From sauce to makis, 3 sunny recipes

Making sauce is cool, but still quite common…With those summer days, why wouldn’t you try to make an original homemade hummus? This one is tasty and will perfectly fit for your aperitifs as a dip, simply poured on some vegetables, or could even be used in some revisited recipes, as the one that I propose you at the end of this post.
Here are 3 recipes, from the sauce to the complete dish, which will permit to everyone -yeah, even you, who are used to bake only pastas and fried eggs – to go back to the stove!

Red pepper sauce

3 red peppers, a handful of pine nuts, a handful of fresh basil, 2 tbsp olive oil, salt, pepper. 

1. Preheat the oven at 210C. Wash, then cut in 2 and take the seeds out of the red peppers. Put them on a baking tray, previously covered with some baking paper. Their skin has to be turned upwards. Thanks to a cooking brush, top them with some olive oil, then put them in the oven for 30 minutes. The red peppers are ready once their skin is getting black and starts to peel off.

2. Once they are ready, let the red peppers getting tepid, then peel them. Roast the pine nuts in a frying pan. In a blender bowl, add the cooked peppers, the pine nuts, the washed basil, the olive oil, then incorpore a pinch of salt and pepper.

3. Mix the whole until you get a homogeneous texture. If you want it a bit more liquid, you can add some olive oil to the sauce, or some water for a light version. This sauce is perfect with some pastas and more original than a tomato sauce. You can also poor it on some meat, or why not adding it into some homemade lasagnas.

Red pepper hummus

Half of the previous sauce, 150g dried chickpeas.

1. If you want to transform this sauce into a tasty red pepper hummus, there is nothing easier! Take half of the sauce and add 150g chickpeas to it. Then mix the whole and that’s it! If you want to transform the whole sauce, then 300g chickpeas are necessary.

Veggie makis

200g millet, 2 tbsp cream cheese, the juice of one small lime, some goat cheese (as St Maure cheese), a few spoons of red pepper hummus (or even red pepper sauce, if this one isn’t too liquid), 1/2 ripe avocado, 2 Nori seaweed leaves. 

1. Put the millet in a pan, then add twice of its volume in boiling water, slightly salted.Cover the pan and let it cook on a low heat for approximately 20 minutes, until the water gets totally absorbed. Then let cool down.

2. Once the millet got cold, add 2 tablespoons of cream cheese and the juice of 3/4 of the lime, then stir the whole until you get a homogeneous mixture. On a work surface, put one Nori leaf, then spread regularly half of the millet on it, while letting a free strip of 2cm large on the opposite side of the leaf (from you).

3. Cut the goat cheese in sticks, then add half of them on the millet -at approximately 5cm from the closest side of the Nori leaf-. Spread some spoons of red pepper hummus on it. Thanks to a cooking brush, humidify the virgin strip.

4. Take the closest side of the Nori leaf, then put it above the filling and roll it until the opposite side. The wet virgin strip must stick well to  rest of the Nori leaf. Then, film the roll and put it in the fridge.

5. Do the same for the second roll. The only difference here is that you can replace the red pepper hummus by some simple homemade guacamole: you just have to mash half of an avocado with the rest of the lime juice. Once you got a homogeneous mixture, put it on the goat cheese instead of the hummus and roll the whole.

If you’re keen of new exotic recipes, my recipe of Thai soup with prawns, coconut and curry is waiting for you!