Rice-lentils and baked spicy azuki lunch

Another nutritious and delicious plant-based lunch, doubly boosted in plant proteins with two types of pulses : beans and lentils. And a dynamic salad.
That’s ready very quickly if you plan a little. As faithful readers know, I cook beans in big batches and freeze in small portions, in muffin molds. Then you have to think about soaking the rice and lentils the night before (you can do without in case you forgot, but that’s better to do it right most of the time).

Azuki beans (boiled, I had them frozen), with gochujang and kimchi, two Korean products. I mixed, covered with bread crumbs.

Baked and sprinkled a little fragrant sesame oil and chili flakes on top.

Brown rice and lentils, soaked overnight and cooked in the rice-cooker together.

I stir-fried an onion, a little garlic, ginger slices, added the rice, turmeric, a little garam masala spice mix.

Kabocha salad made in last post.

Pakuchi som tam papaya, and baby corn

I took my mortar to prepare a little Thai style lunch around cilantro/coriander green papaya salad.

So now we have local green papaya, let’s grate it.

Garlic, green hot chili. Then red hot hot hot chili (very little, it’s so hot), ami ebi salty shrimps, toasted peanuts, kabosu lime juice, a little sugar, nam pla fish sauce. Then red sweet chili, green papaya, coriander leaves and stalks.

Tam ! Tam ! Tam ! Tam !

Fresh baby corn from Thailand.

I’ve used it for a stir-fry. Just oil and a little garlic, to cook the white parts of negi leeks, shishito green peppers, edamame beans, then the baby corn. I garnished with sweet chili sauce.

Brown rice.

A nice 3 dish meal.

Yakisoba with eringii and abura-age

Today, yakisoba, the Japanese version of Chinese fried noodles. Well, that’s my version of it… well, one of them. See others at the end of this post.

Yakisoba is fast-food normally. It’s often sold cheaply on street stalls, at festivals and the teppanyaki (hot plate) shops propose it too. The basic version is made mostly with :

-chuka soba (fresh Chinese noodles that are sold fresh and cooked, they look like thick spaghetti and if you have none, cooked thick spaghetti can be used)
-oil

That’s why we said it’s fried noodles, no mystery. And low amounts of :

-cabbage (cut in big squares)
-additional veggies (cut in thin slices), few and cheap ones (bean sprouts, onion, carrot, some kind of leeks…)
-a little raw meat (thin slices of pork), or cheap seafood, or ham…
-sauce (specific sauce or thickened Worcester sauce or a mix of Worcester + ketchup…), plus additional ketchup or mayo if you want
-pickled ginger, toppings…

My version uses what I have in my fridge, and it’s usually healthier.

So, I had abura age (fried tofu) as meat.

A few Eringi mushrooms as meat too.

I had a leftover of green papaya.

I first toasted the abura-age (fried tofu pockets), set aside. Then with a little garlic and ginger : onion, eringi mushrooms, green papaya, cabbage and shishito green peppers. To the veggies, I’ve added fresh Chinese noodles (chuka soba), sauce (Bulldog).

I’ve added the abura-age to the rest. I have about half of veggies, less than one third of noodles. That’s how I like it.

On top, a little more sauce, shichimi togarashi (7 spice mix) and cut green negi leeks.

Gnocchi x gnocchi

Gnocchi di patata ? Gnocchi di polenta ?

That’s the Daring Cook’s challenge of this month : potato gnocchi.

Todd, who is The Daring Kitchen’s AWESOME webmaster and an amazing cook, is our September Daring Cooks’ host! Todd challenged us to make light and fluffy potato Gnocchi and encouraged us to flavor the lil pillows of goodness and go wild with a sauce to top them with!

As I had already made some and I wanted a fresher Summer version, I tried to combine polenta gnocchi and potato gnocchi recipes :

It’s gluten free. I didn’t add flour. I cooked the polenta, and made mashed potato. I mixed about 60% potato, 40% polenta. Flavored with salt, nutmeg, black pepper, a little olive oil. Let cool a few hours.

Prepared a sauce (tomato, garlic, olive oil) and stir-fried peppers and onions with garlic and rosemary.

Formed gnocchi with the chilled dough, coated them in sauce.
They can’t be boiled or they would fall apart (yep, I tried). It’s not a problem, they can reheated in the sauce.