Frosted Green Beans with Sesame

Harsh bought me 'The Silver Spoon', which they say is the bible of authentic Italian cooking, for my birthday. The book has been very successfully sold in Italy and most Italian households have it on their bookshelves. A lot of Italian brides receive this book as a wedding gift.
I was very excited as i flipped through the 2000 plus recipes in the book as this meant months and months of experimenting in the kitchen. There are really simple recipes and some quite complicated ones as well, but they're all explained very simply. The only flip side is that there aren't too many pictures in the book and sometimes I find it hard to imagine what a dish would really look like. In fact, often it's the photograph that makes a dish tempting enough for me to try it out and lack of pictures can be a little intimidating.

This week I had 200 gms of green beans that I'd plucked off the bush beans I'd grown in our balcony and I thought it would be a great idea to try something Italian with them. More often that not, Italian cuisine is limited to pizza, pasta and risotto, and I thought I'd use this opportunity to bring you a recipe that falls into none of these categories.

Read on for the recipe to make Fagiolini Glassati Al Sesamo or Frosted Green Beans with Sesame.

Ingredients:


Green Beans (or French Beans) - 200 gms
Finely sliced Spring Onion - 1
Lemon juice - 1 tsp
Grated rind of a lemon - 1/4 tsp
Sesame seeds - 1 tsp
A blob of butter
Olive oil - for drizzling
Salt - to taste
Pepper - to taste

Method:


Cook the beans in salted boiling water for ten minutes, then drain and set aside.
Melt a blob of butter in a pan and saute the spring onions over low heat until they're softened. Stir in the lemon juice, the rind, salt and pepper and stir to mix well.
Now, add the green beans, mix well and continue to cook for another 5-10 minutes. In a separate pan roast the sesame seeds for a couple of minutes until they're fragrant.
Transfer the beans to a serving dish, sprinkle with sesame seeds and drizzle with olive oil. Mix well and serve hot. 

Pumpkin Risotto

Ingredients:


Pumpkin (diced) - 100 gms
Risotto Rice - 200 grms
Chicken bouillon cubes - 2
Finely chopped onion - 1
Finely chopped parsley - 2 tbsps
Olive Oil - 2 tbsps
Parmesan cheese - 1/4 cup
Pepper - 1/4 tsp
Salt - to taste
Water

Method:


Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan and saute the onions until they turn translucent. Add the pumpkin and two bouillon cubes and saute for a couple of minutes.
 Now, add a cup of water and cover the pan, and cook until the pumpkin is soft. Turn off the heat and mash the pumpkin.
Add the risotto rice and stir it into the mashed pumpkin mixture. Pour in 2 cups of water and let the rice cook.
You need to stir often to ensure that the rice doesn't stick to the bottom. If needed add some more water. The rice should take about 20 minutes to cook. Once the rice is cooked you can turn off the heat and add the Parmesan cheese, chopped parsley leaves and the seasoning.
Stir well and serve hot.

Tips:

If you let the rice stand for too long it can become a little hard. So, if you cook it in advance make sure to add a little water and mix the rice well before serving it.

Most bouillon cubes have salt in them you might not need additional salt in your risotto.

Vegetarians can use vegetarian bouillon cubes.

The Perfect Carrot Cake!

We found the most awesome recipe for Carrot Cake on the internet and we baked it this weekend! The result was so good that we thought we have to share the link with you.

Here goes: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sams-famous-carrot-cake/detail.aspx

This recipe has a lot of ingredients but don't let that be a deterrent for you. We followed it to it T and the cake was just perrrrrrrrrfect!!! 

Tabbouleh

I've never eaten Tabbouleh in a restaurant but Harsh has, and he absolutely loves it. I've been promising to make some for him at home for months now.
Finally a couple of days ago I tried my hand at this Lebanese salad made with bulgur, mint, parsley, spring onions and tomato.
This salad is especially refreshing when served cold on a warm summer day.

Ingredients:


Bulgur wheat - 2 cups
Flat left parsley - 200 gms
Mint leaves - 50 gms
Spring onions - 4
Tomatoes - 2
Freshly squeezed lemon juice - 1 lemon
Olive oil - 4 tbsps
Pepper - to taste
Salt - to taste
Cold water - 2 cups

Method:


Wash the bulgur with cold water. Drain it and place in a large bowl and pour cold water over it. Leave it to stand until the bulgur has absorbed all the water and the grains have swollen.
Now, add the lemon juice and olive oil to the bulgur and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.
Finely chop the parsley, mint, spring onions and tomatoes and mix into the bulgur.
Serve cold. 

Bulgur Salad

We've been planning to do a barbecue in the park all month but it's been a very rainy summer. Finally, we decided that since we hadn't got any respite from the rain in weeks we'd go ahead with a little barbecue at home with our electric table grill.
We bought some marinated chicken from Lidl, the German supermarket. (Their marinated meats are pretty good and also very reasonably priced.)

 I decided to make some salad at home as an accompaniment to our grilled chicken. I wanted to make something that's healthy as well as tasty, simple and yet filling and so I decided to make us some Bulgur Salad. The recipe is simple but you need to prepare a few hours in advance.
 Here it is:

Ingredients:


Bulgur wheat - 2 cups
Chicken bouillon cube - 1 1/2
Water - 2 cups
Chopped tomato - 1
Chopped cucumber - 1/2
Chopped carrot - 1
Chopped yellow bell pepper - 1
Finely chopped parsley - 2 tbsps
Lemon juice - 1/2 a lemon
Freshly ground garlic powder - 1/4 tsp
Red chilli powder - 1/4 tsp
Freshly ground pepper - to taste

Method:


Wash the bulgur wheat with cold water and drain completely.
Add one bouillon cube to two cups of water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in the bulgur. Let it stand for 45-60 minutes.
Mix the bulgur with the chopped vegetables and the parsley.
 In a small bowl whisk together the lemon juice, garlic powder, chilli powder and half of the chicken bouillon cube. Pour this over the salad and mix well.
Sprinkle a little freshly ground pepper.
Refrigerate the salad for a couple of hours and serve cold.

Vegetarians can replace the chicken bouillon cubes with vegetarian ones. The bouillon cubes usually have a lot of salt so I haven't added any extra salt but you may need to vary the quantity of cubes you use as per taste.