TWO VEGETABLE DISHES
Interleaved with the story below about cooking with vegetables are recipes for Super-smooth Warm Hummus and Carrot and Parsnip “Osso Buco” Provençal.
If you can serve this hummus recipe warm, the tastes and texture will transport you.
RECIPE: Super-smooth Warm Hummus
Adapted for our elevation, and with tweaks from me, from a recipe by J. M. Hirsch and Diane Unger in “Milk Street” magazine, May-June 1997. Makes 4 cups.
Ingredients
8 ounces or about 1 cup or more dried small chickpeas
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup tahini, from toasted sesame, at room temperature and well-stirred
4 tablespoons lemon juice
1 to 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1-2 cloves garlic, peeled, to taste
Directions
Put 8 cups of cold water, the salt and the chickpeas into a large bowl and soak for at least 12 hours or overnight. When ready to cook, bring 10 cups of water to a boil in a large pot and add the baking soda. Drain the soaked chickpeas, discarding the soaking water, and add the chickpeas to the pot.
Bring back to a boil and cook the chickpeas until the skins begin to fall off and they are very tender, 50-55 minutes (or more at higher elevation). Put a fine colander or mesh strainer over a heat-proof bowl and drain the chickpeas, keeping back 1 cup of the chickpea boiling water. But let them completely drain.
Remove 2 heaping tablespoons of the chickpeas, set that aside, and move the rest to the bowl of a food processor. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and process the mass for 3 full minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl 2-3 times to ensure consistency.
Add the tahini and process for 1 minute more, again scraping down the sides of the bowl. With the processor running and through the feed tube, pour in the 1 cup of reserved water, the lemon juice, olive oil and garlic. Process once more, 1-2 minutes, until smooth and very light. Taste for salt.
Serve warm, garnished with the reserved whole cooked chickpeas and any number of other flavorings: more olive oil, paprika, cumin powder, chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, more lemon juice, sumac powder or one of the spice blends za'atar or ras el hanout. Scoop it with pita, of course, but also with red cabbage leaves or sweet onion “curls.”
STORY: Vegetables (and the fruits that we label “vegetables,” such as the tomato, chile pepper or string bean) are the most diverse foods that we eat.
We eat them as grasses (the seeds of corn, wheat, barley and oat), as vines (the fruits eggplant, cucumber, zucchini), as seed pods or legumes (pea, peapod, peanut, chickpea, lentil, the bean ad infinitum), as flowers (cauliflower, broccoli, artichoke, nasturtium), as the bulbs of flowers (all the members of the allium family such as garlic and onion), as roots (carrot, beet, turnip, parsnip), as tubers (potato, ginger, taro, sweet potato, yam), as tree fruits (avocado, olive) and as leaves (spinach, lettuce, kale, parsley, cilantro, basil).
We eat them because they’re delicious; they’re healthful; and, well, they are terribly interesting and worth looking into and writing about (even though they cause you to end clauses and sentences with prepositions).
The two recipes here are two favorite vegan recipes of mine.
The hummus is the way it is often eaten in Israel, warm and as what we call breakfast. I’ve seen pictures of people lined up at hummus shops in Tel Aviv the same way folks line up hereabouts at bakeries. It is amazingly smooth, luxurious of texture and deeply delicious.
The root vegetable “osso buco” is a turn on the regular veal shank braise, using the forgiving (and shank-sturdy) carrot and parsnip. I heard about the recipe as such, but there’s no “buco” (hole or “mouth”) as there is in a cross-cut veal shank. But there is all manner of vegetable to plug a hole, isn’t there? Maybe it should be called “osso no-buco.”
Carrot and Paarsnip “Osso Buco” Provençal
RECIPE: Carrot and Parsnip “Osso Buco” Provençal
To prepare this strictly vegan, use a butter substitute. Serves 2-3 as a main meal, 4-6 as a side dish.
Ingredients
1 pound each carrots and parsnips, thick, peeled
2 tablespoons unsalted butter (or use vegan substitute)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1 rib celery, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
2-3 cups tomatoes, peeled, seeded, chopped, canned or fresh
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 bouquet garni
2 tablespoons orange zest
2 slices orange
2 cups vegetable stock
For the gremolata:
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon minced lemon zest
1-2 teaspoons minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
Directions
Cut the 2 pounds of vegetables into roughly equal-sized large chunks. Melt the butter and olive oil in a heavy-bottomed Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid. Brown the carrots and parsnips, without crowding and turning them a couple of times, so that as many sides are as well-browned as possible. (You may need to do this in a couple of batches.) Remove and set aside.
Add the onions and celery and brown those as well. Then the tomatoes, seasoning the mix so far with salt and pepper and scraping up the bottom of the pan to loosen any browned bits. Toss in the bouquet garni, orange slices and zest and stir to combine. Lightly flatten the tomato mix and top it with the parsnip and carrot chunks. Pour the vegetable stock so that it reaches halfway to 2/3 the way up the sides of the vegetables.
Bring the pot to a boil, lower to a simmer and top with the lid. Cook slowly for 1 hour, stirring the vegetables every 20 minutes. The carrot and parsley chunks should be very tender; the tomatoes and onions, falling apart. If not, cook a bit more.
Meanwhile, make the gremolata by stirring together the minced garlic, lemon zest and parsley. Serve the vegetables as they are, topped with the gremolata, or over polenta, mashed potatoes or steamed bulghur wheat, again garnished with the gremolata.