This is one of the most healthful and comforting menus that I make. This stew recipe slow cooks vegetables and pairs them with fresh herbs and citrus to make a delicous and comforting dish without much fat and no animal products. The Chickpea pancake is nutty and satifying, simple to make and also entirley vegan and gluten free.

The exact vegetables used in the stew are wildly flexible to what is in season, available and to your tastes. This menu is truly all over the global map. The stew is Iranian, the baked chickpea pancake is dish from the French/ Italian border, but I make it with Kala Besan (black chickpea flour) from India and add rosemary, which is not used in Persian cookery to my knowledge. All of this is to say, if you cannot find the specialty ingredients do not fret. I’ve provided substition suggestions that will be delicious. The goal of this menul is not to make something authentic to any one culture, but rather to make hearty and healthy food and, if possible, venture into trying some interesting ingredients from amazing cuisines from other parts of the world.

For me, this menu came out of the need to use up two specialty ingredients that I had acquired by accident. If you are not interested in hearing about Dried Limes or black chickpea flour, just scroll down to the recipes!

Dried Iranian or Omani Limes

For years, I cooked a Decadent Eight Course Vegan Tasting Menu for the immersive theater piece “The Illuminati Ball”. At the beginning of each season, I would do a massive order of the specialty ingredients that I needed to stock our pantry from the fabulous international food store Kalustyans. If you spend hundreds of dollars on a massive mail order, Kalustyans throws in a thank you gift of a very large bag of Iranian Dried Limes. It’s kind of a funny gift, because dried limes look like shriveled grey ping pong balls and they arrive with no information about how to use them. I guess that Kalustyans reasons that, if you are the sort of person to order a small fourtune worth of rare and hard to find ingredients, you are probably someone who knows what to do with dried limes….or at least the kind of person who would enjoy figuring it out. They were not wrong. I am that person. It happens that I had long ago bookmarked a recipe in the cookbook “Plenty More” with the note “find whole dried limes and try this”. Also, I already had ground dried limes in my pantry, which I liked to use my verson of Quinoa Tabbouleh.

Now that I have a lifetime supply of dried limes, I make many batches of this vegetable stew each fall when my farm share is really sending me the goods. This stew freezes very well and is a welcome infusion of health and comfort in the dead of winter. For reasons that I cannot remember now, my autumn production of this stew did not happen this year and I have really missed having a freezer full of the stuff. I’ve been making it this winter with some minor substitutions (listed in the recipe below). If you want to try dried limes, order them from Kalustyans! Kalustyans sources the limes from Oman now. If you don’t have access to dried limes, see the substitutions in the recipe.

Vegetable Stew with Dried Lime

adapted from “Plenty More” by Yotam Ottolenghi to include many substitution suggestions

Ingredients (and substitution suggestions)

• 2 and 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil. The original recipe used ghee.
• 1 large onion
• 1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds
• 1 Tablespoon tomato paste
• About 2 oz total sprigs of fresh herbs. The orignal recipe was 2 parts cilantro, to 1 part dill and 1 part tarragon. I’ve been known to proceed with one of the three herbs missing and more of one of the others thrown in to compensate. I’m personally very attached to the fresh tarragon, but I cannot always get it. When tarragon is missing, I throw in a 1/2 teaspoon of fennel seeds. I’ve also swapped in other fresh herbs that I had, like parsley, oregano and thyme, although the original combo is indeed the best.
• 2 and 1/4 lb yukon gold potatoes. I’ve used other potato varieties. I’ve swapped the potatoes for parsnips, rutabagas or small turnips. All are good.
• 2 and 1/2 lb butternut squash. I have substituted with yams, sweet potatoes and every kind of firm winter squash you can think of. All delicious.
• 3 dried limes. There are actually a lot of ways to get this fabulous tart and pungeant flavor. Try adding a few Tablespoos of sumac, preserved lemons or Indian lime pickle or the zest of one lemon cut into long strips with the pith removed.
• 1 hot green chili. I usually just use a jalapeño, becasue that is what is easy for me to get.
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoon salt. More to season at the end.
• 4 and 1/2 cups water or homemade unsalted vegetable stock. I use stock because I alwasys have a lot of experimental veg stock made from scraps in my freezer.
• 4 medium tomatoes. When I make this in the winter, I use whole stewed tomatoes from a can and reserve the juice for another use.
• 5 cups baby spinach or other greens (5-6 oz) I have used every other kinds of green sent to me in my farmshare- chard, mustard greens, escarole, kale, the tops of turnips. That said, this may be the one and only recipe I can think of that I like buying those 5 oz plastic clamshells of baby spinach for, because it’s damn convenient.
• 2 Tablespoon dry barberries or dry currants. I’ve only sought out the barberries once. I ususually have currents and I prefer them. Chopped raisins would work too.

Instructions

Important note! This recipe is huge! Use a really big pot for the stovetop step. I usually freeze at least half of it before the baking step. Seriously, it makes 12- 16 servings. I don’t even have a baking dish that holds this whole recipe.

1. Peel and finely dice the onion. Heat the olive oil over medium hear in a very large dutch oven and add the onion with the tumeric and cumin seed. If you are adding fennel seed to make up for the lack of tarragon, add it here. Sautee for 10 minutes. Prep the other vegetables while the onions cook.
2. Tie all of the fresh herbs into a bundle with some cooking twine. Peel the potatoes, parsnips, rutabegas or turnips (I skip this if I am using small, young vegetables) and cut them into 1 and 1/2 inch chunks. If they are small, they can stay whole! Peel and seed the squash, yams or sweet potatoes and cut them into 1 and 1/2 inch chunks. Use the tip of a sharp knife to pierce each of the the dry limes 3 or 4 times. Split the green chili pepper in half from top to tip.
3. When the onions have sauteed for 10 minutes, add the tomato paste and stir for 2 minutes. Then, add the herbs, chunked vegetables, dry limes, green chili pepper, salt and water or stock. Bring to boil, then lower the heat and gently boil for 15 minutes until the potatoes are semicooked.
4. While the stew is cooking on the stovetop, preheat the oven to 425F. Quarter the tomatoes if using fresh ones. Wash, trim and roughly chop the greens if you are not using prewashed. I usually start the chickpea pancake at this point (see recipe below).
5. Once the potatoes are semicooked, add the tomatoes, greens and dry currants. Gently crush the dried limes to release their juices. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt as needed.
6. Transfer everything to a HUGE baking tray, or (if you are me) freeze half of it at this point because my largest baking tray only holds half of this recipe. I actually freeze it in much smaller portions, to take out and bake in the little cast iron baking tray pictured here.
7. Bake uncovered for 20 minutes until the sauce is thick and the vegetables are very soft. Discard the bundle of herbs and and the hard shells of the dried limes (be sure to squeeze the juice out first!). Serve with a baked chickpea pancake (recipe below, crusty bread or rice.

Kala Besan (Black Chickpea flour)

I make a lot of Indian food, so I make a few trips a year to Patel Brothers in Queens to stock up on supplies. One of the ingredients I use quite a bit is Besan (chickpea flour). I use it to make Spicy chickpea pancakes, Hakuai Turnip Pakora, Brussel Sprout Pakora, Battered Cod, Patra and Cauliflower Kofta. I also use it to make Socca (aka Farinata) which is a baked chickpea pancake and beloved tradtional snack food that can be found on the boarder of France and Italy.

More than once, I have accidentally grabbed a bag of kala besan (black chickpea flour) instead of regular besan. The first time it happened, I didn’t notice the mistake until I tried to make pakora, and they turned out an enitrely different consistency (more spongy than crispy fried). The kala besan is slightly darker and more irregular in coloration that regualr besan, but it had escaped my noticing. I reached out to my friend Sangeeta, who is Indian and is an EXCELLENT cook (see her video about her butter chicken recipe). She let me know that kala besan is like whole wheat flour- less processed and much healthier than the besan usually used for fried food. It’s a health food!

I have come to love a healthier vegetable pakora made with Kala Besan and successfully fed it to the children in my cooking camp last summer. But where this flour really shines for me is in a baked chickpea pancake. Having never travelled to the region of France or Italy where this dish originates, I’ve never had a real Socca or Farinata. It occurs to me that the chickpea flour produced in that region may well be less processed and more like Kala Besan. All I know for sure is that this healthy chick pea flour makes the most delicious nutty flavored baked chick pea pancakes I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. I like it with a lot of black pepper and rosemary.

Baked Black Chickpea Pancake

Ingredients

• 1 and 1/4 cup lukewarm water
• 1 cup Kala Besan (Black Chickpea Flour) regular besan(chickpea flour) will work too
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 4 tablespoons olive oil (divided)
• 1 small red onion
• 1 sprig of fresh rosemary (enough to make 1 Tb chopped)

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 425F.
2. Whisk the chickpea flour, water, salt , pepper and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil together to eliminate any lumps. Cover the bowl with a towel, and let the batter sit for while you prep everything else.
3. Put another 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a well seasoned 12 inch pizza pan or skillet. I use my biggest cast iron. The pancake is better if it is thin.
4. Thinly slice the red onion and mince 1 Tablespoon of rosemary. Stir the rosemary into the batter then pour the batter into the greased pan. Top with the onions.
5. Bake for 15 minutes, or until the pancake is firm and the edges set.
6. Heat the broiler and brush the top of the pancake with a little more oil if you like. Set it a few inches away from the broiler for a minute or two, just long enough to brown it spottily, but not long enough that it would color evenly or burn.  Cut it into wedges and serve hot or warm with Vegetable Stew with Dried Lime.