Nepalese style Okra and Jerusalem Artichokes

It is Ramadan and I am fasting, and thus eating a large meal at the end of the day. I went grocery shopping last week, being fairly judicious about what I bought because it is easy to have eyes bigger than my belly right now. There is only so much I can eat in one meal. And though frozen okra was not on my list (I had never even had it), frozen peas were. So while getting them, I saw that frozen okra was a thing, and in fact were on sale, 3 packages for $5. Friends, I am so happy to have stumbled across this find, because frozen okra is DELICIOUS. At least how I cooked it tonight. 

There is a particular dish I love from Gorkha Palace that is okra with potatoes. Upon dreaming about what I most wanted for dinner, I thought of that dish. My version uses jerusalem artichokes and green onions, because the latter are majestically upright in the garden bed, and the former are nestled amidst all the softening earth from the winter freeze. This turned out AMAZING. I combined a couple of online recipes because I wasn't sure how frozen okra would cook (they bake and crisp up really well - so for a faster dish, this easy-bake frozen okra dish is a winner). I also added some Panch Phoron spice that I'd mixed together last summer. I think those spices really kicked it up a notch (and were more like Gorkha Palace's dish), but it would still be good without. I will put this dish into regular rotation, it was so tasty. AND I'm trying to grow my own okra this year, so we'll see how that goes?!

This is my adapted recipe, based on this fairly simple online recipe. Serves 2, unless you are fasting and are eating extra, in which case you could eat all of this yourself! *I would like to try just adding the frozen okra to the skillet, but I wasn't sure if that would work. So instead I created an extra step - a bit tedious, but it worked.

• 1 bag frozen okra
• 2 T olive oil
  
• 1-2 jerusalem artichokes, diced (or use a smaller potato)
  
• 4-5 green onions, chopped (or use 1/2 a red onion, diced)
• 3 T coconut oil (or avocado oil)
• 1 tsp Panch Phoron spice 
  
• garlic clove, minced
• small jalapeno, minced
• 1 tsp turmeric, divided
  
• 1 tsp chili flakes (or 1/2 tsp cayenne), divided
  
• cilantro to garnish (opt - I totally forgot about this! I had some!)

1.  Turn oven to 450 degrees. In a cake pan/rimmed cookie sheet, combine 2 T olive oil with 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1/2 tsp chili flakes, and salt. Add the bag of frozen okra and stir to coat each of the pices. (It will not coat them all, that is fine.) Bake for 30 minutes in the oven, stirring and flipping them halfway through. They will brown and get nice and crispy. Yum. (You could just stop here and have only okra. But keep going and things will get even better!)
   
2. While okra bakes, prep your other ingredients. Heat oil in a wok over high heat; add jerusalem artichokes and stir-fry for about 5-8 minutes, until browning on the edges (stir often). Add white part of green onions, and Panch Phoron spices, stirring often.
   
3. Add garlic, jalapeno, and remaining 1/2 tsp of turmeric and chili pepper flakes. Stir fry for a minute or two, then add onion greens and crispy okra from the oven. Toss together and serve.
   

Quanta Fir Fir (and Majet)

In honor of my birthday, my podmate and I decided to make Majet, a tower of 4 dishes that is served at Bolé restaurant. After postponing the dinner once, we finally made it happen last weekend. And, wow. I kind of can't believe we made something SO delicious and magical. I told another friend about it who commented, it's like you had meat cake! Which is kind of true. Majet is totally like meat cake.

I ate way too much because I couldn't help it, it was so good. After dinner I proceeded to be fairly horizontal for the rest of the evening - which was pretty perfect. We watched the new episodes of Top Chef and smoked hookah and it felt like I was on a weekend vacation with 5 star dining.

Majet is Bolé's creation, and is basically layers of quanta fir fir, beef tibs, kitfo, and gomen, with Ayb (a dry, fresh Ethiopian cottage cheese) and injera. It is a vision to behold, and would be quite stunning to serve for a group. Someday, this will happen. 

I somehow have neglected to post the recipe for kitfo previously, so that is still on the agenda, though the new recipe to me of this undertaking was the quanta fir fir, using the quanta (Ethiopian beef jerky) I made a couple of months ago. Quanta fir fir is commonly served as breakfast - with the dried injera it's almost porridge like, and the base of it (a berbere spiced sauce of tomato/onion) is a dish you could also eat on its own. I used some leftovers to make quanta fir fir with eggs, and it's kind of like an Ethiopian version of chilaquiles using dried injera (called derkosh) instead of corn tortilla chips. *To make derkosh, you just need to dry any leftover injera in the oven at a low temp. It shrinks a bit and becomes crisp. You can also buy it from Ethiopian grocers.

The Quanta Fir Fir is the orange layer on the top!

We made a large batch, which made for MANY meals. I am halving what we made below. My friend is not a measurer, so I estimated as best I could. We chopped everything in the food processor because we were prepping items for this dish and for the gomen too. I'm guessing this amount would serve 4?! Really hard for me to tell.

• 4-5 garlic cloves, minced
• 1" piece of ginger, minced
• 2 red onions, diced small
  
• 4-5 tomatoes (med), diced small
  
• 3 T berbere
  
• sea salt to taste
  
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 chicken bouillon cube
• 1/4 - 1/3c avocado oil
• 1c quanta, torn into bite size pieces 
• 1 tsp black cardamom
• 1-2 T Ethiopian spiced butter (or ghee)
• 1-2 c dried injera (called derkosh)
  

1. To a dry pan, heat onions over medium heat. They will release their liquid and start to become thick, almost gelatinous. 
2. Add 2/3 of the garlic/ginger, leaving the rest to add at the end. Also add spices, bouillon, and 1/4c avocado oil. *You will likely add some more oil as you cook, looking for a thick, almost gelatinous texture, and so the onions and spices do not stick to the bottom of the pan. The berbere will make the dish very red. 
3. Once you've sauteed the added ingredients in the oil (several minutes), add a little water and the tomatoes. The mix will be quite soupy. Turn the heat to med-low, cover and simmer. It will get thicker. (This dish can be served on its own here, it is really delicious as is.)
   

   

   Berbere sauce on left, gomen on the right
   

4. After the sauce simmers for 5 minutes or more, it will be a bit thicker (see photo above). Add the quanta, black cardamom, and butter/ghee. Stir and simmer another few minutes to hydrate the jerky. Finally, add the derkosh. Gently stir while it hydrates, several minutes. The saucy mix will now become quite thick, almost like a porridge of injera. It is now ready to serve!
   

 

For the Majet, we started with a layer of injera, 2 pieces layered on top of one another, rolled up on the sides to create an edge. We then layered our beef tibs, and then the quanta fir fir. On top of that went the gomen, followed by kitfo, and finally the ayb. Plus kitfo in the corners with tibs in between to fill the platter and touches of more ayb for aesthetic viewing.

 So spectacular!!!

Nettle egg-cakes

Ramadan is around the corner, and I plan to fast again, so I am in the time-right-before where I feel both excited and a bit panicky. I decided this year to do a little prep (beyond just cutting caffeine) to decrease some daytime food intake now, so that the sudden switch isn't quite so, well, sudden. Which really means I am eating a little later for brunch, a bit less than I might otherwise. I made these nettle egg cakes today, a riff on the multitude of mostly korean pancakes I have tried lately. I don't know why, but sometimes it is just satisfying to have my breakfast/lunch in pancake form. Savory style. Oooh, which makes me think these would have been good with bacon. (Though I did eat them with some basturma, which is almost as good!)

I made these today with just nettles and red onion, though I have made them before using grated potato, and sometimes cheese along with the greens. This is the simplest version that I ate with some plain yogurt. They were really good, and the recipe is forgiving. You can approximate and increase/decrease the veggies to your tastes. (I am on my last, I think, batch of frozen nettles. Good timing, because the green onions are just getting big enough to harvest, and I dug up some jerusalem artichokes yesterday. And dandelion greens are starting. So, I made it through to spring time vegetables! Fasting for the month will also help with the limited produce!) *I also tried them with coconut and almond flours - I used a combo of both in place of the ones below. It turned out great.

Nettle egg-cakes - Serves 1

• 1/3 c steamed nettles (or other greens), chopped 
• 1/4 c red onion, diced small
• 2 eggs
• 1-2 tsp arrowroot starch
• 1-2 T buckwheat flour

Mix all ingredients together; you want a thick consistency - think thick pancake batter. It won't pour so much as scoop. 

Heat some butter, ghee or coconut oil in a skillet. When hot, scoop your batter to the center, and flatten out to a pancake. Cook over med heat for several minutes on each side. This amount makes 2 egg-cakes for me. Serve with plain, thick yogurt, or a little butter, or top with a drizzle of mayo and sriracha. 

Shrimp Egg Fried Cabbage-Rice (take 2)

I posted about egg fried cabbage-rice some months ago, and since then I have revised (and improved) my technique and recipe. I literally make this every week - if not for breakfast, then for dinner. My favorite is to throw some shrimp in, which is really easy b/c I just keep a resealable bag of frozen shrimp in the freezer, and voila. Tasty, comforting, and fast. My wok has never gotten so much love!

*I have some gochujang paste in the fridge that I've been using in this dish. You don't need it, or you could use whatever chili paste you have, or use hot peppers plus a little fish sauce. It adds a nice umami kick. Sometimes I also add in some chopped kimchi.

I've experimented with the order I add things to the wok, and my favorite is to do the eggs early. When starting with the eggs, they stick together without just coating everything else, and they stick to the pan less than when I add them at the end. So my preferred method follows, but you really can't go wrong.

Serves 1:

• 2-3 T sesame oil
• 1 rib celery, diced
• 1/4 large onion, diced
• 2 eggs
• 1 small carrot, diced
• 1-2 cups cabbage, chopped small
  
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2"+ of ginger, minced
• 4-6 shrimp, de-veined and tails removed, diced 
• 1-2 T tamari
• opt: minced chili pepper and dash of fish sauce OR 1-2 tsp gochujang paste
• salt to taste
• opt: garnish with sliced scallions

Have all of your veggies/shrimp prepped!

Heat oil in a wok on high heat. Add onion and celery and stir fry for a minute. Push them to the side, and crack two eggs into the wok, ideally there should still be a fair amount of oil for the eggs to crack into. Stir up the eggs so they scramble and cook, mixing with onions/celery.

Add carrot, cabbage, ginger and garlic. Stir and toss for a few minutes. Add shrimp. Cook until pink, 1-2 minutes. Add tamari and gochujang - stir and toss to coat everything. Tip into a large bowl and eat!