If you love Middle Eastern food, the new cookbook Tahini and Turmeric is a must have. Written by sisters Vicki Cohen and Ruth Fox, Tahini and Turmeric is a celebration of the deliciousness that is Middle Eastern cuisine. In this book, Cohen and Fox, who are not vegan themselves, create veganized versions of their much loved Jewish-Lebanese-Spanish family favorites using flavorful ingredients like harissa, sumac, and cardamom, putting a modern spin on classic dishes.
While I typically think of Middle Eastern food as a lunch or dinner option, Cohen and Fox showed me how wrong I am. The recipes in Tahini and Turmeric can take us from breakfast through dessert. For breakfast we can choose from dishes like cashew-ricotta Syrian pancakes with orange blossom syrup, nutty cinnamon rolls with halvah icing, or zucchini fritters with cucumber yogurt sauce. For lunch and dinner, the possibilities seem limitless and include deconstructed hummus, a wild rice mujadarra, and mushroom-stuffed potato cradles. Finally we can end the day on a sweet note with simple, yet decadent, desserts like chocolate-dipped, walnut-stuffed dates, and a creamy tahini cheesecake with pistachio crust and pomegranates.
Here is a a recipe for Falafel Waffles to give you an idea of what you will find inside Tahini and Turmeric.
Falafel Waffles
If you love falafel as we do, you know it’s hard to improve on this favorite. But we just may have done so with this fun twist on tradition. We tested this recipe about a half a dozen times until we achieved the perfect consistency and flavor. To add the nutty, earthy taste characteristic of falafel, we use chickpea flour along with wheat flour in the batter. Chickpea flour is a wonderful plant-based protein that is high in fiber and a good source of iron! But don’t worry about these being too dense: to help make the waffles airier, we use self-rising flour and add seltzer water instead of regular water (see notes below).
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Makes 6 waffles
INGREDIENTS:
¾ cup self-rising flour
½ cup chickpea flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup seltzer water
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Cooking spray or olive oil, for waffle iron
EQUIPMENT:
Waffle iron
Preheat your waffle iron according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
In a large bowl, combine the self-rising and chickpea flours, baking powder, coriander, cumin, turmeric, smoked paprika, allspice, garlic powder, pepper, and salt and mix well. Add the seltzer water and olive oil and mix until all the ingredients are just incorporated.
Coat the waffle iron generously with cooking spray or olive oil. Spread with 1/3 cup of batter per waffle, close the iron, and let the waffle cook for 3 to 4 minutes, or until it releases easily from the iron. Repeat the process with the remaining batter, making sure to grease the iron before cooking each batch.
Serve warm.
notes: If you don’t have seltzer water in hand, increase the amount of baking powder by ½ teaspoon.
Be sure to generously grease the waffle iron with cooking spray or olive oil, even if it has a nonstick surface.
(Excerpted from Tahini and Turmeric: 101 Middle Eastern Classics—Made Irresistibly Vegan by Ruth Fox & Vicky Cohen. Copyright ©2018. Available from Da Capo Lifelong Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc.)
No longer will I think of tahini and turmeric as simply ingredients. Now Tahini and Turmeric will remind me of all the delicious foods I can make thanks to this book.
