Tuesday 2 September 2014

Aubergine... I found you at last



So, I have continued to experiment with recipes, opting for savoury this time. This recipe is a Denis Cotter masterpiece: 'chickpea, aubergine and broccoli salad with bulghur, sunflower and a lemon and yoghurt dressing' (just to lower the tone, I put it with some breaded fish). Not all recipes I try work but this was lovely. After not eating aubergine for the first 25 years of my life, I am now fully on-board. I'm really enjoying Denis cotter's recipes, they are full of flavour and not too complicated to make.

Here's the science: -
1 aubergine
25g sunflower seeds
2tsp soy sauce
200g broccolli
50g bulghur
200g chickpeas
1tsp cumin seeds
2 garlic cloves
1/2 red chilli (amend to your taste buds)
3 tomatoes
3 spring onions
2tsp chopped parsley
2tsp chopped coriander
olive oil
200ml natural yoghurt
juice of 1 lemon

I adapted his recipe to suit two people. Some things I halved and others I kept to suit my tastes. This recipe doesn't take long if you multitask! Put halved and sliced aubergine in the oven for 15minutes while toasting sunflower seeds (10mins). Also pour hot water over the bulgur (15mins and leave it to do its thing). At the same time, heat a frying pan, cook the chickpeas for 5 minutes (stirring often), add the cumin, chilli and garlic and keep on the heat for 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, herbs and spring onions then stir in the bulghur. While doing this, the broccoli should boil for 4minutes. Add the broccoli and aubergines to the mix. The dressing involves squeezing the lemon juice on the natural yoghurt, stirring half in the mix and drizzling half on top. Add the soy sauce to the sesame seeds and put them on top (this is a revelation - I'm going to put it on top of most dishes form now on). Et voila! A master piece.

After the amount of times I just wrote broccoli, I still want to type it with two 'l's'. Sounds a lot at once but somehow it just works. The dressing is as delicious on other dinners / salads too. Thanks Denis.

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