Pakora Frenzy

When I make pakora, I go for it in a big way. It's hard to make a few. By the time you've got a decent variety of vegetables, it tends to mount up. Favourite ingredients: Cauliflower; aubergine slices; bits of dark green cabbage; paneer; chillis...and, as mentioned here, apple.

Basic method: make a batter with gram flour, with salt to taste and (optionally/optimally) chilli, chopped coriander and a few ajwain seeds. Dunk the vegs. Deep fry in batches. A good dip to have with them: blend together some onion, tomatoes, chilli, coriander leaves and mint leaves.

A recent discovery...sliced green banana. Add plenty of extra finely-chopped green chilli to the mix.

Mores to the point...this raises the question of what to do with all the extra pakora you've made. The answer is pakora curry.

Heat some oil or ghee and add cumin seeds and mustard seeds as usual.
Also add some ground coriander, two or three star anise and some chunks of cinammon bark. These may be left whole.
Then add chopped onion, garlic, ginger, chilli. Salt to taste.
Fry up a bit, then add some chopped tomatoes.
Add a little water and cook until the oil emerges again. This is a crucial technique in Indian cookery.
Add the pakora and heat through.
When ready to serve, stir in some yoghurt and warm up again (but don't boil) and some chopped coriander.
Serve.

As part of the campaign to make the US take global warming seriously, Hurricane Katrina shall henceforth be referred to has Hurricane Kyoto.

Or, as Fats Domino sang: "I'm swimming to New Orleans..."

Same Old Pie

What goes down must come up (Hmm. Bad metaphor for a food-related site).

As promised, for those who haven't seen it before, or for those who have and cherish fond memories of it, I have the pleasure of re-presenting the old Flaming Pie site, hand crafted in the days before blogs (When t'internet were in black and white and it shut down every evening at 9 O'clock)

I think there's about 160 recipes here. Enjoy! Click here for The Flaming Pie Archive.

(Yeah, I know a lot of the links n' features don't work any more. I may fix them. One day.)

The Return of the Pie

Well, hello. After too long an abscence, The Artist Formaly Known As Pie has returned with a new suedeonym, to fill your screens, your bellies and your minds with recipes for delectable deliciousness and nuggets of home-baked, half-baked wisdom.

Very shortly I will post a link to the old Flaming Pie archive, for thems as remembers (Flaming Pie - Vegetarian Recipes With Attitude: The site that elevates tofu to a foodstuff).

Meanwhile - this is more-or-less a Russian salad:

Steam and quarter some new potatoes.
Peel, dice, lightly boil and drain some beetroot.
Lightly steam some broad and/or green beens, in any combination.
Allow to cool.
Mix with mayonnaise.