Curried Cauliflower with Chickpeas and Tomatoes

Every week I got to my local farmer's market, and pick up food for the week.  Greens, eggs, bread, apples, whatever.  But there are plenty of things I stroll on past, like the homemade dips, mini pies, and piles of cauliflower.

You know how if you see the same thing hundreds of times, even if you don't really like it, you start to think about it?  Well, that must have been what happened, because last week I suddenly thought "we need to buy one of these heads of cauliflower and see if we can make something with it."  Naturally, I didn't go for the white cauliflower, I had to get the purple kind (which is apparently high in anthocyanins and their cancer-fighting powers) because it looked more weird.  I found an old recipe I have kept in reserve until I found myself with a head of the stuff for whatever reason, and filled in the rest of the ingredients.

This dish was delicious, and had us coming back for more.  I think it was from one of Tyler Florence's cookbooks since I found the identical recipe on one of his pages, but I couldn't identify the scanned page.  Slightly spicy, filling, nice mixture of texture, and velvety from the reduced tomato sauce melding with the ghee - an Indian clarified butter.

Once again, I implore you to use dried chickpeas with this dish as opposed to canned.  Cheaper, better, and more healthy, these are far superior and only require minimal extra effort and probably an extra hour (or 13 if you pre-soak) of prep time.

The dish comes together quickly, and only requires a single pot - I reused the one from boiling the soaked chickpeas.  We are new converts to cauliflower, so expect more recipes using it soon.

Chickpea, Sausage, and Kale Pasta

I was skeptical of this dish at first - it seemed like it might be chalky or dry given the chickpeas mixed with pasta.  But using dried chickpeas instead of canned gives this a wealth of surprisingly fresh flavor, and the mixture of cheese and a snap of lemon juice really gives this dish a lot of energy to complement the inherent deliciousness that is spicy Italian sausage.  I felt like I had done something productive with my night after eating this, and didn't slip into the usual food coma.

Digging around online, I found a very similar recipe to this one from Martha Stewart by Mark Bittman, who instead of Italian sausage uses chorizo, and instead of pasta uses bread crumbs.  He cooks the chickpeas for a more significant amount of time, more like 10 minutes instead of 3.  I might try this variant next time, plus this dish would probably be equally delicious just substituting chorizo for Italian sausage.

Let me implore you to use dried chickpeas in this dish.  Canned chickpeas taste like a whole lot of nothing now that we've tried both fresh and dried, which are staggeringly close to each other in flavor after the dried peas have been soaked overnight.  They're cheaper than canned, they're easy to find almost anywhere (check the latin or Indian section of your store), they have less salt, and they're generally superior.  At the very least, buy a test bag and soak a few overnight, then eat them raw.  If you don't switch over after eating one, I will be amazed.

Moroccan Lamb and Chickpea Stew

I've been on a chickpea (garbanzo) kick recently, since they're high in protein and flavor, and low in fat and cost.  But I can't quite kick the habit of including a delicious meat with the chickpeas yet, so those tasty legumes are still more of an additive than a replacement.  But whether you're on the garbanzo wagon or not, this stew was incredibly hearty and delicious despite being a fairly low-fat dish, and it came together easily.

Invest in a good dutch oven to make this, and definitely start with dried chickpeas, not canned.  There's a huge difference in flavor.  And read the directions thoroughly before you start - you need to soak the chickpeas overnight and then boil them for an hour, and since the rest of the dish comes together very quickly, that needs to be done pretty much first thing.

Moroccan-Style Lamb and Chickpeas
Cooking Light, December 2011

Yield: Serves 4 (serving size: 1 1/4 cups)

• 1 pound lean ground lamb
• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 cups vertically sliced onion
• 1/2 cup (1/4-inch) diagonally cut carrot
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 2 cups fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 1/2 tablespoons grated lemon rind
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup dried chickpeas, soaked overnight OR 1 (15 1/2-ounce can) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• plain yogurt, to garnish

The day before, soak your chickpeas in a bowl of water and cover.  Approximately 1/2 cup of dried chickpeas will swell up to the same amount you'd find in a 15-oz can.  Before cooking, drain and rinse the chickpeas, and place in a pot of boiling, lightly salted water for an hour.  Drain, rinse, and have at the ready while you're getting the rest of this together.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Add lamb to pan and cook for 6 minutes, stirring to crumble.  Remove the lamb from pan with a slotted spoon, and discard the drippings. Add the olive oil to the pan and swirl to coat.  Add onion and carrot to pan and sauté 4 minutes.  Add cumin, cinnamon, coriander, and pepper; sauté 30 seconds, stirring constantly.  Add reserved lamb, broth, and next 5 ingredients (through chickpeas); bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, and simmer 4 minutes or until mixture thickens.  Remove from heat.

Saute the meat, then add the vegetables, then aromatics for 30 seconds, then everything else.  Pretty easy.

You don't cook this for very long - it's not a full braise, since the meat starts off ground and doesn't benefit from long cooking times.  Start to finish is less than 20 minutes after the chickpeas are ready.

Just before serving, stir in cilantro and lemon juice.  Garnish with a spoon of plain yogurt, and serve over long-grain rice.  In the picture we used a saffron-infused rice, which was delicious here, but you could probably manage basmati or just plain ol' white rice.

Moroccan Chickpea Stew

In a bizarre fit of vegetarianism, I decided to make a chickpea stew the other day.  I had something similar at a French bistro, and it was so good that I decided to try it at home.  The beauty was that I had most of the ingredients in my pantry already, so I just had to buy some yogurt (which makes the dish, so don't skip it).

Moroccan cooking is heavily influenced by the French, so that's why I've added thyme to my recipe.  You won't see it in the original pictures, but I added it to the leftovers the next day and reheated on the stove, and it really brought a sweet, perfumed flavor to the dish that elevated it from a somewhat bland stew to something that seemed more, well, global.  If you really want to get crazy, the advice I got yesterday was to add za'atar, an Arab spice blend containing sesame seeds, sumac, thyme, salt, and other spices.  You can also cook this in a tagine if you're lucky enough to have one.

Moroccan Chickpea Stew, served over rice and garnished with greek yogurt

Moroccan Chickpea Stew

Adapted from Cooking Light

• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 cup diced yellow onion (about 1 medium)
• 1 cup diced carrot (about 1 large)
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 jalapeño pepper, minced, seeds mostly removed
• 1 1/2 cups cubed waxy potato such as Yukon gold, peeled, about 1 large
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 tsp fresh thyme, minced, or 1/2 tsp za'atar seasoning (optional)
• 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained, or 4-5 fresh tomatoes, peeled
• 1 (15 1/2-ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
• 1 (14-ounce) can vegetable broth
• 3 cups hot cooked rice or couscous
• 1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt, preferably greek

The setup.  You can use either canned chickpeas or the dried kind, but you'll need to cook them extra if you choose the latter.  FYI, I used a russet and was careful with the cooking time, but Yukon gold is preferred.

I should have used canned tomatoes, but I liked using my heirlooms from my garden.  If you're using whole though, peeling them would be preferable.  See my guide on that here and here.

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add onion, carrot, garlic, and jalapeño to pan; sauté 6 minutes or until tender.  You can brown these slightly, but make sure not to burn anything.

Saute the more hearty vegetables first

Stir in the potato and next 8 ingredients (through broth).  Bring to a boil.  Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes or until potato is tender.  If you use waxy potatoes like Yukon golds, you have some safety margin on overcooking.  If you use russets though, the starch will dissolve and your potato will turn to mush if you go too long.  Just something to be aware of.

Once you've sauteed the stronger vegetables, add the quick cooking potato, tomato, and chickpeas, along with the broth and spices.

The finished stew.  Everything cooks down quickly, so it's a very fast dish.

To serve, plate over rice or couscous.  A nice presentation I had once was to serve in a roasted eggplant half, which is then placed on a bed of couscous.  Top with yogurt and perhaps minced cilantro.