Fried plantain & Ginger butter beans starter

Starter for 4 people.

Fried plantain & Ginger butter beans serve with flash fried cherry tomato, avocado and a green salad.

Ingredients:

·         250g butter beans  

·         1 garlic clove

·         3 cherry tomatoes

·         30g red onion

·         1 ready to eat avocado

·         Lettuce

·         Handful of fresh coriander

·         10g fresh ginger

·         Dry thyme

·         Salt & Pepper

·         Chilli flakes (optional)

·         Olive oil

·         Plantain

·         1 lime

Method:

Start by draining and rinsing the beans. Set aside. Dice the garlic, onion and 1 cherry tomato. Peel and grate the ginger, then cut in 4 each the other 2 of the cherry tomatoes (you should have 8 tomato wedges altogether).

1) Flash fry the quartered cherry tomatoes: Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil add 1 pinch of salt, thyme and the tomato. Toss fry for 1 minute. Remove from heat and set aside in a bowl for later

Flash fried cherry tomato

2) Cook the beans in ginger: In the same frying pan, add and heat 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add the diced onion and fry for a minute. Add the beans and grated ginger. Stir, add salt and pepper as well as 200ml water then cover to simmer for 20 minutes. This will allow the beans to soften and really absorb the flavours. All the water to evaporate, but to not let the pan dry as we need the bean to be slightly wet.


Ginger butterbeans

3) Fry the plantain: The ideal frying plantain should be uniformly yellow with both end still slightly green. When fried it will still be just sweet enough and firm. A very ripe plantain tends to be too sweet, absorbs a lot of oil and can be very sticky.

So, peel the plantain and cut it as on the picture on the right, about 1cm thick each. A whole plantain should provide about 10-12 slices.

 

Peeled plantain

The plantain can be fried in a chip pan with a lot of oil. If using this option, heat the oil as if for French fires, then drop the plantain pieces in and allow to fry and brown all over or 2 minutes an half.

If you do not have a chip pan, just us a frying pan, and pour in about 200ml of vegetable oil. Allow the oil to really heat up, then carefully place the pieces of plantain in one single layer. Fry each side for 1 minute or minute and a half, then turn over to do the same for the other side. If the the fire is too high, the plantain will burn. Turn down the heat if necessary and continue. If the heat is too low, the plantain will absorb too much oil. Not ideal.

Raw & fried plantain

Whichever method you choose to fry the plantain, once the plantain is fried, remove from oil, place on absorbing tissue and lightly dust with salt.

I served the plantain topped with the ginger butter beans and the flash fried cherry tomato all held with a tooth pick… with an avocado, coriander and chilli flakes salad.

4) Making the green salad: select the greenest leaves of the lettuce, wash them individually under the tap and roughly cut them. Do the same for the handful of fresh coriander.

Mix both in a salad bowl and sprinkle with chilli flakes. Just before serving, drizzle with olive oil and serve with slices of avocado and lime wedges as no vinaigrettes will be needed.

Serve as suggested below.

Voila!

I have done another version yellow plantain and ginger beans before on the blog as mains… see it by clicking this link http://all-vegan.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/red-kidney-beans-cooked-in-garlic-and.html

There are indeed many ways to cook the same ingredients… Celery vas never only made for houmous.

Enjoy!

Fried Tofu salad

Fried Tofu salad

Serves 2 as mains or 4 as a starter 

• 70g wild rocket - washed
• 150g beansprouts – blanched & drained
• 200g tofu - fried in caramelised sugar
• 2 fresh tomatoes - Cut and de-seeded
• 1 Teaspoon of Sesame seeds

For the vinaigrette

• 3 tablespoons mustard oil
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 generous pinch of ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon of caster sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• ½ small red chilli - very finely chopped
• Garlic granules

Prep:

The tofu is sold as a block that will need to be cut and fried. Use the DragonFly pressed tofu as they are much tastier and absorb flavours.

Just cut as in the picture. Dust with salt and ground ginger. In a hot pan, add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil with 1 teaspoon of sugar. Leave the sugar to brown slightly. Then add the tofu stick and swirl to allow the sugar to coat the sticks. Allow 1 minute for each side to crisp before turning them from side to side.

Once that is done, set aside and prepare the other components of the salad.

The vinaigrette. In a small jar with a lid, add: mustard oil, soy sauce, ground ginger, caster sugar, salt, garlic granules, and chilli. Shake well to combine. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Now into a large bowl, add: rocket, sprouts, tomatoes and toss. Add the tofu sticks, sesames seeds drizzle the vinaigrette, serve as suggested & enjoy!

 

No comment!

 

Homemade strawberry jam

 

For a jar of 400 - 500g jam, use:

• 350g fresh strawberries
• 350g sugar
• 350ml water
• 35g fresh ginger

Method:

Peel, chop and blend the ginger in 50ml of water. Sieve thru a tissue paper to remove all the remains of the roots and collate just the pure essence.

Do not throw away that waste as it could be dried and used for tea or even as seasoning.

Now remove the green bit of the individual strawberries, cut them in half and rinse.

 

From this...

In a deep sauce pan, place the strawberries, sugar, water and ginger essence. Stew at medium heat for 15-20 minutes. Don’t forget to stir from time to time until the mix starts to become slightly sticky on the spatula.
 

To this... this was my test

I like my jam with bits in it. If is not the case for you, try to mash to strawberries as you stir them.

To make sure that your jam is ready, just make some drops on a clean plate and if the jam drops (like water drops) stand, that means your jam is ready and that a lot of the water has evaporated.

 
If the drops are runny during the test, leave the pot on heat and keep stirring until you get the right consistency.



To yummmmm! no unknown ingredients.

Once you have mastered the strawberry jam, you can make any type of jam. Don’t be afraid, just go for it. I have spiced mine with a bit of ginger as I love ginger. If you like spiced desserts, try and make your jams with you preferred spice. How about chillies? That could work?!

Just have fun and do let me know what you think.

Bon appetite!

2 tones banana cake Chilli -choco and ginger

So, yesterday my colleague left earlier because she wasn't feeling well then she sent me a message letting me know that she’d gone home, but that I could take the banana on her desk. Which I did. I didn’t fancy eating it there and then and by the time I got home it was slightly mushy. I didn’t want to throw it a way and that’s how I decided to bake this treat.

Most ingredients for this dessert where already in my larder so I didn’t need to go shopping.

All the ingredients

Ingredients for the cake:

·         1 ripe banana (about 100g)

·         100g flour

·         75g dairy free butter

·         25g sugar

·         A pinch of salt

·         1 teaspoon chilli flakes

·         1 teaspoon of dark coco powder

·         1/2teaspoon baking powder

·         75ml of water (or rice milk)

·         4 ramekins

Ingredients for the syrup:

·         25g fresh ginger

·         50g sugar

Method

Preheat the oven at 200C before starting.

In a blender, place the peeled banana and melted butter, salt, sugar and 75ml water. Blend. Transfer all into a mixing bowl. Sieve in the flour and baking powder. Mix well until you obtain a lump less batter.

Ramekin ready for the oven

Now, split the batter in two bowls. In one half, incorporate the chilli flakes and in the other, add the coco powder. Now you’ve got a chilli banana batter and a coco banana cake.

Butter the ramekins that you are going to use for the baking. On the bottom of each ramekin, pour the chocolate cake mix, then on the top gently place the chilli mix. By doing this gently, the cake mixes will remain separated in the ramekin.

Now place the ramekin on the tray on the centre of the oven and leave to bake for 25 minutes at 200C.

Meanwhile, peel chop and blend the ginger with 25ml water. Sieve the mix in a sieve lined with paper towel to obtain a clear ginger essence.

The syrup... still bubbling

Do not throw away what you have recuperated in the paper towel as it could be used in

soups or stir fries.

Those are chilli flakes

Back to our syrup. In a milk pan, melt 50g of sugar until it look clear and golden. This should take 2 minutes. Now add the ginger essence in the pan slowly stir and try now to burn yourself. The content of the pan will froth very much. Just keep an eye on it and pull it away from the stove from time to time. Slowly stir the content of the pan until the water has evaporated and all that is left is a ginger flavoured syrup. This should take 5 minutes in total from the moment you add the ginger essence onto the sugar. Remove the syrup from the pan and place it in a serving dish.

When the cake is ready, allow 5 minutes to cool down then serve by cutting each individual cake and covering them with the syrup.

Serving suggestion

This dessert is hot as in chilli hot literally but it surprising in flavors.

Let me know what you think of it. Tweet @hjulienne

Savoury oat bran biscuits

Serving suggestion

 

6 ingredients needed

To make the savoury biscuits, you will need:

• 1 glass of rice milk
• 1 glass of oat bran
• 2 table spoons of sunflour oil
• 1 tea spoon of grated ginger
• ½ tea spoon of rosemary
• 1/ 2 tea spoon of salt

Method:

1 - in a mixing bowl, pour your oatbran and the milk. Mix well and leave it for 20 minutes for the bran to absorb the milk. After, add in the ginger, rosemary, salt & 1 table spoon of oil. Mix all well.

2 - Preheat the oven at 175 degrees for 10 minutes. In a ceramic baking dish, spray the rest of vegetable oil. Then, use a tea spoon to form your biscuits as you wish. With the

proportions above, you should obtain 18 to 22 small biscuits.

Read to bake savoury oats biscuits

3 - Put in the oven to cook for 40 minutes at 175 degrees.

Once the time is up, get the biscuits out and lay them on a separate plate to cool.

 

It is ready. You can eat it alone or served with a dip. In the picture above, it is served with a home made tomato dip. Watch out for the recipe of the dip soon on the blog.

Note: unlike normal flour, oat doesn’t rise when cooking. it is slightly compact and gummy. It therefore needs longer to cook and allow the centre of the biscuit to dry completely. Feel free to replace the ginger or rosemary with your preferred spices. 

This treat is not only great in the mouth but it is made of all natural stuff with no E numbers... get the kids involved. They will love it.
Hope you enjoyed the cookies last week. Enjoy!

 

Fresh from the oven... Yummy!

 

 

Vegan red fruits crumble with dairy free dble cream

Serving Suggestion

 Red Fruits crumble for 6

•  3 apples
• 400grs of red fruits
• 50grs of ground almond
• 100 of plan flour
• 100grs sugar granules
• 100grs of dairy free butter
• 1teaspoon of very finely grated ginger

Crumble ingredients

1- Peel, core and cut the apples then cook them for 10 minutes in 25grs of butter, grated ginger and 25grs of sugar. This process will soften the apples. Now add the unfrozen red fruits and stir for another 2 minutes then sieve to recuperate the jus.

2 - Pour all the now ginger flavoured fruits in a buttered crumble dish. Refrigerate the jus recuperated.

3- Preheat the oven at 180C then start mixing the crumble;

4- For the Crumble mix, place in a bowl the remaining 75g of butter, 100 g of flour, 75 grs sugar and ground almond plus pinch of salt.

Ready for baking

5- Roughly mix until it look like wet sand with small lumps. With your hand, pour the mix on top of the fruits mix as if you were softly crumbling something over the fruits. Do not press the flour or it will form a lump just keep it light and shake the dish from side to side so the crumble is evenly distributed in the dish…

6- Put the dish in the oven and cook for 40 minutes at 180C.

Serve hot or cold with Alpro cream or a Dairy free ice-cream. You could also use the jus recuperated on step 2.

Enjoy... In moderation.

Nash

 

Red Kidney beans cooked in Garlic and Ginger

for 2 potions

This dish is one of the simpliest you will find on this blog. It is simple quick and tasty.

Ingredients:

Dry kidney beans

1. 1 tin of kidney beans
2. 3 garlic cloves
3. ½ small onion
4. ½ tea spoon of fresh grated ginger
5. 3 tablespoons of Olive oil
6. 1 barely ripen plantain
7. Spring of thyme
8.  ½ vegetable cube
9. Salt and pepper

If you prefer your beans slightly firm, I’d recommend that you use dried kidney beans and boil it in salt water for 30 mins.

Preparation:

Rinse the kidney beans, set aside.
Peel and chop garlic & onion.
Cut the plantain in half and cover with water in a deep pan.

Method:

Yellow plantain

Bring the plantain to boil for about 20 minutes, remove the skin, scrape the spongy looking layer on the plantain, rinse and set aside in a bowl with boiling water.

While the plantain is boiling, Fry the chopped onion in a very hot pan with 3 table spoons of olive oil and a spring of thyme. Fry for 2 minutes.

Add in the ginger and crushed garlic, then add the kidney beans, salt, pepper and crushed half of stock cube.

Stir fry for 2 minutes then add 50ml of water mix, cover and let the water reduce on medium heat for 5 minutes so the beans will absorb the seasoning. Do not let the water dry completely as this dish needs moisture.

It is ready to serve.
This dish isn’t great reheated. Since it takes about 10-15 to get the beans ready, it is better to just cook the quantities needed.
If the plantain the beans were to be cooked simultaneously. The whole dish will take 20 minute to get ready!

Next time, make it with some soya chunk and chopped tomato then serve with chips or rice or just a toasted slice of bread.

Enjoy!

Did you know that Kidney beans reduced cholesterol and that plantain contains vitamins A, potassium and calcium? now you know!