Transylvanian pea and spinach stew

Certain dishes evoke a great deal of nostalgia.
It’s a little trip back to your childhood, a holiday, your nan’s kitchen etc etc.
This recipe is a fully nostalgic one for me, taking me straight to my childhood home of Transylvania.
At the time of growing up, imported food was still exceptionally rare. (Post-communism had its merits, albeit none that I truly appreciated at the time.)
The lack of imported food meant we had to entirely rely on seasonal produce, preserve foods when there was a glut and make the best of every morsel of every foodstuff.
It’s a hipster dream now but back then it was, an often difficult, reality.

I always looked forward to spring.
Preserves (think A LOT of sauerkraut & similar items) were replaced by fresh, vibrant greens. Blossoms and berries added colour to the otherwise bleak landscape.
Pea season would soon be looming.
I loved fresh peas as a child.
I still do.
This recipe brings together the best of those greens that appear during spring and combines them with tasty peas.
The recipe works with any greens but spinach is perhaps the mildest. If you want to go wild with it, young nettles are a great alternative.
Give it a go.
I’m biased but it’s super tasty. (and very very frugal)

Ingredients to serve 2:

1 onion
1 clove of garlic
1 tablespoon of flour or gluten-free alternative
1 entire bag of spinach (200g approx)
1 mug of frozen peas
1 mug of milk or plant milk (it’s better with milk but you do you)
1 stock cube
A small bunch of parsley (10-15g approx)
Sea salt & black pepper to season
A drizzle of whatever oil for cooking

Toppings (entirely optional but totally recommended)
Creme fraiche - find it near double cream in supermarkets, it’s a cultured version of cream and is the traditional way to serve this dish. Almost everything has creme fraiche on it in Transylvania.
A boiled egg - for extra protein
A few extra herbs to sprinkle on top
Nuts or seeds for added crunch - I popped a few macadamias on top because I had some left over
Sliced avocado - entirely untraditional but it brings a different texture profile to the dish

Method:
Pop a saucepan on a medium heat.
Add the onion, garlic and a splash of oil.
Cook gently until the onion has softened.
Add the flour and cook for a further minute.
Time to add the spinach. You’ll likely need to do this bit by bit as the spinach wilts. Keep cramming it in there and cooking it down.
Once the spinach has wilted, pour in the milk and cook for a further minute.
Grab the parsley and pop it in a blender.
Pour the spinachey liquid over the parsley, season well with sea salt and black pepper and blend it until it’s mostly smooth (it doesn’t have to be perfect).
Return the green sauce to your saucepan.
Add the frozen peas and gently heat up it the peas are no longer frozen. Avoid boiling it too heavily because that’ll turn the vibrant green colours brown. It’s better to gently heat it and allow it to slowly bubble.
Check the seasoning and season again if it needs a bit more salt and pepper.
Top with any/ all of your chosen toppings.
Serve immediately.
The full video instructions are available here: Recipe video

Green mole

I was deep into researching Spanish food for the Ibiza retreat held last April when I stumbled across a recipe for mole.
It turns out the Spanish conquered a bit, leaving their influence on the food culture of whole swathes of South America. I was thankful for this discovery because the Ibiza retreats are fully vegetarian and Spanish cooking is anything but.
Cue hours of South American food research and the discovery of green mole.
Mole, arguably one of the shining stars of Latin American cuisine, is a sauce made from a combination of onion, chilli, nuts, seeds and fruit. It has a rich, sweet and sour flavour profile with a mild chilli kick that forms a flavoursome base for anything that is added on top.
I’m underselling it here, it’s actually super tasty.

Mole comes in MANY varieties. I’m semi reliably informed by an episode of ‘Somebody Feed Phil’ that every family has their own secret recipe.
The one that appealed to me the most during my research was a recipe for pistachio green mole. It’s a half-cooked, half-raw combination finished with lime and balanced with earthy nuts.
Long story short, I ended up reworking the recipe because unsurprisingly, we aren’t into chilli varieties as much as the Mexicans so it was hard to obtain 30% of the ingredients needed for the authentic version.

The end result is a nutrient-dense, amazingly flavoursome sauce that will elevate anything you may happen to throw on top.
For me, the toppings ended up being roasted courgette & leek, black rice, greens, edible flowers, pistachios and a Clarence Court egg (not pictured). BUT, you pop whatever you fancy on top. It goes just as well with proteins as it does with plant-based toppings.

Ingredients for 4 portions:

1 medium onion, roughly diced
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
1” piece of ginger, peeled and sliced
2x medium Bramley apples, roughly chopped & the core removed
1 yellow pepper
1 green chilli, roughly chopped, deseeded if you like less heat
2 tomatoes, roughly chopped
100g of hemp seeds - I used Good Hemp, available in most supermarkets
1 handful of coriander
1 handful of parsley
2 large handfuls of spinach
2 limes
Sea salt and black pepper
Cooking oil of your choice

For the top:
Black rice, cooked according to packet instructions
4x Clarence Court eggs, hard or soft boiled
4x small courgettes, sliced and roasted
Any soft herbs
A handful of roasted & salted pistachios, shells removed

Method:

Put the grill on maximum heat.
Slice the pepper down each side so it forms 4 flat pieces.
Put the pepper pieces on a roasting tray and put under the grill until the skin on the pepper has charred. This makes the pepper pieces sweet and smokey, adding extra flavour.
Set aside to cool.
Once cool enough to handle, remove the skin from the pepper pieces.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
Put the apple pieces on a roasting tray, drizzle with oil and roast until you make the sauce.
Put a saucepan on a medium heat and add a splash of oil.
Add the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli and cook until softened (around 5 minutes).
Add the tomato, pepper pieces and hemp seeds to the sauce. Add a couple of splashes of water and cook for 10 minutes or until the tomatoes have cooked down.
Throw in the roasted apple pieces and cook for another couple of minutes, adding a splash of water if it’s beginning to look dry.
Season well with sea salt and black pepper.
Transfer the sauce to a blender, add the coriander, parsley and spinach and squeeze in the juice of 1.5 limes.
Season again with sea salt and black pepper and blend until completely smooth.
Check the flavour and add more lime juice, salt or pepper as required.

To serve, divide the sauce between 4 bowls and top with the desired toppings.

Muhammara as a salad base

Muhammara is a Middle Eastern dip made with breadcrumbs, walnuts, charred peppers and pomegranate molasses. It is an utterly delicious combination of sweet and sour flavours with a hint of smokeyness from the peppers.
If you are a regular here or follow me on social, you’ll know my love of adding flavour bases to salads. Muhammara is one that I keep going back to.
Here I added crunchy lettuce leaves, chicken, parsley and toasted seeds to that base to create a wholesome salad that is packed with flavour.
Feel free to swap the chicken for eggs, chickpeas or halloumi. The same thing works with other protein combos.

If you are fond of salads, or are totally bored of them and need new ideas, there is a salad guide here: To the 5* salad guide.

Ingredients for 2:

For the muhammara:
1 slice of bread, toasted and left to cool completely
3 red peppers
1 clove of garlic, crushed
50g of walnuts
1 teaspoon each of ground cumin and sea salt
A pinch of chilli flakes
Juice of 1/4 of a lemon
2 tablespoons of olive oil plus a little extra for drizzling
1 tablespoon of pomegranate molasses plus a little extra for drizzling
Freshly ground black pepper

For the salad:
2 little gem or 1 cos lettuce
A large handful of cherry tomatoes
2 tablespoons of sprouted seeds (like this one, you can find these in most supermarkets on the salad isle)
2 tablespoons of fresh parsley, leaves only
3 tablespoons of toasted seeds, I used this one, it’s in most supermarkets
2 chicken breasts, cooked to your liking
Sea salt and black pepper

Method:
1. To make the muhammara, preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
2. Put the peppers on a baking tray or ovenproof dish and roast in the oven for 30 minutes until the skin blackens and bubbles up. There is no need to drizzle oil on top and the peppers should be roasted whole.
Set them aside to cool.
3. Once the peppers are cool enough to handle, peel them and remove the seeds. Discard the skin and seeds and tear the pepper flesh into strips.
4. Cut the toast into cubes and transfer to a food processor or blender.
Pulse the toast to make breadcrumbs.
5. Add the remaining muhammara ingredients to the blender, season well with freshly ground black pepper and pulse again. Don’t over blend it, it should be chunky, not smooth.
6. Divide the muhammara between two plates, pressing everything down so it is flat on the plate.
7. Drizzle olive oil and extra pomegranate molasses over the top.
8. Divide the salad ingredients between the two plates.
9. Season with sea salt and black pepper and drizzle a bit more olive oil on top if desired.

Chickpea burgers with kimchi ketchup

Let’s chat about plant-proteins.
Most aren’t complete proteins, so even if you eat a sufficient amount of plant protein, sometimes it can still fall short of the mark.
Let me explain:

Proteins are made of amino acids.
We have to eat 9 specific amino acids to be able to make protein that our bodies can do something with.
Protein sources of animal origin contain all of these 9 essential amino acids. This means they are a “complete protein”.
Plant-based sources of protein often miss 1 or 2 of the amino acids.
When these amino acids are missing, it doesn’t mean the protein was useless, it just means we can’t use the total package so well. If some of the amino acids are missing, the foodstuff in question is not a complete protein.

Chickpeas are not a complete protein because they miss 2 of the amino acids.
Meaning, even if the tin of chickpeas says it contains 17g of protein, we can’t actually fully make use of this.

There is a small trick however: protein combining.
Chickpeas fall short of the amino acids methionine and cystine.
Hemp seeds contain both of these amino acids.
By mixing chickpeas and hemp seeds in the same meal, you get a complete protein and can therefore utilise the protein present.
Neat isn’t it?

That was a very long winded explanation as to how I ended up combining chickpeas and hemp seeds in these chickpea burgers but hopefully you learnt something new.
Seeds in general are a good way to add more protein to meals.
They are also useful to create “complete” proteins alongside beans and pulses.

A few tips:
- It’s easier to cook the chickpea burgers from cold so if you have more time, refrigerate the patties before cooking. This will help them hold together better. Otherwise, flip them over with caution.
- The chickpea burgers can be frozen. Do this after cooking and cook them from frozen by either warming them up in the microwave or cooking them in the oven at 180 degrees C until piping hot (20 mins approximately).

Ingredients to make 6-8 burgers:
2 tins of chickpeas, drained
3 tablespoons of the chickpea liquid
40g of hemp seeds
10g of chia seeds
3 spring onions, washed and sliced
1 tablespoon of peanut butter (40g), both smooth and crunchy work
1 teaspoon each of cumin seeds, paprika and sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

For the kimchi ketchup:
80g of kimchi - pick a good quality kimchi, I’m a huge fan of this one
50g of organic ketchup

To serve:
Burger buns
Slaw & greenery as desired

Method:
To make the chickpea burgers, put all of the ingredients apart from the chia seeds, in a blender or food processor and pulse until well combined. Season well with freshly ground black pepper and pulse again.
The idea isn’t to create a smooth mixture, so don’t worry if there are “bits” in it.
Take the mixture out of the food processor and stir in the chia seeds. Mix to combine.
Check the seasoning and add a bit more salt and pepper if needed.

Pop a frying pan on a medium heat with a couple of tablespoons of a neutral oil (i.e. rapeseed or sunflower oil).
Take a heaped tablespoon of the chickpea mix and form it into a pattie using your hands.
Pop the pattie in the frying pan and make patties out of the rest of the mixture.
The chickpea burgers will take 5 minutes to cook on each side so keep the temperature of the pan lower (medium heat) and add a bit more oil after flipping them over.
They should be golden on both sides when cooked.

To make the kimchi ketchup, pop both ingredients in a blender and blend until completely smooth.

Serve the chickpea burgers in burger buns with a large dollop of kimchi ketchup on top.

The fix me up broth

As health boosts go, this nourishing yet easy to make bowl of goodness really delivers.
Layers of nutrient-dense veggies are topped with a Clarence Court egg and a flavoursome walnut gremolata, creating a dish that ticks a lot of nutrition boxes.
Gremolata is a delicious mix of parsley, garlic and lemon zest originating from Italy.
Here it is enhanced with California walnuts for added crunch and an extra serving of that feel-good factor.

If you’ve overdone it on the alcohol front or just haven’t been eating that well, this is your go-to recipe to replenish levels of nutrients.

Ingredients for 2


2 shallots, peeled and finely sliced

1 medium potato, peeled and cubed 

1 large carrot, peeled and sliced 

1/4 of a small celeriac, peeled and cut into matchsticks

2-3 sprigs of thyme

40g of spinach

40g of frozen peas 

500ml of good quality vegetable stock

Juice of an orange

Juice of a lemon

Sea salt and black pepper to season

Oil for cooking


2 Clarence Court eggs, cooked to your liking
, I just boiled them for 6 & a 1/2 minutes for a slightly runny yolk

For the walnut gremolata

1 bunch of parsley, leaves only, roughly chopped

Zest of 1 lemon

80g of California walnuts, roughly chopped

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

Method:



To make the walnut gremolata, combine all of the ingredients in a bowl.

To make the broth, add a splash of oil to a saucepan and put it on a medium heat.

Sauté the shallots, potato and carrots for around 5 minutes until they start to colour.

Add the celeriac and thyme and sauté for 2 more minutes.

Pour in enough stock to just cover the vegetables and bring to a boil.

Turn the heat down to low and allow the liquid to bubble gently for around 5-10 minutes.
This should cook all of the vegetables.
Remove the thyme.

Drop in the frozen peas and spinach.

Take the pan off the heat.

Season well with sea salt and black pepper and pour in the lemon and orange juice.

Divide the mixture between two bowls.

Top each bowl with a halved egg and liberal quantities of walnut gremolata.