Spain On the Road Again: Beet Puree and Shrimp Pancakes

Anyone seen an episode of Spain On the Road Again? Probably not. In spite of having Mark Bittman, Gweneth Paltrow, and Mario Batali in Spain, it's a snooze fest. Four people eating and talking with very little editing. There may be four people who are witty and intelligent enough to make that work, but those guys should know their limitations.

Still, Mario's a great cook and Bittman a terrific recipe writer, so there's good stuff on the website. So far we've tried two recipes, one for a beetroot and walnut puree and another for chickpea pancakes. Here's our thoughts.

Beet Puree

The recipe is here, and it's good as is. The idea is to take some beets and walnuts and mix 'em with tahini and oil. Our tweaks include the following:

1. Roast the walnuts first and place them in the processor warm.
2. Add more tahini and less oil.
3. Withhold some of the salt and add some parmesan cheese (sounds weird, but it's good).
4. Add or garnish with fresh dill.


Shrimp Pancakes

This recipe is also great. You can find it and a useful video here.

We're old hands at making pancakes with besan, or chickpea flour, which you can find at any Indian grocery. (You can also find it at a Spanish grocery or gourmet store, but you will pay an absurd price for it.) We normally mix it with a lot of water, add cumin seeds, coriander, peppers, onions, or whatever we have lying around. And if you're fat conscious, you can cook them in a dry nonstick pan, believe it or not. They will separate from the pan.

The Spanish version involves cut up shrimp, herbs and lots of pepper. That said, we like ours a little crisper, so we use twice as much besan as white flour (something Bittman mentions). If you want it really crispy, eliminate the white flour and baking powder altogether.

Leftover Grits with Red Beans

Red beans are almost a staple food at our house. They're ridiculously cheap, really easy to prepare and have a huge variety of applications. We typically make them by the bucketful, and either freeze them or can them. Then, if we want breakfast, we heat some up with rice and then fry or scramble an egg (gallo pinto, a traditional breakfast in Costa Rica). For a snack, we combine them with hot sauce, sour cream, and cheese to make a dip. For dinner, we serve them with rice and lots of Tapatio.

But this was probably the best application yet. Using the leftover grits from our Shrimp and Grits, we piled on some red beans.

Red Beans

1 pound red beans, washed and soaked overnight
2 smoked ham hocks
1 large onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne
1 tbsp canola oil
Pepper
Salt
Water

1. Add the oil to a heated pot.
2. Add onion, pepper, and celery and cook, stirring for 5-7 minutes until onions are just beginning to brown.
3. Add spices and allow to bloom.
4. Add all the beans and ham hocks.
5. Cover with water and add some salt.
6. Simmer for several hours adding water as necessary until beans become fully cooked and silky.
7. Remove ham hocks. Mash some beans against the side of the pot, stir, and season to taste.
8. Serve with polenta and Tabasco sauce.

Leftover Stuff : Lentil Falafel and Spicy Tabouleh

This looks kind of like a combo appetizer plate at a Greek diner: falafel, tabouleh, pitas, and hummus. But it's mostly leftovers from the last few nights tossed together. One of us made everything you see (including the bread) in about 40 not-terribly-rushed minutes. Rachel Ray would be proud. Or perhaps jealous. Though she makes $6 million per year, so it's unlikely.

We drew our inspiration (if you want to call it that) from the old couscous from the Moroccan stew, which had a great texture, even though it tasted like cardboard. And we found a bag of lentils that we've had since the Clinton administration.

For the pitas, we had reserved half the dough from the other night, rolled it into balls, put them into plastic wrap (oiled) and stuck them in the fridge. Dough keeps for days that way. You merely have to take them out an hour before you need them.

For the hummus, we had plenty left from the other night. It dried out a bit, but sprang back with a little water and oil.

Now for the new stuff.

Spicy Tabouleh

1 cup leftover couscous (bland and tasting like sawdust, if you can find it. Trader Joe's whole wheat couscous really fits that bill.)
½ - ¾ cup chopped parsley
¼ tbsp pureed garlic
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp harissa
Splash of kalamata olive oil (or any olive oil)
Salt and Pepper

1. Mix.
2. Taste.
3. Adjust.
4. Repeat.

Lentil "Falafel"

1 cup old lentils you need to get rid of
3 tbsp parsley
1 tbsp pureed garlic
1 medium onion, grated
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
4-5 cardamom seeds (optional)
Flour
Rice flour (optional, but cheap and available at any Asian or Indian grocery)
Salt and pepper


1. Rinse the lentils thoroughly and soak for several hours.
2. Put them in a pan with ample water, bring to a boil and cook five minutes or until they are al dente
3. Meanwhile, heat a dry pan, add the cumin and coriander. When they begin to smell nice, remove them.
4. Grind cumin, coriander, and cardamom in a mortar and pestle.
5. Drain the lentils, transfer to a bowl and mash with a potato masher until pasty (some can still be whole).
6. Add the onion, garlic, parsley, and spices. Toss to combine.
7. Now's the best time to taste and make adjustments.
8. When you're happy with the flavor, add 1 tbsp flour and knead slightly. Continue adding flour until the lentils are able to be formed into balls.
9. Pour rice flour out on to a sheet pan or cutting board. You can leave the rice flour out, but it makes a nice and completely unauthentic crust.
10. Roll the mash into golf ball sized pieces. You may need to wash your hands from time to time to remove the excess. Don't worry about waste, you're working with about $ .10 of ingredients here.
11. When each one is finished, flatten it into a disk, and toss it in the rice flour and set aside. (If deep frying, leave them round.)
12. Heat ¼ inch of oil in a frying pan. Cook until brown.

This recipe can also be used to make a veggie burger.

Real Hummus and Homemade Pita

In the past few years, hummus has become an industry. Factories now crank out more flavors of hydrogenated chickpea fluff than you can count. Confession: we haven't found any we like. If we have come over to your house and raved about the one you served us, we were simply showing our good breeding.

Real hummus is a simple and delicious thing that asks for almost no adornment. To make it is easy but it takes a while. The key is to flavor it exactly how you like.

Hummus

2 cups dried Indian chickpeas (accept no substitute)
Garlic cloves (we use one)
Tahini (we start with about 3 tbsp)
Olive oil (no more than half the amount of tahini)
Lemon juice
Salt

1. Soak the chickpeas overnight or for 24 hours.
2. Place them in a large sauce pan with two quarts of water.
3. Cook for about 45 minutes, until chickpeas are coming apart. Drain.
4. Chop the garlic and put into a food processor.
5. Put the chickpeas into food processor and process until smooth. (Hold off on the rest of the ingredients. Otherwise it won't be as smooth).
6. Add tahini, oil, salt, and lemon juice. Pulse and taste until you like the flavor.
7. Then blitz the processor on, and drizzle water in until you get the fluffiness you desire.
8. Serve with a nice splash of your most pretentious olive oil.

Pitas

Homemade pitas are also delicious and easy to make—the recipe we use comes from King Arthur Flour. One note on that: they suggest dough improver, which makes the dough easier to roll out. You don't need that. Follow these steps instead.

1. Simply roll it out the best you can.
2. If it's not thin enough and keep snapping back, don't fight it. The dough will win every time.
3. Instead, use guile.
4. Cover the partially flattened disk with plastic wrap.
5. Walk away.
6. Enjoy half of a glass of wine.
7. Return to your dough. You will now find it cooperative.
8. Roll it out to the desired size.


You'll see we also enjoyed ours with some of the extra harissa and cooked cauliflower from the other night.

Split Pea Pancakes

We're continuing to attack our legume drawer. Yes, you read the title right. These are pancakes (dosas) made almost entirely from split yellow peas. The idea comes from South India, where people have been turning nothing into tasty food for eons. We found the recipe at Manjula's Kitchen. She also has a video, so visit her to find out how to do it (fair warning, it's informative but not gripping television.)

Here's some thoughts. If you balk at the high oil content, you can make the pancake with less oil than she does, but it will be a little less crunchy and not spread as easily in the pan.

Don't be a slave to the recipe. You may use any spicing you like. We put in salt, cumin seeds, cayenne, and some finely diced green pepper we happened to have lying around.

To serve it, we used some leftover Indian food. One thing to note is that you do not need much leftovers for this. Typically, Americans like to eat a big bowl of curry with a small amount of rice and bread. Indians do the reverse: the bread is the centerpiece, the rest of the food is a condiment. If you strongly flavor your dosa, you don't need a lot of (or any) curry.

Secret: For breakfast, Nicole likes plain salted dosas with maple syrup.

March (Legume) Madness: Chickpea Stew with Cauliflower and Harissa

May have to rethink that title. The New York Times had a recipe for something that involved whole wheat couscous and Moroccan-spiced chick peas. Which got us to thinking. In our pantry we have a drawer filled with many different kinds of legumes that we never use. Not to mention a box of whole wheat couscous that has followed us around for five years, traveling more than 4000 miles in the process. We don't know where it came from, and we think it's been secretly mocking us.

We didn't care for the recipe (the instructions were all backwards), so we set out on our own. This was beyond good, by the way. A good harissa with some preserved lemon really makes this, but don't despair. You can substitute Tabasco or Sriracha, or even Frank's hot sauce.

Chickpea Stew with Cauliflower and Harissa

1 cup dried chickpeas (Don't do this with canned chick peas. In fact, don't do anything with canned chick peas except exercises.)
1 large onion, sliced thin
1/4 cauliflower
1 ½ tbsp cumin whole
2 tbsp coriander whole
½ tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp tomato paste
Salt to taste
3 tbsp chopped Italian parsley
1 cup couscous
Butter
Harissa
Sour cream
Canola or other neutral oil

1. Rinse the chickpeas until the water runs clear. Then soak them for 8 hours, or overnight.
2. Prepare the couscous by adding one cup boiling water, 2 tsp butter, and salt. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Then fluff and rub through your hands.
3. Cut the cauliflower into florets and chop the stems. Put oil in a very hot pan. Brown the cauliflower, then add a half cup of water, lower the heat, and cover. Steam until al dente.
4. Heat a dry pan, add the cumin and coriander. When they begin to smell nice, remove and grind in a mortar and pestle. Or spare yourself the bother and use pre-ground.
5. Heat a large saucepan over medium high heat. Add the onions.
6. Cook, stirring until they are just ready to brown.
7. Lower the heat. Make a well in the center of the onions and add the tomato paste. Flatten it out and let fry for a minute or so. Then mix with the onions.
8. Add most of the cumin and coriander (reserve a little to add later, if needed). Fry for a few minutes.
9. Add the chickpeas, 1 tbsp of harissa, some salt, and about a quart or so of water. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer until the chickpeas are soft and tasty.
10. Add cauliflower and season to taste. You may need to add additional water, or cook it down to enrich the flavor. Remove from heat and stir in parsley.
11. Combine the sour cream with equal parts water.
12. Make a small layer of couscous in a bowl. Pour the stew over it, garnish with sour cream and a dollop of harissa.