April 30, 2022 / Lyn Jones / 0 Comments
A popular Gujrati snack. This is a baked, spicy lentil cake made with rice and different lentils fermented batter mixed with spices. This is served with chutney. Handvo is crisp outside and soft inside. serves 8
Ingredients:
- 1 cup rice – small grain
- 1/4 cup chana dal (split chickpeas)
- 1/4 cup urad dal** split with skin (**use mung beans or azuki beans instead)
- 1/4 cup toor dal*** (***use yellow lentils or any beans)
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- About 1 inch piece ginger chopped
- 1-2 green chilli adjust to taste
- 1-3/4 teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon asafetida^ (use garlic or onion powder instead^ )
- 1/2 cup yogurt
- 2 tablespoon oil
- 1 cup laucki* shredded (subs zucchini, yellow squash, butternut squash, pumpkin)
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon Eno fruit salt (contains bicarb, citric acid and salt or use baking powder
or whipped egg or cashew white perhaps
For Seasoning
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
- 1/8 teaspoon asafetida*
- 1 Tab sesame seeds
Also need
- 2 teaspoon oil to grease the baking pan
- 8×8 baking pan (preferably glass)
Method
TO FERMENT – or instead buy handvo flour already made up
- Wash and soak rice, chana dal, toor dal, and urad dal in about four cups of water for at least four hours.
- Drain the water and in a blender, or processor, blend the soaked rice & lentils, ginger & chilli to a lightly coarse texture (no water). Add yogurt, turmeric, salt, sugar and asafetida* and blend it again for few more seconds. Transfer the dal mix into a bowl and let the mix ferment for about 10 to 12 hours.
- Add the squash, 2 tablespoons of oil and lemon juice to the fermented dal mix – mix it well. Add ENO to the mixture and mix (this will make the handvo mix light & fluffy)
- Grease the 8×8 baking pan generously and pour the handvo mix into the greased pan.
Tap the pan; it will help to spread the mix evenly.
- Sprinkle the sesame seeds over the batter.SEASONING –
- Heat the oil for seasoning in a small pan over medium heat – after oil is moderately hot, add the mustard seeds and asafetida*. As the mustard seeds crack, turn off the heat.
- Drizzle the seasoning over the top of the sesame seeds. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C.
- Cover the pan with aluminum foil and place it on middle oven rack and bake for 20 minutes.
- Remove foil and bake for another 20 minutes until top of the handvo is light golden brown or until knife inserted in centre of cake comes out clean.
- Let the handvo cool off for about 15 minutes. Cut into sixteen pieces and serve.* A ½ teaspoon of the asafetida powder can be substituted by 2-minced garlic gloves or 2/3 of a cup of minced onion. Tiny amounts of asafetida give a gentle lift to cheese dishes, egg, salad dressings and fish.
November 22, 2020 / Lyn Jones / 0 Comments
This noodle salad is perfect for lunch as it can all be prepped the day before hand, makes heaps and the flavour just continues to develop as it sits together.
Ingredients
250g soba buckwheat noodles
2 carrots, spriralized
2 zucchini, spiralized
button mushrooms
sweet capsicums (I like medley of small coloured ones but any would work)
1/4 cup Spring onion
1/ cup coriander leaves
Dressing
1/2 cup coconut cream
1 Tbs Soy sauce
1 heaped tsp freshly grated ginger
2 tsp tumeric
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 green chilli
juice and zest of 1 lime
1/2 cup (loosely packed) roughly chopped spring onion
Coriander and peanut pesto *
2 cups coriander leaves, firmly packed (use 1 large bunch – leaves, stalks, 2 well-washed roots)
1/2 cup roasted, unsalted, peanuts
1.5 tsp soy sauce
1/3 cup olive oil (a lightly flavoured one will be best)
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp black vinegar or rice wine vinegar could work
juice and zest of one lime
1 spring onion, roughly chopped
1/2 a hot red chilli (or a whole mild one)
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
1 small clove of garlic, crushed
Cook noodles according to packet directions, rinse under cold water. Combine these with the spiralised carrot and zucchini, toss until well combined.
Dressing: Place all dressing ingredients in a blender or food processor and blitz until well combined. Pour over the noodles and mix well until the dressing is evenly dispersed among the noodles.
Steam the mushrooms whole for 3 minutes, or until just tender. Use a paper towel of clean tea towel to dry them, removing any residual dirt. Then slice thinly.
Very finely slice the capsicum, combine with mushrooms & noodles: mix together evenly.
Pesto: combine ingredients in food processor: until well combined looking slightly creamy.
Serve with pesto drizzled over salad and spring onion & coriander sprinkled over top.
NOTES
You could serve this as a warm or cold salad, but if your planning on reheating maybe keep the zucchini noodles separate until after you’ve reheated the rest as they tend to turn to mush when they get over cooked. The residual heat of everything else will warm them up enough.
This noodle salad is perfect for lunch as it can all be prepped the day before hand, makes heaps and the flavour just continues to develop as it sits together. A boiled egg would be an excellent addition to this salad if you;re worried about staying full without having meat in your lunch.
You do not have to cook the mushrooms if you prefer them raw. I do think that steaming them whole like this gives them just the right amount of tenderness that they soak up the flavours of the dressing and pesto but aren’t too slippery.
* The pesto makes more than you need, but you can also use it on this salad or on any grilled meat you like. It’s even good on avocado toast.