Yellow Lentil Balls vegan or Parippu Vada

This is Street Food from Sri Lanka.

This vegan dish reminds me a lot of the Falaffel of the Middle East. But the spices and lots of onions makes these Lentil Balls much tastier. 

Yellow Lentils or Dhal are not so easily found here. I needed to take a trip to a Turkish supermarket to buy these.

The lentils are soaked in cold water for about 40 minutes, then drained. All the gunk that floats on top of the water should go first. I fished it out with a strainer. Do not leave a lot of water in the bowl with the drained lentils, they should be dry before they go in the blender.

Add fennel seeds and curry leaves to the lentils and 1/2 tsp of salt. Make a paste, but not too fine.

Use gloves, otherwise you have the chili on your hands. 

Add all other finely chopped ingredients and mash that with your hands to a sticky paste.

 Form it to balls or patties. 

Put oil in a pot to deep fry or use a deep fat fryer. At 180 C until the balls are nicely brown.

Eat them as they are or with some soy yogurt dip.

Air Fryer Pork Belly with Maple Mustard Sauce

Depending on the size of your air fryer, you have to do multiple batches.

But for a single serving, on run was enough. The skin gets very crackly and I recommend using some air fryer paper to get out all of the grease as easy as possible.

The slices of pork belly are patted dry with some kitchen paper, seasoned with salt and pepper and sprayed with a little avocado oil.

At 200 C for 20 min baking time.

Sauce:

50 ml maple syrup

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

I served it with a unsweetened yeast dumpling and a red bell pepper salad. 

Spaghettini with Guanciale and Mortadella Panini

I was shopping at an Italian Mercato a couple of miles outside of the city.

Using a testdrive for an electric car, it brought me here without any difficulties and I enjoyed my drive.

The food haul started with awesome fresh bread and very thin cut Mortadella sausage. A huge piece of sausage was cut up. Then I bought a chunk of pork cheek, Guanciale. Some Pecorino came then.

All other stuff I bought was random.

For lunch I took some if the sesame covered bread, added some goat cream cheese and lots of slices of Mortadella. 

For dinner a pan with Guanciale gave smoke to my kitchen. With some grated Pecorino, an egg yolk and some of the grease from the pan and a little pasta water a creamy sauce for the spaghettini was created.