Vegan greens and herb frittata
plus give me your 'mystery box' of ingredients!!!
Welcome to To Vegetables, With Love, a celebration of a vegetable life, less ordinary. ‘ Find archived recipes on my recipe index.
My book Tenderheart is available from Books are Magic, Kitchen, Arts and Letters, Book Larder, Bold Fork Books and also here or here.
This week’s recipe is free for all.
It feels really nice when something I create on a whim resonates with so many people. In fact, creating on a whim tends to be the origin of many of the most successful projects in my career. My salad delivery business Arthur Street Kitchen, my first book Community, each of my subsequent books, my magazine Peddler, recipes in this newsletter…these all fall into this category. All whims…
Sometimes I feel like I am my most creative when I think less and just do. Trust my gut. Take a chance.
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to create a recipe with what I had lying around in my kitchen. This is a rarity for me because, as I have oft declared, I love shopping for groceries. And I am lucky that my job allows me to shop for groceries often. But that post struck a chord with many. Several people reached out to me after I published that newsletter to say how much they enjoyed it, and how they too appreciate being able to cook with pantry ingredients, to cook with flexibility in order to use up what they have.
In that newsletter, I wrote: Limitations force me to think more creatively. To conjure more with less.
The world is giving us much to think about lately. It feels so out of control. Here in the US, there is daily talk about the skyrocketing price of groceries, specifically eggs. Like everyone else, I’m really thinking about ingredients and how I can best use them.
This week, I want to have some fun with this: I’m interested in what ingredients you commonly have in your pantry to “use up”. Give me a “mystery box” of 5 random ingredients and I’ll choose one of your lists and create a recipe with it for an upcoming newsletter – only caveat, no meat (includes seafood) please as you know I don’t touch the stuff! Leave your 5 ingredient list in comments.
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For the past couple weeks, I’ve been testing a new batch of recipes for NYT Cooking so I’ve got a lot of herbs left over. A massive bunch of dill, along with parsley, mint, 1 leek, some leftover kale. I thought back to a beautiful koukou sabzi (herb frittata with walnuts) that I enjoyed at Sofreh Cafe last week with my friend Stacey and decided to give my own version a go.
This is not my first go-around with Persian kuku. In my second book Neighbourhood, I shared a recipe for a kuku made with leftover salad. It’s really good and I recommend!
This recipe is a vegan take on kuku/koukou. Partly inspired by the egg shortage but also because I’ve been slowly reducing my egg intake in the last couple of years. Eggs have naturally become a special occasion for me nowadays and I’m okay with that. In place of eggs, I’ve used chickpea flour. I love how nutty and earthy the flavour is.
The idea is that you could use any leaves for this kuku. I used a total of 7 cups of kale and herbs (4 cups kale and 3 cups of herbs). Use whatever leaves and herbs you have on hand to make up 7 cups. 4 cups of kale sounds like a lot but it was from only 1/2 bunch of kale.
If you have a food processor, use that to make quick work of the chopping. The finer the chop, the better the cooked texture will be. But make sure you don’t blend it into a liquid. You want a fine, airy chop, not juiced.
You could eat this kuku with any sauce you have around. Yoghurt is a great option, chili oil or crisp works too. Leftover salad dressing would be lovely, as would a dollop of mayo and a squeeze of sriracha. I had lemon juice leftover so I a lemony tahini.
Weeknight wonders for this week, all NYT Cooking recipes have gift links:
Monday: Start the week in a zesty way! I visualized this yuzu-miso soba noodle soup in my head for a long time and was excited to finally develop it for NYT Cooking. This dish is just as good cold!
Tuesday: My oldest child loves tom yum soup, so when she comes home, this is always on the menu
Wednesday: Kid fave. Adult fave too. Vegetable and Tortellini Soup
Thursday: Dip for dinner, always and forever. Here’s how to do it: make this Smashed cucumbers with garlicky coriander yoghurt and chilli crisp, heat up some store-bought frozen falafels, maybe grab some dolmades (I keep cans in my pantry), warm up some store-bought flatbread.
Friday: I have a craving for these crispy potato tacos from Tenderheart (excerpted in NYT Cooking)
🥦 My cookbook, Tenderheart is for cooking vegetables, all year round. Pick up your copy here. It is also mostly vegan (or vegan-izable) and gluten-free adaptable.
Vegan green and herb frittata
© Hetty Lui McKinnon for To Vegetables, With Love.
Spend time and chop the kale and herbs as finely as you can (or use a food processor). It will give you a better final texture. Think of how you would chop parsley and mint for a tabbouleh, that’s how fine you want it. You can also use a food processor to do this job, in fact, your life will be much easier if you do. I doggedly chop by hand, I enjoy the moment of control, but don’t feel pressured to be a masochist like me.
Serves 4
gluten free and vegan
extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, any colour, sliced
1 leek, thinly slice
salt and pepper
3 fat garlic cloves, roughly chopped
4 cups very finely chopped kale leaves
3 cups very finely chopped soft herbs such as parsley, mint, dill, coriander/cilantro or a mix
2 cups (220g) chickpea flour (besan)
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ to 1 teaspoon ground turmeric (to your liking)
pinch of saffron (optional)
1 ½ cups vegetable stock
½ cup (50g) walnuts, roughly chopped, plus a few more for topping
Pomegranate molasses, for serving (optional)
Lemon tahini
1/4 cup tahini
1 small garlic clove, grated
1 tablespoon lemon juice
salt and pepper
Substitute
Kale: spinach, chard/silverbeet
Ground turmeric: paprika, chili powder, spice mix such as harissa, ras el hanout
Walnuts: pistachios, almonds
Heat a large skillet on medium high. Drizzle with olive oil and add the onion and leek, season with salt and pepper, and cook, tossing often, until completely softened and starting to stick to the pan and caramelize, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and stir for 1 minute. Turn off heat.
Preheat oven to 180˚C / 350˚F. Prepare an 8-inch (20 cm) square or circular dish by lining it with baking paper or applying a non-stick spray.
In a large bowl, add the chickpea flour, baking powder, turmeric, saffron (if using), season with about 1 teaspoon of salt and lots of black pepper and whisk to combine. Add the vegetable stock and whisk well to combine, until mostly smooth and lump free. Fold in the onion and leek mix, kale, herbs and walnuts until well combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until slightly golden and firm on top, 25 to 30 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 to 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the lemon tahini: place the tahini, garlic, lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of water into a bowl and whisk to combine. If the tahini seizes or is too thick, add a touch more water until it is smooth and pourable. Season well with salt and pepper.
To serve, cut the frittata into squares and top with the lemon tahini, a drizzle of pomegranate molasses (if using) and a final scatter of walnuts.
Io Vegetables, With Love is dedicated to vegetables and it is a joy to bring you a new recipe every week. Thank you to everyone who subscribes, especially to paid subscribers who make this work possible.
a jar of mixed rice from the ends of other bags including white, wild and black
cabbage
black beans (canned) or chickpeas (dried)
carrots
mango chutney
Love this! Here's what I've been struggling to use up lately: brown rice, dried mung beans, feta, sweet potatoes, carrots