Once again, the lemony Spanish chickpeas recipe makes an appearance. This time I actually consulted the recipe, from
Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates, and it came out pretty good. The first time I made it, I cooked them for almost 3 hours at really low heat after caramelizing the onions really thoroughly. I have not had the chance to repeat that process, but the quicker-cooking version I made for this dish came out very tasty. It's basically a saffron and garlic-flavored tomato sauce with chickpeas and lemon juice. I like it because it satisfies my never ending craving for tomato sauces, but it's not Italianate. A little something different. If you would like to know how to make lemony Spanish chickpeas, you'll have to buy the book or check it out at your local library.
Contents of Bento: mixed short grain brown and white rice (2 parts white to 1 part brown) topped with a takuan sun. Festive! Spanish lemony chickpeas garnished with an asparagus spear.
So, a pretty plain bento, sun deco aside. But I wanted something I could nuke at work, and this seemed to work really well. Of course, the takuan stained the rice yellow, but that's ok.
Contents of Bento: mixed short grain brown and white rice (2 parts white to 1 part brown) topped with a takuan sun. Festive! Spanish lemony chickpeas garnished with an asparagus spear.
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So what is takuan anyway? I assume some sort of vegetable? but what does it taste like? Is it pickled? Ah I have just looked it up on wikipedia, sounds delicious. And the sun is very cute, does the takuan taste weird heated up? Is it meant to be eaten cold or hot?
ReplyDeleteTakuan, as I'm sure you've now researched, is a kind of radish pickle (in the broader category of Asian pickles, which are not really like American/Germanic pickles). It tastes sort of sweet. It's also the same kind of thing that's in Oshinko Maki sushi. They are meant to be eaten cold, but don't really taste much different heated up. The only thing they really don't go with (in my opinion) are dishes that are cheese or cream-sauce based.
ReplyDelete(If you're interested in getting some, I know they sell them in the fresh-refrigerated section of H-Mart and Grand Mart)