Jazzing up a Salad with Black Bean and Walnut Kofta Balls

In the last vegan foundation course Grace and Mark made a delicious salad with black bean kofta balls. They were a real treat. I had a left over eggplant from the course and decided to develop their recipe further by putting chopped walnuts and mashed eggplant in the koftas. It worked and they are lovely and crunchy but moist at the same time. 

 

You can serve them with a decadent salad and yoghurt sauce like Grace and Mark did or serve them on a bed of iceberg lettuce with the Yoghurt sauce recipe below. They aren’t the prettiest looking ball in the world but their flavour certainly makes up for it.

 

240g cooked black beans 

¾ cup chopped walnuts

A big handful of washed coriander chopped fine

150g eggplant cut into strips

¼ cup tahini

¼ cup besan flour

¼ cup almond meal

1 tsp salt

2 tsp boiled garlic

5 small spring onions chopped small  

½ tsp of chilli powder

1 tsp ground cumin

¼ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp cinnamon

Couple of splashes of olive oil 

Juice of ½ medium lemon

 

1 cup coconut yoghurt

2 tbsp dill 

2 tbsp parsley 

2 tbsp tahini

2 tsp boiled garlic

Juice ½ small lemon

Salt and pepper to taste

1 cucumber diced finely 

 

For the Yoghurt sauce place everything except the cucumbers in a blender and blend together. Place in a bowl and fold in the cucumbers. 

 

Cook the eggplant in the oil until cooked through and browned. When cooled a little, cut up until very small and quite mashed.

Place the black beans in a bowl and mash a little keeping some of the beans whole. Place everything else in the bowl with the black beans and mix well.

With wet hands make small balls and place on a baking paper lined tray. 

Place in a 180°C  oven and cook for 20 minutes and then turn them over and cook for another 15 to 20 minutes.

 

Like all great art pieces recipes also need to be developed by taking ideas from other people and adapting them until you get something you really like yourself to create over and over again. Following a recipe does not always result in a great meal. To make it suit your own palate, the seasonal ingredients where you live and your own preferences for the types of ingredients you like to eat can change an original recipe into something either quite similar or entirely different. Once you change a recipe in any way that recipe can become your own recipe and then others can do the same to your recipes. 

 

I love it that food recipes can be shared with others and like one great cook book author said (who’s name escapes me – I heard her speak at the Byron Bay Writers Festival more than eight years ago) ‘Recipes belong to the world.’

 

In the Vegan Foundation Course and the whole Vegan Chef and Lifestyle Training you learn how to develop your own recipes and get meals and creations to taste exactly as you want them to, in order for you to really enjoy them and share with others.

 

I hope I get to see you all in a foundation course one of these days. For those who would like to do it but can’t see it happening in the near future don’t despair I plan to be running these three-day courses for a very long time. For those wanting to join the full training act sooner as there are already four people booked into the next one and I only have limited spaces.

 

Have a great week everyone.

 

Love Veet