Lebanese rice, tahini cauliflower and roasted carrots

Finally it has been a bit warmer and sunny, but I've been quite busy this week, as usual after returning from holiday and therefore unable to really enjoy the weather. I will probably only be able to take a closer look at my holiday photos on the weekend, some of which I'm keen to share with you. So don't worry, there will be something more about the holiday sooner or later. Today's post is just a quick meal recommendation for nice vegan feasts.

This dish and similar ones have been great favourites of mine this past winter and I'm probably going to continue to cook them in the spring as well: Lebanese rice with vermicelli served with a tahini cauliflower bake. This time I also added some roasted carrots to the dish and also a roasted garlic head. It was really very very nice.

I have already posted similar recipes previously, so have a look here for the Roasted cauliflower in tahini sauce and here for the Lebanese rice with vermicelli. What do you think, is this something you would like to eat? Believe me, it's very tasty and yet simple to make!

Have further a nice week!

Your VegHog

Roasted cauliflower with Arabian nutty rice, tomato sauce and tahini sauce

It's time again for a vegan Lebanese feast! I know that many of you have been having Veganuary, so I thought that I would squeeze in one more vegan dish for this month. I have been eating mainly vegan this month, but unfortunately didn't commit fully to a vegan month. January has been so very long, so I'm quite happy to move on to February.

On this plate I combined Arabian nutty rice (recipe previously posted here) with roasted cauliflower and a couple of interesting sauces. The first one is a tomato sauce with chilli and the second one is a tahini sauce with lemon juice and garlic and they both complimented the cauliflower and rice very well.

All these recipes are from the book A Lebanese Feast of Vegetables, Pulses, Herbs and Spices by Mona Hamadeh. I would very much recommend that book, if you want to make simple, but very tasty, vegetarian and vegan dishes with Middle Eastern spices.

Your VegHog

Roasted cauliflower in tahini sauce

Earlier this week I promised to post the dish that I served with the Lebanese rice with vermicelli. This yet another vegan recipe for Cauliflower in Tahini and Coriander Sauce (p. 170-171) is also from A Lebanese Feast of Vegetables, Pulses, Herbs and Spices by Mona Hamadeh and I have cooked it several times since I detected it. It's an extremely nice dish, and a bit different from my usual cooking.  

 

Here's the recipe.

Ingredients

1 cauliflower

Olive oil

2 onions

6 garlic cloves

2 lemons

Salt

400 ml tahini

Fresh coriander

Method

Cut the cauliflower into florets, brush them with olive oil and roast in the oven until browned and softened. The florets don't need to be fully cooked, as they will return to the oven.

Chop the onions and garlic and cook them in a pan until little browned.

Make the sauce by mixing the juice of the lemons with the tahini, salt and little water into a smooth sauce. Also add some fresh coriander into the sauce.

Add the onions and garlic to the cauliflower and pour the sauce over them. Return to the oven for about 20 minutes.

Scatter some more fresh coriander on the top for serving and you can also dust the dish with smoked paprika (which I also did, but unfortunately only after I took the photos).

This is really good served with rice, and so easy!

Your VegHog

Lebanese rice with vermicelli

Howcome did I never thought of this, to combine rice with vermicelli? It's so simple, but so good. Instead I had to detect it in my recent favourite cookbook: A Lebanese Feast of Vegetables, Pulses, Herbs and Spices by Mona Hamadeh. There is a recipe for Lebanese Rice with Vermicelli (p. 264-265) in the Basic Recipes section. I have often eaten this combination in koshari, but making it as a side to a lovely Lebanese vegetable dish was new to me. It turns out that in Lebanese cuisine vermicelli is very often added to rice. 

To make this rice, just take a nice rice, like the mixture of a few rice sorts that I used here or healthy brown rice. Put the rice (about 250 g) into a saucepan with little added salt and cover it with water, just about 1 cm above the rice. More can be added, if needed, but this method should keep the rice fluffier. The Lebanese don't seem to like sticky rice very much. Simmer until the rice is done.

Simultaneously break the vermicelli (about 70 g) into about 1 cm long pieces and fry the pieces quickly in hot oil until they turn golden brown. This happens very quickly. Remove the oil and put the vermicelli in with the rice and cook there until the rice is done.

I scattered some fresh coriander on the top and it looked like an attractive side dish. I will soon post also the dish that I served this with, but I think that this rice could also be a stand-alone dish.

Your VegHog

Lebanese Spice Mix

I've had a favourite cookbook recently: A Lebanese Feast of Vegetables, Pulses, Herbs and Spices by Mona Hamadeh. I have been cooking a few recipes from that book and some of them several times, as they are so good. I will surely review this book at some point more closely, but I already have the feeling that this month could include quite a few predominantly vegan Middle Eastern recipes on this blog.

I'm going to start the posts with a typical Lebanese spice mix, which is in the book on pages 258-259 Lebanese Mixed Spices. It is a really good spice mix for rice dishes especially. It will feature later here in some “proper” recipes. It has a nice cinnamon taste and it's not too hot for my taste. Below is my slight variation of the original recipe.

To make a small jar of this spice mix, take these ingredients and grind them into fine powder:

8 bay leaves

15 g ground ginger

40 g cinnamon

½ ground nutmeg

15 g cloves

50 g allspice

25 g black pepper

10 g cardamom

As you can see, it doesn't take much effort to make this mix, and then you have it ready for a few dishes.

Your VegHog

Midweek lunch

Lebanese dirty rice has become a real favourite of mine, and I actually cook a batch almost once a week. Lately I've been cooking other Lebanese recipes as well, which I hope to post here soon.

This lunch contains Lebanese dirty rice with roasted onions, fresh mini plum tomatoes and a packet of punchy protein nuts by Graze. This lunch should be quite nutritious for a work day.

What has been in your lunch boxes lately?

Lebanese Dirty Rice with Halloumi

I have already published the recipe for Lebanese Dirty Rice here and it has become one of my favourites that I cook quite often. It's a simple yet tasty dish and also very cheap to make. 

So this week's cooking plan started with Lebanese Dirty Rice. I served fried halloumi slices with it and cut a couple of corners with the fried onions by using the ready made Ikea ones. I used puy lentils and brown rice as the main ingredients. This is a comforting choice for often so bleak Mondays and you'll get a healthy and nutritious start to the week. If you leave the halloumi out, the dish is vegan.

Lebanese dirty rice

Adapted from the New Feast (p. 194-195) by Greg and Lucy Malouf

Some weeks ago I wrote a post about my newest vegetarian cookbook the New Feast by Greg and Lucy Malouf and now I cooked my first dish from it, the Lebanese dirty rice. It's a traditional Middle Eastern dish and I would love to hear from local people (or from people more experienced in this style of cuisine) how you usually make this dish. Please comment in the box below, if you have any experiences with such dishes. And obviously you can also comment, if you don't! The recipe was also published as an edited extract here. First I was very surprised by the lack of different spices, but when I ate the dish I realised that nothing else was needed. This was such a simple and beautiful dish and I think it will become a regular in my kitchen. The fried onions are just amazing!

I made some adjustments according to what was in my cupboard. I replaced the small black lentils with green lentils and the long-grain rice with brown rice. I also added one tablespoon of vegetable stock powder to the lentils when they were cooking. Otherwise I stuck more or less to the original recipe, but the below one is my version of it. I doubled up the ingredient amounts as well as I wanted to have a huge dish (feeds about 4 adults), but feel free to reduce the amounts if you prefer.

Ingredients for the rice

2 onions

4 tbsp olive oil

80 g green lentils

160 g brown rice

1,5 – 2 litres water

1 tsp ground cumin

Dried rose petals for the presentation

Ingredients for the fried onions

2 large onions

6 tbsp cornflour

1 tsp ground cumin

Vegetable oil for deep/shallow frying

Method

Chop the onions for the rice finely and rinse the lentils. Start cooking the chopped onions in the olive oil until soft. Then add the lentils and about one litre water. More water will be added later. Let cook under lid for about 20 minutes until the lentils are almost done.

Then add the rice and little water if needed. Let cook for further 30 minutes. It can take longer with the brown rice. The goal is to cook both very soft so that the lentils stain the rice and make it dirty as described in the title.

In the meanwhile slice the onions for the topping into this strips and soak them for about 15 minutes in salt water. After that drain them well. For the coating mix the cornflour and ground cumin and roll the drained onions in there. Heat vegetable oil in a pan and deep fry the onions until they are crispy.

Serve the rice with the onions and rose petals on the top and enjoy! I found this pheomenal even cold the next day. What a great dish! I'm going to make this again next week, as it's also very cheap and I should always have the ingredients for it in the cupboard.

Have a good week everyone!

Your VegHog