Ingredients
1 can of chickpeas (240g when drained)
1 garlic clove
1 T and 2 t smoky chipotle harissa
100 g quinoa
1/2 t vegetable stock
1/4 red cabbage
1 small or half a large fennel
1 onion or 2-3 small shallots
2 carrots
2 sticks celery
small handful fresh Italian parsley
50 g pumpkin seeds (optional)
dash tamari/soya sauce
half an orange
1 lemon
20 ml extra virgin olive oil
dash cider vinegar
Serves: 2 adults, with a side of quinoa
Cooking time: 30 minutes or less. This is one easy recipe.
Method
Pre-heat oven grill to 180°C (350°F).
Quick pickle onion (or shallots). Slice onion into neat slices, place in a small bowl with a generous pinch of salt and squeeze half the lemon over it.
Cook quinoa. Place 100 g into a small saucepan, with 1/2 t vegetable stock if you like. Add 300ml of water. Place lid onto pot and leave to cook, stirring occasionally to check it does not stick on the bottom. Once water is soaked in, turn off the heat and leave it to steam with the lid on. It will take approx. 15 minutes.
Rinse and drain the chickpeas, then pour out onto an oven tray greased with olive oil. Microplane one clove of garlic. Stir garlic into 1 T of the harissa and then coat the chickpeas with this potent, oily paste. Place tray into the oven for around 15 minutes, check occasionally to stir and make sure the chickpeas do not burn.
If using, toast pumpkin seeds in a pan, stirring regularly. Once they start to pop, add a dash of soya sauce, stir and then remove from the heat to cool. Feel free to make double the quantity or more, these keep well in a jar for snacks or salad toppings.
Make dressing. Take 30 ml (or a good glug) of olive oil, 2 t of harissa, juice of half a lemon, juice of half an orange and a grind of pepper. Mix well. You may wish to add some cider vinegar if this is not tart enough for your taste. Season with pepper, go easy with the salt since the harissa is already salty.
Prepare salad in your favourite salad bowl. Grate carrots. Neatly chop fennel and celery. Cut the cabbage into half and then half again, then neatly slice the quarter cabbage. The thinner the slices the finer the slaw. If your fennel came with fronds attached, feel free to throw them into the slaw, add a small handful of fresh Italian parsley, roughly chopped. Drain onions, mix into the salad, reserving a few for garnishing.
The final touches: mix the dressing into the salad, stir until it is well distributed. Add the chickpeas. This slaw is robust; it can handle the chickpeas fresh out of the oven. Top with a handful of the toasted pumpkin seeds and the remaining quick-pickled onions or a few parsley sprigs. Dish up the quinoa and put the salad bowl on the table so people can help themselves. This also makes a great side dish for a Mexican fiesta, with or without the chickpeas.
The story behind the recipe
We’re in Scotland at the moment, next to the sea. Just those primal words, next to the sea, tell you everything you need to know. The skies here change constantly, the tide ebbs in and out, we walk or run along the beach nearly every day. I come from a country that is really an island, a collection of islands. I rely on the sea to orient myself. Without it, I am unmoored. Scotland is perhaps more like New Zealand than any other place in Europe. I am at home here. I miss home.
Today, we spend the entire day walking along the coast, criss-crossing the boundary between sea and land. A day so sunny and bright that every person we meet comments on it. We come across a clifftop field of briny white winter cabbages that stretches out towards the sea; it feels serendipitous. From the edge, the seagulls and oystercatchers are small black and white dots bobbing on the water.
If you grow up without much money, you will eat a lot of cabbage. We did. We would piece together salads from grated carrot, white cabbage, chopped raw garlic, make a dressing with juice from the grapefruit tree that grew in the backyard, heavy with golden globes of fruit in the middle of winter. I still like cabbage as an adult, but I’ve graduated to purple cabbages, which are one of my go-to winter vegetables. They are not sexy or unctuous like eggplants, but they have good crunch and they reliably take on the flavours you ask them to. And who says you can’t have salads in winter?
I’m calling them purple cabbages because the ones I used were actually purple. Red cabbages are the same variety, but, like hydrangeas, the colour depends on the pH level of the soil. Wrapped in its outside leaves and stored in the fridge, a cut purple cabbage lasts weeks. One lived permanently in my fridge in Paris, even as my life flitted everywhere, it would almost always be good when I got home. A store-cupboard meal, something to chop up and put into a container for lunch the next day, perhaps with an opened can of chickpeas, a grated apple, a crumble of feta, half an avocado, lemon juice and tahini. Cabbage will bulk out a stir-fry too. And they are incredible quartered and braised as long as they still have bite. Overcooked cabbage is the worst.
This week’s recipe is for the people because it is cheap, nutritious and quick. With the possible exception of the chipotle harissa, everything in this recipe should be exceptionally easy to find at your local supermarket. There are three sources of protein in this dish, even leaving aside the vegetables. Also, I’m no expert, but chickpeas are really, really good for you and so is purple cabbage.
The chipotle harissa is the umami in this dish, it gives it heft, while the orange flavour brings back some brightness and light. Experiment with more or less orange juice or harissa in the dressing to find a balance that suits you. If you can’t find chipotle harissa, use ordinary harissa. If you can’t find that, try blending up a few sundried tomatoes with dried chipotle chillies that you soak in hot water to reconstitute and some spices; make your own harissa; or at a push use a mix of tomato paste, olive oil, smoky paprika, cumin.
Thank you for reading and special thanks to those who have reached out to say they’ve already tried one of the recipes. Happy cooking and see you next week.
Amelia.