Green beans and lentils
This was my first ever meal I prepared to share on social media. As you can see, the picture isn’t of that great quality as I was still learning how to take food photos with the right lighting and tools. These were my thoughts back then, about a year ago…
It’s slightly intimidating sharing your, maybe crazy, ideas with what seems like ‘the whole world’. I think our biggest fear is that our ideas may not be accepted or that they may be criticised. Fact is, nobody really has it all figured out and it is only through mistakes, criticism, trial and error that we learn to be our best… we learn to reach our full potential.
Usually when I start cooking, people ask me what it is that I’m cooking today, and honestly, I don’t know myself until it all comes together in the end! I like to experiment with new combinations of food and while I’m going along I may decide to do something completely different to what I initially decided on.
I thought that these four items would go really well together: brown rice, lentil and zucchini curry, Turkish-inspired green beans in a tomato chutney and oven-roasted barbeque flavoured potatoes.
However, the challenge was getting the ‘perfect’ picture. How was I going to communicate my passion for fusing different flavours, into a single picture? I started off displaying everything on a plate, but wasn’t satisfied with the way it looked, so I then used the back of a tray, and then finally moved on to my chopping board! I learnt that backgrounds are so important when displaying food because you’re trying to bring out all the natural textures and colours. Oh, and you see that bowl of green beans sitting so nicely in place at the back? When I moved the chopping board to another part of the room to get more light on my photo, it rolled right off the board! Thank goodness for quick reflexes – otherwise all my efforts would have been gone to waste.
All in all, preparing a meal always offers great learning experiences, but best of all, I marvel at the fact that my idea has manifested right before my eyes into something my tastebuds love! I guess this is just another reminder that even though things may seem complicated or scary in the beginning, it all works out just fine in the end.
RECIPES:
Lentil curry
- Pressure cook 1 cup of brown lentil (masoor dhal) with a little salt. After cooking, keep enough water in the pot just to cover the lentils. You may drain the rest of the water into a cup and drink it – it tastes so good and my granny always drank this because she said it was packed with goodness!
- While you’re sipping away, add 1 Tbsp oil to a frying pan. Add ½ tsp cumin seeds. Thinly slice zucchini into discs and add to the oil, once the seeds pop. Fry only for a minute till the zucchini just turns soft, not mushy.
- Add the cooked lentils to the zucchini. Flavour with ginger, garlic, green chilli, salt, turmeric, red chilli powder and garam masala. Allow the lentils to boil for 1 minute and then remove from the heat. Leave the pot closed so that the spices have a chance to infuse. Heat up again just before serving.
BBQ potatoes
- I got a really great barbeque mix from the Indian stall at a food market, so all credit for making this great mix goes to the man behind the counter! I used this mix together with salt and black pepper to rub on the potatoes.
- Heat up a mix of ghee (clarified butter) and coconut oil, and drizzle this over the cubed potatoes. Put it in the oven to bake at 180 degrees Celsius.
- Cover with foil and every 15min, mix the potatoes so that all the spices are distributed evenly over the potatoes. Take off the foil once the potatoes are just cooked and leave them in the oven for an extra 15 minutes to get crispy. You can turn on the grill function of the oven at this point, but just be careful to watch that it doesn’t burn. Total cooking time in the oven should be around 1 hour.
Turkish-inspired green beans
- Add 1 Tbsp oil to a frying pan. Add red chilli powder and garlic to the oil. Sauté for a few seconds.
- Grate two gem tomatoes and add to the oil. Flavour with salt and black pepper. Cook for 5 minutes.
- Add slit green beans. Cook for another 5 min and remove from the heat. Beans should be cooked but still crunchy. This way the nutrients are not lost.