outside French farm markets; they are rarely seen in London, for instance.

Trim off all the leaves until you reach the stem, and chop it off. Slice it roughly, being careful only to keep the edible parts.
Arrange the chopped pieces on a plate with slices of parmesan cheese and some rough grains of sea salt. A simple vinaigrette can be sprinkled over it for taste.

You can mix it with a green salad if you like (as in the photo)

Note that you can keep all the unused parts of the artichokes and boil them up in a saucepan to make stock for an asparagus risotto or a soup - or both!

A World Soup

I had some lovely green asparagus from the market in Nice which I made into a risotto, using all the tough inedible stalks in the stock (see Asparagus Risotto). After making the risotto, some of the stock remained to which I added swiss chard (blette in France and mangold in England) and whatever other vegetables I had in the kitchen, viz:

Vegetables
Asparagus
Swiss chard
Artichoke leaves
Sprouted mung beans
Carrot
Onion
Fennel

Most importantly, I added these herbs and spices

Garam masala
Tumeric
Cummin
Ginger
Bay leaf
Garlic
Oregano
Coriander leaves
Parsley

and while cooking, some oatmeal or quinoa (for body)

An Indian Kichadi

My favourite Indian dish is a simple kichadi. It is totally sattvic and delicious

This is how you make it:

1/2 cup basmati rice  
1/4 cup split mung dal

2 tablespoons ghee or sunflower oil

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon coriander seeds,
1 teaspoon oregano, dried

1/2 teaspoon tumeric

4 to 6 cups water
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
1 sheet of kombu
1 teaspoon fresh ginger root, grated

Wash rice and beans until water is clear.
Warm the oil in a medium saucepan. Add the cumin seeds, bay, coriander and oregano.
Brown slightly, until aromatic (you can smell them).
Stir in tumeric, rice and dal.
Add water, salt, kombu and ginger.

Simmer covered over medium heat until beans and rice are soft - about 50 minutes to 1 hour.

Garnish with fresh chopped coriander leaves. You can serve any vegetables with it: carrots, baby zucchinis etc. The dish in the photo has sesame ginger carrots added.

My Vinaigrette

One of the key sauces for all cold vegetables is a French vinaigrette. This is how I make mine

Take a small bowl and a teaspoon
1/2 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon vinegar (Balsamic, white, red or apple cider to taste)
Salt and pepper

A good olive oil - not strong tasting - or sunflower oil.

You can also add a crushed clove of garlic, if the salad will take it. Don't add garlic for eg asparagus.

Stir the vinegar and mustard together into a paste and then slowly pour in a few drops of oil, stirring constantly.
Continue adding oil as the paste thickens, until you have about 1/4 of the bowl full of a runny vinaigrette.

If the oil won't blend but separates, either keep all the ingredients - and the bowl - in the fridge, or add an icecube
while you are blending.