chip butties and noodle soup

Cooking for me is an act of celebration, exploration and remembrance. Whether recreating childhood tastes and memories in my comfort foods (chip butties and noodle soup) or creating new recipes using my many influences from around the world. Food is a pleasure and should be prepared with love in your heart - whether you are cooking for one or many. Your comments are welcomed and I Iook forward to sharing more of my recipes, writing and reviews with you. Thanks for stopping by.

Showing posts with label Jerusalem. Show all posts

Sunday, 14 July 2013

roasted butternut squash, caramelized lemon and berbere houmous

I love houmous. It's perfect for a quick snack on fresh bread, or as part of a larger mezze meal or BBQ accompaniment. This recipe is packed with flavour and has influences from Africa with the traditional Ethiopian spice mix berbere. This would be great with some warmed flat bread and smokey BBQ-ed lamb or falafel. Check out this great falafel recipe on how to eat properly - by the brilliant Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi from their book Jerusalem

preparation time: 10 minutes
cooking time: 20-30 minutes

ingredients:

400g tin cooked chickpeas

1 medium sized butternut squash

1 head of garlic

1 lemon (I used fresh lemon but a preserved one would be lovely too)

8 tbs olive oil

4 tbs plain yogurt

2 tbs cumin seeds

1 heaped tsp berbere spice mix

small bunch coriander/parsley chopped (keep a little back for garnishing)

salt and pepper to taste

method:

preheat the oven to 200C.
wash and roughly chop your squash - you can peel it if you want but I didn't bother as it softens down in the cooking process.
add your squash to a roasting pan with the head of garlic. Leave this unpeeled as it helps protect the garlic inside and produces wonderfully sweet and soft roasted cloves. Add the cumin seeds and toss the squash and garlic in about 4tbs of your olive oil. Roast for 20-30 minutes. It's done when the squash is slightly caramelized and a knife pierces it easily.
about 10 minutes before the end of the cooking time add the roughly chopped lemon - so it can soften and caramelize too.
when it's cooked and slightly cooled remove the skins from the garlic cloves then add to a food processor with the squash, lemon, chickpeas, yogurt, remaining olive oil, chopped herbs, berbere spice and salt and pepper. You may need to whizz this up in a few lots depending on how big your processor is. This would also work well with a hand held blender.
serve garnished with more herbs and a drizzle of olive oil. Enjoy!