love.life.eat
a relentless pursuit of the perfect home + dish
sweet potato soup with coriander, chipotle, and a side of circus
Posted on May 18, 2013
Everyone wants the circus act in 140 characters or less. You balance the beach ball on your head, cough up fire, and the applause is thunderous. You shimmy and shake and the crowd indulges their minor digressions, too. You’re envied, obsessed over, and given neat little platitudes whose meaning is small enough to fit on fortune cookies. Everyone’s got the shakes: they switch channels when they see displaced Syrians in tents or women holding up pictures of their loved ones still trapped under all that earth in Bangladesh. Instead, they self-medicate on gossip magazines and indoor sports that “allow you to get deeper,” but ticket collectors neglect to tell them that the floor is bottomless. The deep is whether these pants are a size 6 or if they’re a size 2. There’s already so much drama in my life, they mumble. The deep is wondering if they’re witty enough to keep up with the live-tweeting of television shows that all the “popular” bloggers do. The deep is that book that is moderately sad, but it’s a safe sad, a sad that only goes on for a few pages and then there’s the promise of idyll, that magical ending we all desire. The deep is telling other people they’re so brave, but failing to return their phone calls because they just can’t deal. The motley lot shuffle past and preach concern, but their ferocious blinking and marathon eating suggests yours is a deep for which they’re not properly equipped.
You are drowning and everyone takes pictures with their expensive phones of the water. They just want to hold you close, pat your back, and be on their way. They’ve done their charity; they’ve nodded in the right moments, but perhaps that water should be Lo-Fi or Mayfair?
And then you’re left with the empty peanut shells that cut your hands and feet, empty popcorn bags greasy with fingerprints, and a bill divided in two.
They skitter like frightened mice when you say the words, I am afraid. They muffle you quiet with pretty words like, “You’re so strong! You’ll always find your way!” Because they need a strong Felicia, their mentor, their comic relief, their guidance counselor, their human Rolodex. How would the world press on otherwise? We need our circus intact. We need the show to go on.
All these years you give, and this is the kind you’re likely to get.
It makes you tired, shut in, desperate for blooms and hot soup. It creates a need to press the mute button on the world and everyone in it. So there’s soup, oceans of it.
INGREDIENTS: Recipe adapted from Gwyneth Paltrow’s It’s All Good. I’m GOOP’ing her book so you don’t have to.
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil*
1 large red onion, finely diced (about 1 1/2 cups)**
2 garlic cloves – minced
5 springs of cilantro, leaves reserved for garnish***
3/4 teaspoon cumin
Course sea salt
1 1/2 teaspoons chipotle in adobo
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced (about 6 cups)
6 cups (1 qt) vegetable stock
DIRECTIONS
Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy pot over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, cilantro sprigs, cumin, and a heavy pinch of salt and cook, stirring now and then, until softened but not browned, 10 minutes. While the soup base is cooking, I used this time to peel and chop the sweet potatoes. Add the chipotle and the sweet potatoes and stir to combine. Add the vegetable stock to the pot and turn up the heat. Once the soup comes to a boil, lower the heat and simmer until the sweet potatoes are very soft, about 30 minutes. Remove and discard the cilantro. Carefully puree the soup in a powerful blender. I’ve an immersion blender, which is honestly the best gadget investment I’ve made for the kitchen. I’ve had it for years and I can still get a delicious puree. If you want a really refined, smooth texture, you can pass the pureed soup through a fine-mesh strainer. Garnish each bowl with a few of the reserved cilantro leaves.
Notes in the Margins
Overall, the soup was pretty extraordinary. A bit spicy for my taste, as I chopped up a whole chipotle and added it with the adobe sauce for measurement. However, if you love spicy this is definitely for you. If you don’t, use 1/2 a pepper and some of the sauce it’s steeped in and the soup will be perfection. What I love about this soup is the consistency. You get the velvet, creaminess that is indicative of most cream (or white potato) based soups, but without the dairy, fat and wasteful calories. And no, I’m not counting calories as I had a huge rosemary roll slathered with Irish butter to accompany my small bowl of soup. Just executing some carb strat, guys.
*Gwyneth is truly high if she thinks that onions and garlic won’t brown on medium heat with two tablespoons of olive oil over a period of ten minutes. I added another 1/2 tbsp into the mix and kicked the heat down to medium/low after five minutes, and all was well with the world. You may want to go safe and add 3 tbsp. This soup is enough for four.
**I abhor red onions in a way that you can’t understand. Instead, I used a small yellow onion and it did the job just fine.
***If your hatred of coriander (translation: cilantro), it’s cool, I won’t judge. You can definitely use basil or sage. Think of the sort of herbs you’d add with squash, as you’re getting a similar sort of flavor play here.
a moveable feast: mango, avocados, greens + guac!
Posted on May 14, 2013
To say that every day I wake to a typhoon or a circus or something in between would be a grand understatement. The past few months have been exhilarating, thrilling, frightening and magical all at once. Not only did I have a chance to explore unknown cities, I’ve had the luxury of rediscovering art, finding it, having it find me, and somewhere along the way I’ve managed to create a little bit of art of my own. I’m starting to learn who I can trust and who I can’t. I’ve become weary of the intensity of people, and am now drawn to the quietness and calm of others. I say Good Morning, I read Faust, I write longer emails to friends (from one line to a paragraph!). I don’t know what I want next, but I think I do. Every day is a stutter, a series of starts and stops, and the constant, the satisfying threadline through all of this has been food. Always the food.
I had a dear friend come round this weekend, and I prepared a feast that made us swoon. Verdant, flavorful and bright, it was a delicious melange of texture and taste, and not for a moment did we feel we were missing something because it was vegetarian and virtuous (or at least, semi-virtuous, as we had a heaping of fried millet falafel). Rather, we were sated, full, and excited to dive into my stash of French dark chocolates.
We spent four hours trading stories about our respective experiences the past few months, and it occurred to me that the other crucial threadline, perhaps one that supersedes food, are friends. Those great, magical people who are always there, who talk you off ledges, who encourage you to climb new ones, and those who tell you that although the millet falafels are far from attractive, they are DAMN GOOD.
INGREDIENTS
For the salad
2 cups packed baby kale
1 cup packed spinach
1 cup packed arugula
1/2 cup cashews, toasted in a dry pan
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
2 oz soft cheese of your choice (I used a truffled cow’s milk cheese that had the texture of brie, however, you can use goat, brie, or gorgonzola)
1/4 sundried tomatoes, packed in olive oil
1 tbsp olive oil
Sea salt/cracked pepper to taste
For the mango + avocado salad, dressed in a lime balsamic vinaigrette: Recipe adapted from Gwyneth Paltrow’s It’s All Good
2 ripe mangoes, peeled, pitted, and thinly sliced
2 ripe avocados, peeled, pitted, and thinly sliced
Coarse sea salt
1 batch Balsamic-Lime Vinaigrette (we didn’t use all of the dressing, but used about 1/4 of it. That might have also been the case because I knocked over the dressing and spilled it all over the table.)
A small handful of fresh basil leaves
For the basil-lime vinaigrette
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp brown rice syrup
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
¼ cup plus 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Coarse sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
For the guacamole
1 ripe avocado
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
2 stalks of scallions, fine dice (all parts: white, green, light green)
juice + zest of half a lime
Sea salt + pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS
For the salad: Toss all of the ingredients above. Only add the olive oil when you’re about to serve, as the leaves will wilt.
For the mango + lime salad + vinaigrette: Whisk the vinegar, brown rice syrup, and lime juice together in a mixing bowl. Slowly whisk in the olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper. Keeps well in a jar in the fridge for up to a week. Alternate slices of mango and avocado on a serving platter and scatter with a pinch of sea salt. Drizzle with the Balsamic-Lime vinaigrette; tear the basil leaves and sprinkle them over the top. Serve immediately.
For the guacamole: Cut + core the avocado and crush the meat with the tines of your fork. Add in all of the ingredients and serve with carrots, chips, or strips of red bell peppers.
goop’ing it so you don’t have to: millet falafel + carrot salad
Posted on May 11, 2013
My beloved Winona has made some unfortunate choices. There was the Adam Sandler movie we’ll say we talked about, but won’t. In The Informers, she played a bird so fraile, her every movement made the needle on the record player jump. You ached for her because she was WINONA RYDER playing a slutbag whore in an adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis’ worst book. I actually wanted her to die in Autumn in New York just so the movie could end, because it was a little creepy that I was the only one in the movie theater for the eight o’clock show. Her shoplifting scandal? A few years too early for the Kim Kardashian-famous-for-nothing set, but I still bought the t-shirt. Shook my fists, stomped my feet. All for naught, sadly, because deep down I knew she stole those clothes.
Naturally, I blamed Gwyneth Paltrow — the lithe blonde who couldn’t string a cogent sentence together, much less get into college, even with Steven Spielberg’s help — for all of it. It’s imperative to get close to one’s enemies, so I watched all of her films (even Shallow Hall), and kicked a chair over when she won the Oscar for a movie named after an author she’s probably never read. Don’t get me wrong — watching her movies hasn’t been a complete exercise in futility — for every Shallow Hall and Great Expectations (whatever, you just liked the wardrobe and romance of it all), there was Hard Eight and Flesh and Bone. She’s given some vulnerable performances amidst the ingenue roles. Remember when she dated the ketchup king? I do, because I knew a friend of his that confirmed she was an entitled head-case, but now I’m being a petty asshole, so we’ll just move right along.
With the arrival of GOOP, I knew her day of reckoning was upon us. Who would take a woman hocking $900 cashmere throws and $52,000 “aspirational wardrobes” seriously? Apparently, America did. Millions of kewpie dolls went macrobiotic and purchased $500 beaded bracelets, which one could easily make for $5.99. Many wanted the whitewashed life of clean, freckled faces and Jennifer Meyer necklaces. Naturally, I screamed into pillows and prayed for the day when Winona would come like a plague of swallows, and launch a zine that would celebrate the fine art of cheeseburger-eating, Roth-reading and chain-smoking (note: I do not support smoking).
No such luck.
When I say that I’ve been a fan of Winona Ryder since high school, a time when she waxed poetic on Salinger and red lipstick, believe it with all of your heart. From her strange, cultish literary upbringing, to her bizarre films, she was an idol for losers in Long Island. Winona read the books I read. Winona had the corpse-like pallor of which everyone in my high school loved to ridicule.
Brief digression: What I wouldn’t give for a Where Are They Now? about all the rat bastards who tormented me during those forgettable years at Valley Stream South High School.
As you can imagine, I’ve been praying for Winona Ryder’s triumphant return (rosary beads, candles, the whole nine) for years. When I read her latest interview in Interview, I spent the greater part of one evening trying to track down last month’s issue (again, no such luck). Clearly, Winona is classy and will only ridicule GOOP from the confines of her Williamsburg apartment. Surely, Winona will forgive the fact that while I often want to pummel Paltrow, I quite like her cookbook.
THE STRUGGLE.
I’ve a friend coming around tomorrow, and she’s got a gluten allergy. After combing the usual sites and suspects, I discovered the BIG GOOP’ers Millet Falafel recipe. Since I’m allergic to avocado and had a pile of carrots to use up, I decided to nix the relish and go full-on with a carrot salad. Per usual, the goddamn-this-is-delicious commentary ensued, and I even thought the recipe would be better all mashed up, fried and tossed with arugula. I plan to play around with it over the next few weeks, because, quite frankly, if I go through another collapsed ball in the pan, I’m kicking someone. Possibly Gwynnie.
INGREDIENTS: Millet Falafel recipe adapted from Gwyneth Paltrow’s It’s All Good (with adjustments and clarifications); Carrot Salad recipe adapted from La Tartine Gourmande (modified slightly).
For the falafel
1/2 cup raw millet, rinsed
1/2 cup cooked chickpeas (or Garbanzo beans), crushed with a potato masher or using the tines of a fork
4 scallions, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 lemon
3 1/2 tbsp olive oil, divided (2 tbsp for the falafel, the remainder for the pan)
Coarse sea salt
For the carrot salad
4 large carrots, peeled
1 tbsp flat leaf parsley, chopped
2 tbsp scallions, chopped
For the carrot salad vinaigrette:
sea salt + pepper
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 garlic clove, minced
6 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
DIRECTIONS
For the carrot salad: Grate the carrots and place in large bowl with the parsley and scallions. Since I’m lazy and loathe to grate anything, I bought grated carrots 1 1/2-2 cups worth, and added them to a bowl. In a separate smaller bowl, combine the vinaigrette ingredients in the order listed, whisk together and pour over the carrots. The salad can be refrigerated or served at room temperature.
For the falafel (I made this sans garnish. If you want the whole shebang, GOOP IT.)
Combine the millet with 1½ cups of water and a big pinch of a salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, cover the pot, and cook until the millet is very soft and all the liquid has been absorbed, 25 minutes.
Stir the chickpeas, scallions, and parsley into the cooked millet. Using a grater, zest the lemon and stir the zest into the millet mixture along with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Using a potato masher, crush the mixture until it holds together a bit.
Preheat the oven to 250ºF and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Set a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and coat the bottom with a slick of olive oil (1 1/2 tbsp). Drop large tablespoonfuls of the millet mixture into the pan with a bit of space between each spoonful. Press each tablespoonful down with the back of a spatula to form a sort of thick pancake (no need to go crazy shaping these, they should be nice and rustic). Cook until browned and crisp, about 3 minutes per side. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FLIP UNTIL AFTER THREE MINUTES. I experienced a wretched ball collapse, which sent me into hysterics. Set the cooked falafel on the prepared baking sheet and put them in the warm oven while you cook the rest of the millet mixture, adding more olive oil to the skillet if necessary.
Cut your zested lemon into wedges, squeeze a bit of juice over each falafel, and sprinkle each with a tiny pinch of coarse salt. Serve immediately.
burrata, arugula + edamame salad
Posted on May 6, 2013
Words cannot express how much I LOVED this salad. Riding into the city, I flipped through the latest issue of Bon Appetit, and I felt the rapture coming. The original recipe calls for sugar snap peas, but I opted to use protein-packed edamame instead. The salad is light, flavorful and perfect with chunks of a fresh baguette.
After a breakfast of blueberry pancakes with my sweet friend Alex, believe me when I say that this would make for a very virtuous, albeit delicious, follow-up. Although I should be clear: I do not regret the BLUEBERRY PANCAKES WITH ROSEMARY SAUSAGE.
INGREDIENTS: Recipe adapted from Bon Appetit, and modified slightly.
Serves 4
8 ounces shelled, cooked + cooled edamame (I use frozen edamame, cook for 4 minutes, drain + rinse with cool water)
4 cups arugula, thick stems trimmed
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves plus more for serving
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves plus more for serving
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons (or more) fresh lemon juice
Flaky sea salt (such as Maldon)
1 pound burrata or fresh buffalo mozzarella
DIRECTIONS
Combine cooked and rinsed edamame, arugula, 1/4 cup basil, and 1/4 cup mint in a large bowl. Add oil and 2 tablespoons lemon juice and toss to coat. Season salad with salt and more lemon juice, if desired.
Tear open balls of burrata (if using buffalo mozzarella, slice 1/2-inch thick) and arrange on a platter. Top with salad and more basil and mint.
peanut butter banana protein smoothie
Posted on March 23, 2013
Believe me when I say that I haven’t met a carb I didn’t like. Plump, chewy bagels hot out of the oven slathered with butter, flaky almond croissants, oatmeal piled high with fresh fruit, rye toast — I can rhapsodize on the glories of the carb for days. However, after I had a lengthy discussion with my doctor about my diet, which boiled down to excuses (mine), dismay + shock (his), I need to cut down on my consumption of carbs, considerably. Add brutal workouts and a need to move about the city without feeling sluggish, I started blitzing morning protein-packed smoothies.
Many of you are probably thinking, Oh, please. you’re probably sneaking in an almond butter-smeared rice cake (or croissant) come 10AM. Those who know me well know that I’m always hungry, so if a shake can keep me sane until noon you know it’s the business.
Enter the peanut butter banana smoothie. Rich in protein, potassium and calcium, this thick shake is satisfying and delicious. There are days when I’m still astonished over the fact that I don’t need a mid-morning meal, and I’ve noticed a marked improvement in my endurance during spin + weight training.
Plus, I feel like I’m drinking dessert for breakfast, which isn’t a far cry from my beloved almond croissant.
INGREDIENTS
1 banana (medium or large)
1 heaping tbsp of creamy peanut butter
2 heaping tbsp of protein powder (I bought an organic hemp variety, flavored with vanilla spice, which adds a nice kick to the smoothie)
1/2 cup almond milk
4-6 ice cubes
DIRECTIONS
Add to the blender + blitz until completely combined. Drink immediately.
miso eggplant with green tea rice
Posted on March 18, 2013
This week promises to be a frenetic one, with dinners, meetings, catch-ups and appointments. To that end, I’m feeling the need to retreat a little bit, to be pensive and get my proverbial house in order as I’ve got an interesting few weeks ahead of me. So pardon me if I’m short on words today, but perhaps this serene, healthy dish can provide some inspiration, as I work to quiet a lot of the ambient noise.
INGREDIENTS: Recipe courtesy of Blue Apron
2 Japanese eggplants
1 bunch cilantro (1/4 cup chopped)
1 piece ginger (enough to fit onto a tablespoon measure)
1 clove garlic
3/4 cup sushi rice
2 tbsp white miso
2 tbsp mirin
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp green tea powder
1 tsp black sesame seeds
DIRECTIONS
Prepare your mise en place: Pre-heat your oven to 500F. Slice the eggplants in half, lengthwise, then width-wise. Rinse, dry + finely chop the cilantro. I tend to use a knife to rake the leaves off the stems as I’m stem-averse. Finely chop the garlic + ginger, set aside.
Cook the rice: Bring a medium pot of salted water to boil on high. Add the rice, reduce the heat to medium-high and cook, uncovered for 15-20 minutes, until tender. Drain the rice and set aside. To be candid this is the first time I’ve cooked with rice without considering ratios, but perhaps this worked since I’m dealing with sushi rice.
Fix the eggplant topping: While the rice cooks, in a small bowl whisk the ginger, garlic, miso, mirin + half the soy sauce. Set aside. Lightly oil a baking sheet lined with tin foil {for easy clean-up}. Spoon the mixture on the flat side of each eggplant. Roast for 15 minutes, or until the eggplant is tender and the topping is lightly browned.
Finish the rice: Add the cooked rice back to the pot and mix in the rice vinegar, sugar, green tea powder, and chopped cilantro. I love how the green tea dyes the rice a sublime green, and the taste is spectacular and unexpectedly cool against the charred eggplant. Divide the eggplant and rice between two plates, serve + chow down!
tofu fajitas, whole wheat tortillas, pursuing a new book project + the business of leaving
Posted on March 5, 2013
Lately all I can think about is writing a new book and what that means in age of distraction, abbreviation and constant connection. It’s been a long time since I’ve written long form, since I’ve thought about crafting a narrative, developing characters, finding the in of people. Someone once told me that writing is much like an exorcism — you obsess over the things for which you’re most passionate, and writing allows you to write them out, to give your obsession new shape, color and form. Years ago, when I was playing around with being a “line” writer {think Gary Lutz or my friend + prolific author, Kira Henehan, those who are obsessed with the architect of a sentence versus the development of a story}, someone in my Columbia workshop told me that the family story has been done. Naturally, this statement was followed by an exaggerated sigh, to which I responded in laughter. Every story has been told, but it’s the telling and the voice that make it new. I still believe this. Even now, years later, after so many people have asked if I plan to return to the terrain of my previous book.
To which I’ve responded with a very firm, no. I wrote that obsession out, practically underwent a blood-letting, and now I’ve quietly placed a clean sheet over it, kissed its cheek and allowed the waves to carry it out to the ocean.
However, what I have been obsessed with is what I like to call the business of leaving. Years ago, I wrote a story collection, which turned out to be my thesis for the Columbia MFA program, about a series of characters affected by leaving. I don’t do well with loss, abandonment, leaving, and even though I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been, leaving gnaws. When my best friend of seven years got married and excised all contact it took me a full year to barely recover. When a great love laid my heart out to pasture I was devastated. And when my father called me last week and told me his dearest friend of twenty-five years died of leukemia it took everything in me not to race home and cry alongside him.
The interesting part in all of this is that food always plays a part in every story. From ruined restaurants to beloved recipes, food has always been the center, or the character, in my life. Love, loss and what I ate will be the heart of my new project. It won’t be the sort of thing where I tell as story and dump a recipe at the end, as that’s not how I think. I’m not linear {can’t you tell?} in how I tell a story, so food has to be woven throughout, it must be integral. So this has me exploring new forms. New ways of telling a story in a new age.
Let’s see what unfolds…
INGREDIENTS: Recipe courtesy of Blue Apron
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 red onion
1 bunch cilantro (2 tbsp, rough chop)
1 ripe avocado
1 lime, cut into wedges
1 package superfirm tofu (you can opt to use chicken, beef, shrimp or other protein alternatives)
1/4 cup sour cream
4 whole wheat tortillas
2 1/4 tsp fajita dry mix
DIRECTIONS
Prepare all your veggie by slicing all veggies {peppers, onion, avocado} into big chunks or strips. Squeeze some lime juice all over the avocado to prevent it from oxidizing {turning brown}.
Heat some olive oil in a large skillet with the heat set to high. Drain the water from the tofu and cut into strips. Transfer the strips to the pipping hot pan and cook until browned on both sides (4-7 minutes/side). While the tofu is cooking, add the peppers and onions along with the fajita seasoning and stir until well-cooked and combined. You want your veggies softened, but still crunchy and the tofu, browned.
In a separate pan, heat the tortillas on both sides until warmed and set aside.
Distribute the mixture to all your tortillas and add the avocado + sour cream + spritz with lime and serve!
vegetable kebabs with curried chickpeas and yogurt sauce
Posted on January 23, 2013
If you want to find your passion, surrender to your heartbreak. Your heartbreak points towards a truer north, + it’s the difficult journey. — “How to Have a Year That Matters”
Speaking to so many different people lately who are out of sorts, or, more specifically, trying to find their way home. Whether they’ve lost jobs they’ve never really wanted or they’re forced to uproot their lives to move to a new city halfway across the world, the air feels nomadic. We’ve become itinerant, our year an Odyssey in miniature. Already this year presents so much change, unrest, indecision and flux, and we can either choose to drown in the mess of it or swim our way to shore.
So I’ve been thinking about change, great, earth-shattering change. The change of loud songs and kaboom, and I’ve been thinking about risk and change and love and life and what that all means. For me.
And this weekend I had a friend come ’round and we passed the time watching old horror movies, the black and white kind, and feasted on these yummy kabobs. Talking about our mutual chrysalis.
INGREDIENTS: Recipe courtesy of Blue Apron (Serves 2; 450 calories/person)
1/2 head of cauliflower, chopped into small florets
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
2 carrots, cut into 1/2 inch rounds
8 brussels sprouts, cut in half
3 cloves garlic, fine dice 2 of them and smash and grind the third into a paste
1 small onion, finely diced
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 cup plain Greek yoghurt
1 bunch mint, fine dice (2 tbsp)
1 bunch parsley, fine dice (2 tbsp)
4 wooden skewers
DIRECTIONS
Pre-heat the oven to 450F and line a baking sheet with tin foil. Set aside. Chop all your veggies as noted above and set aside. Place the cauliflower, carrots and brussels sprouts on the skewers, alternating vegetables as you like. If you have leftover veggies, don’t sweat it — chop them up finely and add them to the chickpea mixture later. Drizzle the skewers with salt, pepper and olive oil and roast them for 12-15 minutes, until they’re slightly charred and crisp.
While the kebabs are roasting, drizzle olive oil in a pan with medium heat and sauté the onions, 2 cloves of garlic, a little salt and remaining vegetables for 4-5 minutes. Season with salt/pepper to taste.
Add the rinsed chickpeas, turmeric, cumin and curry, as well as a few tablespoons of water to the pan and sauté for another 2-3 minutes. The sauce should thicken and become fragrant.
While the chickpeas are cooking, add the parsley, mint and garlic paste to the yoghurt and mix well (the recipe calls for adding the parsley at the end but I loved it in the sauce). Set aside.
Once the kebabs are done, divide the chickpea mixture between two plates, add the kebabs and drizzle the sauce over both plates. ENJOY!
