Legumes

We eat a lot of legume based dishes. Not only are legumes quite nutritious, legumes -regardless of where one lives- are very affordable, too. Prices going up and up, and unfortunately, legumes are no exception. Still, in most cases, they're a more economical option than the average animal protein. Actually, the cheapest fish here is half the price of an kilo of lentils... Most fish, meat, and even eggs these days, are a lot more expensive. Also, one kilogram of dry lentils ends up being about double the weight cooked lentils. The fish, not so much, especially if you take into account that there's bones that won't be consumed. Anyway, long story short: no matter how expensive food is these days, legumes are relatively cheap. 

I hear a lot of people saying that they don't like the "bean taste". While there really is not one bean taste, I really, really can not relate to this! I passionately love all kinds of legumes. I don't think there is one kind I dislike. In fact, there's some legumes that aren't available where I live which I quite miss, like black beans and split peas. I always wonder how people can dislike an entire food group even if they haven't tasted all of them. But apparently, there are just people who dislike "beans". Then there's another thing I hear a lot: that they don't necessarily dislike legumes, they just don't know how to prepare them. Well, that's something I get. Because a lot of people (at least from the west) are brought up with a meat dense diet, if they're not completely raised on convenience foods, that is. In a lot of regions in the world, legumes are part of everyday diet, and they have countless of recipes using them. The variety of ways to prepare legumes is probably one of the reasons why people in those countries actually like, or at best aren't bothered with, legumes. 

So what are the dishes I regularly make when opting for a legume based dish? It's a bit hard to remember everything I ever made, because sometimes I really just throw various leftovers together, including chickpeas or lentils. Which, believe me or not, always turns out delicious! Anyway, there's some go to meals that we repeatedly have at our house. 

•Green/brown lentils: as mentioned, I add them to whatever leftover foods I have, to add more nutrition and taste. During summer, I also love making salads with whatever I have lying around in the fridge and make a lentil salad. Since it's very filling  I usually don't add any starchy ingredients. I also love all kinds of lentil-and-rice varieties, such as Egyptian Koshary or Levantine mudjadara. I kind of made our own north African mock version of mudjadara by using couscous and adding some leftover pepper/tomato stew. Green lentils make a decent replacement for mince meat in many dishes, like pastas, casseroles, etc. Or you can even make your own "meatballs" with brown lentils. And then there's of course the famous north African lentil stew using brown lentils that we absolutely love.

•Chickpeas: probably the most used legumes in north African cuisine, and it's used a lot in our cooking! Chickpeas are added to soups, stews, pasta dishes. And here chickpea flour is used a lot too, even in biscuits and other sweets. As far as non-north African cuisine (because I do love international cooking), we love hummus and falafel, and pakora/bhaji. Chickpea flour can even be made into a kind of tofu, albeit with a slightly chickpea-y flavour. But it's a good alternative if tofu isn't available where you live (which is the case for me), or if you're trying to avoid soy (which is also kind of the case for me). Sometimes I just make some "scrambled chickpea flour", which resembles eggs in texture, and is used as a quick addition of protein in many dishes. I also love making savoury chickpea flour muffins in my air fryer - recipe yet to be posted. Probably there's hundreds of other things one can make with chickpea flour, but these are just some of the things we do.  

•White beans: white beans make a scrumptious stew called loubia, which is like the north African equivalent of chilli! This we have quite regularly. Perfect comfort food, if you ask me. White beans can also be added to many other hearty soups and stews, as well as light summer salads. And since black, navy/pinto beans and kidney beans aren't available here I also use white beans for making refried beans. 

•Yellow/red lentils: while these would be considered a soup base for most of us, there's a lot more to use them for. Don't get me wrong, I love lentil soups, in all varieties, but it's just that they're quite versatile. I'm not that familiar with south Asian cuisine, knowing it a few different dishes, but I do make red lentil dhaal quite often. It's one of the children's favourite meals. I also quite regularly make Turkish lentil "meatballs", mercimek köfte. Which is a relatively unknown side dish I guess (if you don't live in Turkey or a Levantine country, that is), but we really love it. We love most or Turkish cuisine actually. 

•Split peas: I grew up on split pea soup, we had it quite regularly during the winter. Maybe it's just nostalgia but in my opinion there's no better winter comfort food than split pea soup! I also love bissara, a Moroccan dish. It's between a dip and a soup made out of split peas. Unfortunately, here they don't sell split peas so I can't make bissara. Although I've read that it can be substituted by broad beans (which is available here), so I might give it a try. Speaking of broad beans, that's something we usually have as a side, sprinkled with salt, cumin, and olive oil. And it's also added to couscous. 

Some kinds of legumes aren't available here, like navy beans, black and kidney beans, which is why I haven't listed them. And there's still a lot of legume based foods I'm yet to try, like porridges. Yes, orange split lentils could even be made into a porridge! And apparently, it's quite good. It may sound a bit strange, but, if like us you're familiar with 'bsisa', it's not that weird to eat a sweet legume based foods. Bsisa is a traditional sweet dish (either eaten for breakfast or as a snack) made of ground barley and/or wheat and ground legumes, mostly chickpeas but also lentils. It's then mixed with olive oil until it reaches the desired texture and a sweetener of some sort. Usually it's decorated with some seeds and nuts on top. Bsisa can also be made with water or milk instead of oil, o make it a bit lighter, because the olive oil based bsisa is quite rich. Apparently you can also make brownies with beans, so legumes and sweet dishes might not be that of a strange combo, after all. 

This is getting a bit long. I hope the point I'm trying to make is clear: that legumes are so versatile, and that you just should give it a try to experiment more with this food group!