Camping Bhelpuri with Fava beans

Last week in our box of CSA vegetables, we got a bag full of fava beans. Fava beans are actually a pain to deal with. First you have to peel the pod and take out the beans. Then you blanch the beans in boiling water for 5 minutes and drain the water. After that it is a painstaking process of peeling off the outer unedible skin and getting to the delicious inside. V and I peeled the fava beans over an episode of Inspector Frost. (I think I peeled 5 for every one of V's :-))

The effort paid off. On our recent camping trip, we prepared a simple snack of bhelpuri with fava beans.

Here's the recipe:

1 pack Haldiram's ready-to-eat bhel puri
1 cup fava beans blanched and peeled
1/2 cup red onion diced fine
1/2 cup red bell pepper diced fine
1/2 cucumber diced fine
half a lemon/lime
pinch salt if required



Mix all ingredients including the sauce packets in the bhelpuri mix. Squeeze half a lemon/lime and mix again and eat.

(Disclaimer: This snack tastes best if enjoyed in the outdoors under towering redwood trees amidst bright green fern growing alongside a gurgling creek.)

Submitted this concoction to "Sunday Snacks - Chaats" event at All Thingz Yummy blog. Hope it doesn't get disqualified for taking a shortcut and using ready-made bhel.

Greens in San Francisco

Greens restaurant
Building A, Fort Mason Center
San Francisco, CA 94123
415-771-6222
http://www.greensrestaurant.com/

San Francisco, a mere 40 minutes away, is our haven during the few unbearably warm summer days in the South Bay. Yesterday, when the mercury hit 90 degree F, we headed in to the City with jackets in hand, but it was a warm 84F even there.

Greens restaurant located in the Fort Mason Center (future site of Starfleet Academy in the new Star Trek movie?) is one of the premier vegetarian restaurants in the City and has an unbeatable location with a view of the Bay. I was in heaven because we were lucky to get a table with a view of the Golden Gate bridge - one of my favorite sites in the world. Sailboats in various colors congregated under the Golden Gate bridge and took off. A duck was paddling around lazily in the water below us and we could see its feet in the water. All in all, a very idyllic brunch! And the food was great too!

Greens serves only their brunch menu on Sundays. V and our friend D got the Pinnacles Scramble - scrambled eggs with a southwestern flavor. The eggs were done just right, and warm tortillas made the meal pretty filling. V also got their cauliflower curried soup which he generously shared with D and me. The pureed soup had a nice hearty flavor. I got their Spinach filo. It was a delicate dish, that came with a side of lentils and artichokes.

The best part of the meal was yet to come. We caved in to the Greens dessert menu. D got the Meyer Lemon tartlet. V and I shared a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. A perfect ending to the meal on the bay.

The bill came to $90 with tax and I am not sure how much the total ended up being, but D is a generous tipper!

Greens also has a to-go counter from where we have picked up sandwiches in the past for a picnic lunch in Angel Island. Greens To-go also serves coffee and muffins and such, for a quick snack after a performance in the Fort Mason Center.

Gelato Classico in Mountain View

Gelato Classico Italian Icecream
241 Castro St
Mountain View, CA
(650) 969-2900

V has been promising to take me to this famous gelato establishment for the longest time, since he knows my weakness for icecreams and gelatos, but for some reason, we were not able to make it all this time. Finally, our friend Ken's birthday gave us the perfect excuse to indulge! After a so-so dinner at Hangen Szechuan restaurant on Castro street in downtown Mountain View, we strolled over to Gelato Classico for just a peek. But we were hooked when we looked at the variety!

We each got a small cup with different flavors. Ken got the Mocha Almond Fudge and seemed to enjoy it. I got the Burgundy Cherry because it looked so pink and irresistible. V went for the unusual flavor of Honey Lavender. V and I traded a couple of times to savor both flavors equally, but to tell the truth, V's selection was unbeatable. It had a mellow fragrance of lavender and just pure honey sweetness. We sat outside to enjoy both our gelato and the cool Bay area evening as we watched the crowds on Castro.

The price is quite reasonable at $2.95 for the small cup, which is plenty for an after-dinner dessert. (I do plan to skip dinner one day and come back here and make a meal of the different flavors!! )

Burma Superstar

Burma Superstar
309 Clement St, San Francisco, CA‎
(415) 387-2147‎

www.burmasuperstar.com

This was a day for V and me to experience the smaller and lesser known Indo-Chinese cultures! After an early hike in Mt. Tamalpais north of the City, we drove in to the City to catch the Bhutan exhibition at the Asian Art Museum. We were kind of in a trance when we left the place from staring at too many mandalas, and eventhough our souls were brimming, our stomachs were growling with hunger. We had already planned our dinner venue based on a recommendation from our friends, P & V, and looked forward to that - Burma Superstar did not disappoint!

BSS opens for dinner at 5pm and when we got there around 5:30pm, there already were several people waiting outside. The hostess told us that it would be a 90 minute wait. Undaunted, we decided to hang on. I walked over a couple of blocks to a smaller cafe' type restaurant, called B*Star, owned by the same people. There was absolutely no one at that place. Looking at the menu, I realized it was more of a generic menu with just 1 or 2 Burmese dishes. Our waitress later told us that there is now a branch in Oakland with the Burmese menu . (Burma, for those who are wondering, is now known as Myanmar and is the largest Southeast Asian country area-wise.)

Fortunately our wait proved to be just around 20 minutes - apparently they had opened up a communal table. (The hostess was still throwing wild numbers like 80 minutes to 2 hours at new comers!) The seating inside is limited and it is closely packed, but we were there for the food, not the ambience.

Service was quick and very pleasant. We ordered the signature item on their menu, which is the tea-leaf salad. The special ingredient is "tea leaves", which is mixed with lettuce, tomatoes, roasted lentils, peanuts and other stuff and has a lemon dressing. We loved the unique flavor the tea leaves imparted to the salad, not sure how I can describe it except to say it was yummy.

We also ordered the "samusa" which is kind of like Indian samosas, but with a thinner deep-fried outer crust. The samusa was good but not great - I guess we could have gone for the samusa soup.

Our main entree was "Curry Vegetables", recommended by our waitress as being uniquely Burmese. The curry gravy was similar to Indian curry and the vegetables were similar, but it had a lot of mint which gave it a different taste. Instead of rice, we ordered the "Prata" similar to Indian paratha but deep-fried. (What the heck, we had afterall done a reasoanble hike that day!)
V also ordered the freshly squeezed ginger-lemon juice and really enjoyed it.

All in all, a great meal! The bill came to around $40 for the two of us with tax and tip. We will definitely go back there to try the other items on their menu. We might get the pea-shoot stir-fry (recommended by P) or vegetable stir-fry instead of the curry and order the samusa soup.

Leek, Fennel and Smallage Soup

V and I haven't updated the blog in a while, shame on us. I could say we have been very busy dealing with our CSA vegetable box, but that is stretching it a bit!! However, we have been enjoying experimenting with the new vegetables in our weekly box. A few weeks back we got "Smallage", a wonderfully fragrant vegetable reminiscent of celery. I combined the stalk with baby leeks and fennel (also from the box) to make pureed soup. It was absolutely yummy!

Our farm website refers to smallage as "Soup Celery or Cutting Celery". Here's what Wikiipedia says about smallage:

The wild form of celery is known as smallage. It has a furrowed stalk with wedge-shaped leaves, the whole plant having a coarse, earthy taste, and a distinctive smell. The stalks are not usually eaten (except in soups or stews in French cuisine), but the leaves may be used in salads, and its seeds are those sold as a spice.^[9] With cultivation and blanching, the stalks lose their acidic qualities and assume the mild, sweetish, aromatic taste particular to celery as a salad plant.

Here's the recipe for my pureed soup.

Ingredients:
1 bunch smallage
1 bunch fennel
1 bunch baby leek
2-3 cups vegetable broth
Butter or vegetable oil to saute
1/4 cup Yogurt (not too sour) or cream if you prefer
2-3 cloves garlic minced
1 very small piece ginger sliced
1 pinch cumin powder
Nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
Chopped parsley for garnish

Method:
1. Cut off the rough portions of the leek and fennel (optionally save this for making vegetable broth). Clean thoroughly and chop
2. Cut the leaves of the smallage and save them for salad. Wash and chop the stem
3. Heat butter / oil in a pan, and add the minced garlic and ginger.
4. Add the chopped vegetables and saute till they are soft
5. Add the vegetable broth and heat through
6. Grate some nutmeg in to the pot, and add the salt, pepper and cumin powder and switch off
7. When it is cool enough, puree in a blender with the yogurt (or cream though I prefer yogurt)
8. Heat through again if desired and serve immediately with a dollop of yogurt and some chopped parsley on top

Roasted Fennel

Hmmmm.. this soup smells absolutely wonderful! We got fennel bulbs a couple of times, and got the smallage just once from the farm, and wish we had gotten these wonderfully aromatic veggies more times!

This recipe is for JFI: Fennel hosted at Siri's Corner.