Participants: Jeremy Dixon
Series Code: CKT
Program Code: CKT000029A
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00:20 Welcome to Cook 30. I'm Jeremy Dixon from the Revive Cafes
00:25 I also wrote the Revive Cafe cookbooks. And today 00:28 I'm going to share with you how you can make a Cafe style meal 00:31 in just 30 minutes. Cook 30 food is all about using healthy 00:36 ingredients and fast. We're going to use whole grains 00:39 plant based protein all tied together with herbs and spices 00:44 and use lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. 00:46 On the menu today we have a gourmet dhal combo 00:52 We have tadka dhal with chick peas on lemon herb rice 00:57 We have a seedy sprinkle and a fresh cucumber and dill salad 01:02 and to finish it off a delicious Cambodia banana fritters 01:09 Now if you want to cook meals quickly you need to be prepared 01:12 before you start. We've got a clear work surface here 01:15 good chopping board, sharp knife. We've got a pot on the 01:19 stove, the water is boiled ready for the rice 01:22 and we've got ingredients in the fridge, on the bench ready to go 01:26 Makes life a lot easier. So let's click on where the fingers 01:29 take the longest and that is cooking the brown rice 01:32 So quick lesson in cooking brown rice. First turn the pot on 01:35 to get it up to temperature. So we're going to use a standard 01:40 recipe for rice which works every time. 01:43 And it's best to use long grain rice. It ends up being a lot 01:47 softer and quicker cooking. 01:49 So we're going to start with one 01:52 cup of rice. There's more than a cup so I won't use quite 01:57 all the cup and we're going to use two cups of boiling water 02:03 nearly boiling water and so this recipe works really well 02:07 One cup of rice to two cups of water. 02:12 And two rules which you may have heard from me before 02:14 for cooking rice. Number 1, Do not stir the rice 02:18 The rice will develop steam holes which actually cook it 02:21 so you don't want to stir it and stir those so the rice won't 02:23 cook evenly and properly. And the second rule is Lid On 02:27 We want the moisture in the water to go into the rice to 02:30 to make it soft, not evaporate off the top. 02:32 So once it's boiling turn in down to like a very light 02:35 bubbling kind of heat and let it go and in about 25 minutes 02:40 to 30 minutes it will be ready. 02:44 Okay, next job is we want to get the dhal underway. 02:46 So we'll start this pan going and we're going to start with a 02:51 good dhal base which is your standard onions, garlic, ginger 02:56 So just get an onion and chop it up as finely as you can 03:01 you don't need to be too fussy or chiffy about it 03:10 and try and economize on your cuts. 03:15 This is the fastest way I like to cut them 03:17 We're going to start with a little bit of oil 03:20 and we're not deep frying here so it's just a splash 03:22 under probably, about a teaspoon to about 2 teaspoons full, so no 03:27 big lugs or deep frying in oil 03:34 And the next ingredient is a bit of garlic 03:38 Garlic and ginger are somethings that go really well in dishes 03:42 and you usually don't taste a garlicky or ginger flavor 03:45 it just adds a lovely body of flavor that brings out other 03:49 flavors and it makes everything taste really lovely. 03:54 The quickest way is to put the garlic in the garlic press 03:57 and then squeeze it through like that. 04:03 Just do that 04:09 And we've got some ginger puree two tablespoons of this 04:12 This is available at most supermarkets. One and two 04:17 and which is a great little product. You could chop your own 04:19 ginger if you wanted to but I think this is excellent. 04:21 However, never ever buy garlic processed in these kind of 04:25 containers. I don't know what they put in it but it's not 04:28 garlic. Make sure you use garlic fresh but ginger is ok to use 04:32 in these kind of tubes. 04:35 We'll stir that around, I'll turn that down 04:37 and we just want the onion, garlic and ginger just to mingle 04:41 around and become soft until the flavors come out of them. 04:47 Smells so good. 04:49 Second job done. Now we're just going to do the salad. 04:53 We've got a cucumber salad and I'm going to make this in a 04:56 dish, in a bowl. I'm going to start with your average 05:02 telegraph cucumber or whatever they call them in your country 05:04 Chop off the ends and we're just going to uh 05:08 get rid of some of these onions 05:10 it's not good to share ingredients between dishes 05:13 Just slice it lengthwise 05:20 like that and then we can slice it lengthwise that way 05:26 This is just a good fast way of getting diced cucumber 05:31 Kind of reasonably small but not obsessively so. 05:37 Just like that. 05:38 And we're going to just cut through here 05:42 with the knife, make sure you're rolling it 05:44 rocking it backward and forward 05:50 and that makes nice diced cucumbers in no time 05:54 So it's the main ingredient 05:57 One of my favorite herbs is dill 06:01 I found it at the supermarket. You can't always get it but 06:03 when you can it's just beautiful if you can't find dill you could 06:06 probably use mint or cilantro but dill is a really nice 06:11 herb to use. So we'll just pick that out, about that much 06:16 I see a few black bits here, pick that out 06:19 and we're just going to chop it up finely 06:22 and put it in there. 06:26 Make sure you leave little bit in the container for later 06:28 we'll use it as garnish at the end. 06:30 So just take up all the dill at once 06:36 I'm just going to add a little bit of salt, 06:38 probably about a 1/4 of a teaspoon 06:42 and some lemon juice. 06:45 This kind of works really well with this 06:48 Let's give the onions a bit of a stir there 06:54 You can see the rice is bubbling away nicely 07:03 If in doubt just add lemon juice it's such a universal ingredient 07:07 Just going to pour it through my fingers to catch the pips 07:13 The naughty ones jumped in there 07:15 Where are they? Come on. 07:21 Come on, you don't belong in this salad. 07:24 You're not invited. There we go, got them. 07:30 Don't want lemon pips in there. 07:33 And tie it together with some yogurt. 07:35 So I just got some coconut yogurt. You can get soy yogurt 07:38 It's a good dairy free yogurt that we'll stir through 07:42 Choose whatever yogurt is your favorite one. Try to eat one 07:44 that's not too sweet. 07:47 This will add lot of creaminess to it so probably about 1/2 cup 07:51 we're going to stir it around. 07:53 And we'll let it sit for the next 1/2 hour or so 07:57 We've probably 20 minutes left now. 07:59 And it will kind of soak up all that lemon juice 08:01 and the dill flavor and it will be really, really flavorsome 08:04 when we come to eat. It's just a nice little salad on the side 08:07 that will just go really well with the dhal and I kind of 08:11 think of Middle Eastern Food, they generally have a lot of hot 08:13 things like a dhal, our dhal won't be hot 08:16 but next to it you have some thing cold, a kind of balance 08:20 it off I suppose. So leave it to the side and come back 08:23 near the end and plate it up when it's all soaked through. 08:30 There are three spices that go together really, really well. 08:33 And that is cumin, coriander and turmeric. 08:37 And they're a great base for any Middle Eastern or Indian 08:41 food that's like a dhal. So we're going to put 2 teaspoons 08:45 of each to the dhal. So two teaspoons of coriander 08:49 two teaspoons of turmeric which gives a lovely color as well 08:53 and two teaspoons of cumin. 08:55 Now we just need to kind of activate these so the flavors 08:58 come out. So we're going to stir them around 09:01 with the onion mix which is now nice and soft for 10-20 seconds 09:07 just sort of till you can start to smell all the lovely flavors 09:12 come out of them which is just lovely. 09:15 So then we're actually going to make the base of the dhal 09:18 we're going to be using a yellow dhal 09:22 not to confuse these with split peas. So we're going to use one 09:26 cup of these. So I'll measure these out. 09:30 One cup. You can use red lentils as well. Virtually any lentil 09:35 but red or yellow are the best. I'm using the yellow lentil 09:38 they kind of have quite a nice creamy consistency when cooked 09:43 One cup of lentils to three and a half cups of water 09:48 So this is nearly boiling from before. 09:51 I'll just measure this out. You may want to adjust your water 09:54 while cooking if your lentils seem to be different 09:55 but using this as a starting point to get you going. 10:00 If it's too much water just cook it for a little bit longer 10:02 the water will keep escaping. If it's not enough just add some 10:05 as a later time. So this will just mingle around and after 10:10 about 20 minutes or so these lentils will become really soft 10:15 Now we don't want to add salt at this stage 10:17 if we do add salt it inhibits the lentils ability to 10:24 cook and become soft. So we add salt right at the end. 10:27 So it's just bubbling, it's just come to bubbling now 10:31 and that should help that. 10:35 Okay, now we're going to start with the dessert. 10:39 And we've got these Cambodian fritters. While I was in 10:41 Cambodia two years ago I was in the market and this girl was 10:46 selling these yummy banana fritters. I tried one and they 10:49 are really, really delicious. So I thought it might be a 10:51 little bit healthier if the same kind of process applies 10:54 to make it from chick pea flour and bananas 10:55 and a few other ingredients to hold them together. It's really 10:58 really easy and I'll show you how they work now. 11:01 So I've just got the pan here on, we're just warming the pan 11:04 slightly so when we get ready to cook them the pan is hot 11:08 and ready to go. We don't have to spend 5 minutes waiting for 11:10 pan to warm up. So the first ingredient, believe it or not, 11:15 is chickpea flour. It's also called garbanzo bean flour 11:21 a really nice flour to use. I use it for any kind of fritters 11:24 it sticks together without needing eggs which is fantastic 11:26 So we're going to be using one cup. I better measure this 11:32 better get a cup measure 11:35 Normally I don't measure things but for this kinda baking thing 11:37 it actually pays to. So we'll start with one cup 11:42 of chick pea flour 11:45 and we're going to use, we need about one cup of water 11:49 but you probably want to start with about a half cup 11:51 and get it stirring. If you throw all the water in at once 11:54 it can become really lumpy and hard to get good consistency, 11:59 you kind of want to stir it into a paste, get rid of all the 12:01 floury bits, and then you can... like that, 12:07 then add the rest of, the other half cup of water 12:16 and stir it around like that. 12:22 Eventually it will become a nice consistent, even paste. 12:38 There we go. To it we'll add some bananas. 12:43 So I'm just going to use the chopping board for this 12:44 I'll get three bananas. The riper the better. 12:49 And we're going to mash these up to put in. We don't want 12:52 them completely mashed but enough so they stick together 12:55 as a fritter. So just grab a fork 13:04 Here we go. I'm just going to mash them 13:08 just like that 13:12 Nothing too special 13:17 Make them into mashy bits 13:25 Put that in there with the chickpea flour 13:27 There's a lot of sweetness in here 13:30 and a lot of banana flavor obviously. 13:37 And just to give it a little bit of crunch we're going to add 13:40 some slivered almonds. It gives a lovely kind of extra, you know 13:45 when you bite there's a little bit of crunchiness there 13:47 just really nice so it makes it a little extra special 13:50 Can't remember if the ones I had in Cambodia had these, but 13:52 I just added them and I make a really nice mix 13:56 and as you can see the bananas are a good binding ingredient 13:58 as well. This makes a really nice fritter kind of mix. 14:05 So just stir it up well 14:08 And another thing to make it special is to add a bit of 14:10 lemon zest which adds another interesting dynamic 14:14 Wherever you can you want to be constantly adding 14:17 I'm right handed so I better use the right. You want to be using 14:21 as many interesting flavors and ingredients as you can 14:28 I'm going to zest some of this and you don't need much 14:32 to make it zesty. And what you are actually getting out of the 14:35 lemon skin is the lemon oil, so you can actually add lemon oil 14:39 it will probably do a very similar job. 14:42 Here we go, just scoop that in. 14:49 Add a pinch of salt 14:51 Not enough to make it savory but it just kinda brings out 14:54 the flavors a little bit. 14:57 And these are now ready to go in the pan. 15:02 Have I missed anything? 15:04 Don't think so, a little bit of honey. 15:05 Just put a little bit of honey about a tablespoon 15:08 just to help the banana a little bit. 15:10 You might need to put a few more bananas out 15:17 all that sweet 15:20 Got a hot pan here 15:23 What I'm looking for basically is when I put my hand on the pan 15:25 you want to put your hand about this far above the surface 15:27 and it should feel pretty warm so that's a kind of a good way 15:31 of determining whether your pan is hot enough. 15:33 So I will turn it up just a little bit 15:35 So I'm going to start with a little bit of oil 15:38 Now we're not deep frying, we're putting just a touch in 15:42 Lot of people think frying they think basically make an inch 15:46 thick deep worth of oil. This is just a little touch 15:49 just to help it not stick and give it a little bit of flavor 15:53 And what we do it just put them in here like this. 16:01 I'm going to start with doing 4. I'll just turn this up a bit. 16:08 And they should start to sizzle 16:12 So you kinda want to do smaller batches, you don't want to 16:15 put too much and make them overcrowded. 16:17 So for now we'll do just four per pan 16:24 Here we go. 16:26 That will take a couple of minutes per side, like that. 16:31 While that is going I'll tell you a story about my first day 16:34 opening my Cafe. 2004, February 14 which was Valentine's Day 16:41 I was so engrossed with doing my Cafe I didn't even know 16:45 it was Valentine's Day. Sorry to my wife. 16:47 Basically I walked down the street. It was 7 o'clock 16:50 it was a dark morning, opened my Cafe for business 16:55 I remember sitting at the counter full of anticipation 16:58 I had just spent three months renovating, getting menus 17:02 hiring staff and creating this Cafe, finally after many delays 17:06 this was the opening day of my new venture. 17:10 I thought, wow, this is the most exciting moment of my life 17:13 opening the Cafe. So I thought ok, let's see how this goes 17:17 I opened up, 7 o'clock. Opened the doors, stood behind the 17:20 counter grinning and looking forward to this new experience 17:23 that was about to begin. And few minutes later someone 17:27 trotted up the stairs and said Hi, I'd like a coffee please 17:30 And since it was a healthy cafe I didn't sell any coffee. 17:33 So I said sorry I don't have any coffee. So the person 17:36 walked out of the Cafe never to be seen again. 17:39 Second customer comes along, bounds up the stairs and said 17:43 I'd like a latte, thanks. I said sorry, we don't do coffees 17:45 by now I'd had time to think of a sales pitch so I said, Look 17:48 we've got some healthy, delicious smoothies instead 17:51 and would you like to try one of those. 17:53 And the person clearly needed a caffeine fix, said no, no 17:58 I'd like to have coffee instead. 18:00 So they left, never to return. 18:02 Third person bounds up the stair Hi I'd like a short black thanks 18:07 And I said to them, look sorry I don't have any coffee 18:10 I was about to go into my spiel about the smoothie 18:14 and they said, what? Are you some kind of a religious nut 18:16 or something? And turned around in anger and stormed out of the 18:19 Cafe never to be seen again. And that was my first 3 customers. 18:23 And my new big adventure of owning my Cafe. 18:27 And I thought, Oh no this is terrible. Fortunately it was 18:29 better than that. It improved We got some menu items on lunch 18:33 became a big thing for us and before long we got to this 18:35 stage. Actually I remember the first day we were serving lunch 18:38 and we were serving our customer tender rounds and a queue had 18:44 appeared all the way down the Cafe, down the stairs and at 18:46 the front of the restaurant down the street queuing up for this 18:49 healthy, vegetarian plant based food. 18:52 And a shiver went down my spine thinking wow this is really cool 18:55 This new adventure has begun, people actually like this kind 18:57 of food. So it was very, very exciting. 19:00 Anyway, back to the fritters. 19:02 Let's see how these guys are going. 19:04 Let's have a look under here. Yes, look at this 19:06 they're ready to turn. 19:08 Look at that. Who said that you need eggs to do fritters. 19:14 Here we go, these are looking good. So a couple minutes 19:17 on each side we'll come back to those shortly. 19:19 I'm just going to add a little more water to the dhal 19:21 You kind of want the dhal to be having water over it most of 19:25 the time that it's cooking. So just add a little bit more 19:28 to make sure it's under water. 19:32 Great. I'm going to come back to it and do more fritters later 19:40 If you've just joined us on Cook 30, we're making a gourmet 19:43 dhal combo. We have a Tadka dal with chick peas on lemon herb 19:48 rice with a seedy sprinkle. We have a fresh cucumber and dill 19:53 salad and to finish it off a Cambodian banana fritters, Mm mm 20:00 It's going on really well. We want to do a seed mix now 20:03 which is really a nice addition to go over the dhal. 20:05 I've got a hot pan here. I'm just going to throw a few nuts 20:08 and seeds. Not very complicated at all. You probably want round 20:11 about a cup in total so probably round about a 1/4 cup of 20:15 cashew nuts, we've got some pumpkin seed, sunflower seeds 20:21 whatever your favorite nuts are just sprinkle them in 20:24 Fennel seeds give an amazing, really nice interesting taste, 20:30 so put not so many of those in. And some sesame seeds 20:34 So we're going to dry fry these just to unlock some of the 20:38 flavors. You've just got to make sure they don't burn. So 20:41 we've got quite a reasonably hot pan, let's turn that up a bit 20:46 And these will take just about a couple of minutes and then 20:48 it gets nice and fragrant and just a nice addition to have 20:52 for the dhal. So speaking of dhal I think this is ready to go 20:56 I'll just taste a little bit. Somehow dhals are different 20:59 This one is just nice and soft. It is ready to go. 21:03 So you want to add the chick peas. Garbanzo beans or chick 21:08 peas are the same. We're just going to open a can of these 21:12 See if you can cook your own and freeze them if you want 21:16 but it's really convenient if you have a can. 21:18 And they're really inexpensive these days. 21:21 And we're going to put a little coconut milk in. 21:24 You can make your own cashew milk or other style of cream 21:29 But coconut milk is a kind of soft nice thing, kind of an 21:31 Indian and Middle Eastern ingredient. 21:34 So you want probably about 1/2 a can.. 21:37 And you want to add some salt. 21:39 So probably about 1/2 teaspoon of salt. 21:44 And a bit of honey for sweetness 21:47 About a tablespoon 21:48 And stir it around and that's pretty much the dhal is ready 21:53 Turn it off, you don't want to cook after you've put the cream 21:56 cause it can kind of splits. So just turn the gas off. 22:00 This may take a few more minutes it may kind of thicken up 22:04 and be really, really delicious. Look at that, all those flavors 22:07 It's a very simple dhal but just nice and flavorsome very warming 22:11 especially in the winter. 22:13 And we'll kind of top it off with coriander. 22:18 Let's see how these guys are going. 22:21 Just a little bit more I think. 22:23 We've got a bit of greenery to go in here. So we're going to 22:26 add some frozen peas. It just adds a nice bit of color 22:32 So we will put those in there. And just stir them around. 22:37 Now these are frozen, we're not going to cook them at first 22:40 the heat of this will cook it. 22:41 They just need to be lightly defrosted. 22:43 If you overcook peas they start going a horrible brown color. 22:48 So that's pretty much ready to go. 22:50 So let's get into the rice. 22:53 I think this is ready to go now. 22:56 Get a nice rustic wooden bowl 22:59 So we're just going to spoon in some of this rice into here 23:04 As you can see there are little dents in there so just kind of 23:08 fluff it up and we'll tip it into the bowl. 23:13 So normally you might just serve it with rice like this and 23:15 it's perfectly acceptable but it's much more fun 23:19 Oh there's a bit stuck on the bottom 23:21 We don't have much there anyway. To add a few other ingredients, 23:25 so we're going to be adding some oh, lemon of course 23:28 cause it's lemony rice. We're going to zest some lemon in 23:35 Any kind of a small grater setting does this. 23:39 You don't need much at all. 23:47 Like that and the most important part is all those lovely herbs 23:52 so we're going to go with some mint, that's the central part 24:00 of it so I've got some mint. So I'm going to chop up some mint 24:04 Get the fresher stuff it will be fine as long as it's not dark 24:08 or brown. So that's some mint. And then we've got some parsley 24:14 some Italian Parsley. Just to chop up as well. Just as lovely 24:18 fresh herbs make a massive difference to the rice 24:22 And we'll add some cilantro as well. We're going to use the 24:28 stalk this time from our previous recipes 24:31 Even the stalky bits that come off the end of the cilantro are 24:34 really nice as well. So just put that in and mix it around 24:37 Just a touch of salt, just a touch of olive oil 24:42 just mix it up and it's a lovely base for the dhal. 24:47 So I'll just another batch of fritters in the break 24:50 and we'll come back and plate it at the table shortly. 24:55 So I've added some honey and some sliced almonds 24:58 over the top of these Cambodian banana fritters 25:00 They look just amazing, can't wait to try them. 25:03 And the tadka dal is just simple 25:05 So we start with a bit of rice 25:07 It's lovely herbed rice with all those flavors in there. 25:11 You know that's going to taste good. 25:13 And the dhal with the chick peas I've also put a bit of cilantro 25:17 and sweet chili sauce and a bit bit of leftover coconut milk 25:19 just to garnish it and make it look pretty as well. 25:21 So make sure you focus on the garnishes. 25:24 And we're going to top it off with this lovely seed mix 25:27 and nut mix, this adds another dimension. 25:31 And of course something cold to go with this as well 25:33 this wonderful cucumber and dill flavors go really, really well. 25:40 So I hope you've learned some thing today. 25:42 I hope you've enjoyed those foods. Make sure you go healthy. 25:44 You'll feel so much better with these whole foods. 25:47 Thank you for joining me today on Cook 30. 25:49 And I look forward to seeing you next time. |
Revised 2016-07-21