Thai spicy turkey salad, a sort of streamlined version of “larb”, low carb and so fresh. That little yellow sungold cherry tomato grew in my front garden just this morning! so sweet and fresh. Romaine, cucumber, carrots, fresh mint from right next to the tomatoes…..

Interesting dressing: Thai red chile paste mixed with rice vinegar and miso. very streamlined, but good nonetheless. the sort of thing you eat and say: oh god i really needed that!

The other day I was whipping up Mridula Baljekar’s  kela na sambhariya, or spicy stuffed bananas, and I had leftover chickpea flour filling; usually when I have extra spicy chickpea flour I add a little water, make a batter, then throw in vegetables for pakoras: chopped or sliced onions for my fave onion bhajis, whole leaves of spinach or mustard greens for spicy spinach fritters, sliced zucchini or sweet potato are wonderful too. This time, however, I don’t know: I didn’t feel like chopping vegetables, I didn’t even feel like eating pakoras. What I felt like was a thin pancake, something on the order of socca, the olive oil-browned chickpea pancake of Nice, France.

My mixture of toasted chickpea flour mixed with cumin, coriander, chile and cilantro was ready, i just stirred in enough water to make a pancake batter-like consistency, heated a tablespoon or two of evoo in a nonstick frying pan, and ladled in the batter. It cooked on one side, I flipped it and it cooked on its second side. It was delicious, tasting at once of France, at once of the Mediterranean, and at the same time, like having dinner with Mridula.

Indian Spiced Socca

1/2 cup/2 oz/50 g chickpea flour (besan)

1/2-1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seed

About 1/2 fresh chile, depending on its heat and your preference: a mixture of both green and red looks nice, but you can use either, or none, as you like

1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1-2 tablespoons coarsely chopped coriander/cilantro leaves

About 3 tablespoons evoo

Szechuan-ish Cucumber Salad
i’d like to say serves 4, but two of us ate it for lunch

1 english cucumber or 4-5 small persian/japanese cucumbers, unpeeled, and cut into spears about 3-4 inches long, half to 1 inch thick
1 teaspoon salt
1 big fat garlic cloves (or two modest ones) chopped
1 teaspoon Chinese hot bean paste, or ordinary bean paste/brown bean sauce/or even miso
2 teaspoons to 1 1/2 tablespoons Szechuan chile paste, the kind that is deliciously oily–amount depends upon heat of your brand
1/2 teaspoon coarsely crushed toasted szechuan peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon wine vinegar

Toss together the cucumber, salt and garlic; mix well and leave for about an hour.
Add everthing else, mix well, and eat or chill until ready to eat.

Optional: add a spoonful of chile oil, either commercial or from the chile-oil-paste

Those who know my husband, know he can’t resist a bargain. Thats how we ended up, this evening, with our kitchen table piled high with carrots. No room in the fridge, which is a long story in itself because our fridge is the tiniest mini-fridge in existance and our owning/depending on it rather than a nice big ordinary fridge is the stuff spun from bad decisions made under the influence of jetlag.

So we have a mountain of carrots, and we’re having a heatwave, and we need to eat things quickly before they rot. Until the temperature dips back down to normal our lives are a race against time–the time it takes for stuff to decline from moist-plumpness into decay.

Which finds us tonight eating carrot soup. My husband has fond memories of carrot soup I made for him, but it involves a myriad of other vegetables, too. I just wanted to simmer some carrots and get out of the kitchen before I passed out. We do not have air conditioning.

I thought: a nice COOL carrot soup, one as easy to prepare and it is soothing and refreshing to spoon up. I had no idea where the flavour direction would go, however, so I started by making a light little puree of carrots; after that, I reasoned, I could turn it into a soup.

To start, I simmered a lot of sliced carrots and a small handful of rice with a mixture of water and chicken broth until tender. The small amount of rice thickens the vegetable lightly, without interfering in the character of the vegetable, or making the soup too heavy, like flour or potato can do. Next, I pureed the carrots, stock and rice until smooth; I used a hand held stick blender but you could use a food processor or jar blender if that is what you have in your kitchen.

When I tasted the lovely oranged-coloured mixture, I thought: garlic. (This might have just been me, I usually think: garlic), so i stirred in one chopped garlic clove. The soup was hot, the garlic didn’t exactly cook but its raw fiery taste was tamed a bit.

I let it cool to room temperature and then decided how to finish it off. It was hard to decide, in that way when the weather is really really hot, and it is hard to think or decide about anything….and while there were only two of us, I had enough for at least 4 bowlfuls. We could eat it two nights running, flavoured completely differently each night.

The first night, we ate it at cool room temperature with a bit of cream,  swirled but not completely stirred in, as well as a scattering of fresh tarragon and some chopped toasted hazelnuts. It was wonderful, sipped in the garden as the evening cooled somewhat.

Carrot Puree:

If you want to make the carrot puree, and do as we did, eat half one way and half the other, here is the basic recipe; if you want to make the basic carrot puree and then come up with your own way to go seasoning and flavouring and character wise, here is the basic recipe. Otherwise, each of the recipes include this step of cooking and pureeing the carrots.

About 10 nice plump firm carrots, peeled and sliced

2 -3 tablespoons raw rice

About 1 litre/6 cups liquid: I used a mixture of half water and half chicken stock

1 clove garlic

Combine the carrots with the liquid and rice; bring to the boil, reduce heat and cook until the carrots are tender and the rice is soft, about 10 minutes.

Puree using a food processor, blender or hand held stick blender.

Chill until ready to use.

Creamy Cool Carrot Soup, with Tarragon and Hazelnuts

Serves 4

About 10 nice plump firm carrots, peeled and sliced

2 -3 tablespoons raw rice

About 1 litre/6 cups liquid: I used a mixture of half water and half chicken stock

1 clove garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

About 1/2 pint heavy whipping cream

About 1 tablespoon fresh tarragon, coarsely chopped

About 4 tablespoons toasted, chopped, hazelnuts (see end of recipe for directions)

Combine carrots with the liquid in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Cook over medium heat until the carrots are tender and the rice is soft, about 10 minutes. Puree until smooth in either a blender or food processor, or use a hand-held blender.

Leave to cool or chill, and ladle into bowls, then pour or spoon in a few tablespoons of cream per bowl, and sprinkle generously with the tarragon and hazelnuts.

Cool Carrot Soup with Turkish Flavours: Cumin, Dill, and Yogurt

Serves 4

About 10 nice plump firm carrots, peeled and sliced

2 -3 tablespoons raw rice

About 1 litre/6 cups liquid: I used a mixture of half water and half chicken stock

1 clove garlic

About 6 fl oz/ 175 ml Greek yogurt, enough for several tablespoons per bowl

Large pinch ground cumin

Large pinch smoked paprika

2-3 tablespoons coarsely chopped dill

A drizzle of evoo per bowlful

Ladle the cool/chilled carrot puree into bowls and top each with a big spoonful or two of Greek yogurt. Sprinkle the top with cumin, paprika, and dill, then drizzle with evoo.

Sit outside in the garden and enjoy.