With the trip planned and the lease on the flat cancelled there remains the small task of packing the contents of the flat into boxes and getting everything into storage. Being a big fan of procrastination, and not remotely fanatical about packing, I set about using up food rather then putting things into boxes.
Looking through my cupboards there's always loads of near full bags, boxes and tubs of ingredients. I never shy away from trying a recipe due to having to buy 500gr of an ingredient which the recipe uses only 50gr of and this is reflected in my ingredient reserves. One thing I'd bought and used less than 10% of was dried split peas. I couldn't think of any recipes that used them except soup, and whilst I love the bland pea and rich meatiness of pea and ham soup there's been rather a lot of soups on the blog recently and so I wanted something different. A post on a food forum asking for advice resulted in the following recipe - split green pea vadas.
They sounded falafel like, far from a bad thing, and so I cracked on. The recipe said to deep fry but I didn't have much oil and the mixture was wet enough that I had no confidence in balls of it holding together if dropped into hot oil. The shallow frying worked well though leaving crisp outside and soft, well spiced middle, definitely falafel like but with an obvious pea, rather than chickpea, taste. The chili powder I have is fairly fiery stuff and the raita (yoghurt, mint, paprika, cumin, S&P) was a welcome foil to it. Well worth a go if you have some split peas leftover from a scotch broth, or just because they're damn tasty.
Split Green Pea Vadas
225gr split peas1 small onion
3 cloves garlic
Small handful of fresh coriander
1/2 TB ground cumin
1 ts chili powder
1 ts garam masala
1 ts salt
Method
Soak the peas overnight then drain and add to a food processor with everything else, chopping the garlic, onion and coriander before it goes in.
Pulse well till smooth enough to hold together.
Heat oil to a depth of a centimetre in a frying pan over a medium heat and then add patties of the mixture, making them maybe 2cm thick and whatever diameter takes your fancy.
Cook for 3 minutes a side until golden and cooked through.
Serve with a raita or any other sauce/chutney that takes your fancy.
I liked the sound of them when you asked for the suggestion the other week mate.
They look delish, and I will definately be trying them in the near future.
Posted by: Lee Donovan | March 17, 2009 at 10:05 AM