Cooking: Morrocoan Chicpeas Salad

I got bored with Thousand Island salad dressing, and when chatting with a friend about salad, he reccomend this salad. Turns out that this salad is very much worth the effort. For less than 1 hour, you get a spicy and refreshing salad.

The original recipe can be found in the link section below. Note that I can’t find the red onion, and I ommit the Foccacea. You can also find the picture of my salad in the link section below. For now, I would like to write about the exotic stuff, which contributes to the taste of the salad.

Cumin is popular in Mexican, North African, and Indian cuisine. The spice was formed from Cumin seed, which have a distinctive bitter flavor and strong, warm aroma due to their abundant essential oil content. Their smell can also be detected in the eater’s sweat even after consuming only small amounts. In Jakarta, you can find it in Diamond or Sogo Supermarket. Look at spice section. (Source: Wikipedia)

Feta Cheese is a classic curd cheese in brine whose tradition dates back to Greece thousands of years ago. It is made exclusively from goat’s and sheep’s milk. It give a tangy, salty flavor that can range from mild to sharp. It is one of the ingredients of Greek salad. In Jakarta, you can find it in Sogo Supermarket. Look at diary section. (Source: Wikipedia)

Lemon fruit, cultivated primarily for their juice, though the pulp and rind are also used, primarily in cooking or mixing. Lemon juice is about 5% citric acid, which gives lemons a sour taste. The fruit is available throughout many supermarket in Jakarta. (Source: Wikipedia)

Chilli gave the hot taste to the food. If you like the very hot one, put the chillies witht he seed, like what I did. For the purpose of food presentation, make sure you bought the big chillies in supermarket, not the small one sold in local market.

Garlic has a strong and characteristic odor and an acrid taste, and yields an offensively smelling oil, essence of garlic. (Source: Wikipedia)

Olive Oil is an oil extracted from the fruit of the European olive tree. It is regarded as a healthy dietary oil because of its high content of monounsaturated fat. (Source: Wikipedia)

Ingredients:
6 tbs olive oil
3 garlic cloves, sliced
4 tsp cumin, lightly crushed
2 red chillies, seeded, thinly sliced
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed several times
3 tomatoes, halved, seeded and thinly sliced
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 foccacia (my favourite from Vineth Bakery), substitute with Turkish Bread or Indian Naan
½ pack Feta cheese
1 Cucumber, cut into thin batons (my Lurch Mandolin do it in no time)
½ Red Onion (NOTshallots aka brambang aka bawang merah), thinly sliced
1 cup shredded red cabbage


Directions:
- Put 5 tbs Olive oil in the pan, add garlic, chillies and cumin, temper (warm over medium heat for 10 minutes-don’t burn da thing , especially the garlic. Tempering is an Indian cooking method to release aroma from spices without cooking it.
- Add the chickpeas, warm through (5 mins)
- Add tomatoes, lemon zest and juice, set aside
- Brushed foccacia with remaining oil, grill or pan fried until crisp and golden, tear or cut with bread knife
- Toss remaining vegetable with chickpea mixture, topped with crumbled feta served with foccacia, enjoy with friend, in a porch with a glass of iced tea hmmm

Recipe From http://ariep.multiply.com/recipes/item/1

Olive & Balsamic Vinegar Salad

A more healthier salad, compared to the last one, the Olive & Vinegar Salad doesn't contains any meat or cheese. The olive used is also supposed to be lower in fat than mayo-based salad. Thanks to Ranch Market for the inspiration

I tried 2 different mushroom preparation: raw and cooked with olive oil. Between those 2, a compromise is the best: dip the mushroom in the olive oil, but don't pan-fried it. As the mushroom soak, it will gain more taste.

Next on the dressing. My local groceries runs out of olive oil-based dressing, so I was forced to be creative. Put some olive oil, some balsamic vinegar, pepper, sesame seed, mustard, and there you have a mixture rich of taste. Good enough for me.

So, have another experimentation on salad? Have your own favorite mixture for dressing? List it in the comment, and we will try it out.

Wasabi Mayo Salad Dressing

Have too much Wasabi Tube leftover from the last Sushi cooking? Is it going to expire soon? Don't worry, this recipe will help you to finish it, along with some leftover vegetables in the fridge. In our case, it helps to finish off some Romaine Lettuce, Cherry Tomato, Olives, Carrot, Parmigiano Cheese, Smoke Ham, Almond and Sesame Seeds.

We compared between regular mayonnaise and Kewpie. The regular Mayonnaise come out too salty when mixed with Wasabi. So, we choose the Kewpie which come out better to our taste.

Mixing wasabi and mayonnaise is tricky. The wasabi taste does not come out during mixing, but when you spoon a mouthful of salad later on, the wasabi will kick hard to your nose.

We also put in some bread stick bought at Him Heang in Penang. Those crackers was supposed to be for coffee, but we are too lazy to make our own crouton. If you can get one, it would be great, but you can always bake your own crouton.

Dinner is finished with full stomach, and empty fridge happily

Feta Cheese & Spinach Salad

Still in the process of cleaning up the fridge, Kiko also cleaned up her book rack when she came across the recipe book, with this salad recipe inside. We were happy because it will used up some rarely used ingredients (Feta Cheese, mustard cinnamon, and many more), and I'm happy because it use cheese :D.

Preparing the dressing is simple and quick. I prefer to prepare it in advance, and put it in watertight container, and stash it in the fridge for later use. And when you crave for the salad, put the spinach, cucumber, onion and tomato in salad bowl or plate, shake the pre-mixed dressing, and sprinkle on top of the vegetables. Crumble enough amount of Feta Cheese, and it is set for a picture, or to satisfy your craving.

Since I'm running out of powder mustard, we use mustard jam, which is why the taste is so strong. Adding some pepper didn't help, Feta cheese slightly helps. Probably you might want to reduce the mustard a little bit.

And a little bit of note for the recipe. The amount of vegetables used is too much.... I think you can feed a horde of goat with it. Other than that, this salad is very refreshing.....


Ingredients (Serves 6)

• 2lb/1kg fresh spinach
• 1/2 cup/125ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 tbsp White Wine Vinegar (We replace with white cooking wine & white vinegar with the same ammount, probably explain the weird taste we got)
• 2 tbsp Lemon Juice
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp dry mustard powder
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cucumber, sliced
• 1lb/500gr cherry tomatoes
• 8oz/250gr Feta Cheese, crumbled
• 6 spring onion, chopped

Directions:

• Trim the spinach and rinse thoroughly under cold running water. Dry well and place in a salad bowl
• Put the oil, vinegar, lemon juice, cinamon, mustard, salt and pepper in a small jar with a screw top and shake well
• Pour half the dressing over the spinach and toss well
• Add the cucumber, tomatoes, Feta and spring onions to the salad
• Pour the remaining dressing over the top, toss gently and serve

Recipe from Cheese Cook Book, published by Silverback (ISBN: 1-930603-89-4)