I visited my friend Danielle in Guelph back in July, and brought over some dip that I came up with (it was inspired by my friend Milijana's Labna Love and Dilly Dali raw dips - go on Facebook and search for "Good Food Conspiracy Co."). It turned out really good, so good that she wanted the recipe. As my friends know, I'm one who just "throws" things together... Let's see if I can recreate this dip.
Ingredients:
Plain Fermented cashew dip
1.5 cups raw cashews, soaked and drained
1 pack of kefir starter (you can get this from BodyEcology or your health food store; that's where I got mine)
About one cup of room temperature or tepid water
Soak 1.5 cups of cashews overnight or at least 4 hours. Drain.
Pour soaked cashews into high speed blender.
In a ceramic or glass bowl, pour in 1 cup of tepid water. Stir in the packet of kefir starter. Do not use a metal utensil. I use a wooden spoon or bamboo chopsticks.
Pour mixture into blender. Blend until smooth adding a teaspoon of water at a time if mixture is too thick to blend.
Empty contents into a glass or ceramic bowl. Cover with a plate and let ferment 24 hours. I put mine in the oven. Depending on how warm the weather is, you may have to ferment longer that what I did. Just check every 12 hours or so. See if there are bubbles. Smell it to sense if it's ready.
Sublime Fermented cashew dip
Plain fermented cashew mixture
Juice of 2 lemons
Juice of one lime
Large Garlic clove (about one teaspoon grated)
One green cayenne chili (or jalapeno)
Two handfuls of dill weed, chopped
About 3/4 cups of minced cucumber
5-7 mints leaves (I used bergamot), chopped
2 green onions, chopped (include the greens)
Some pomegranate seeds for topping
1-2 tsp of good salt (do according to your taste)
Black ground pepper to taste
(reserve a bit of the chopped greens for topping)
Edible flowers for topping (I used day lilies, borage, nasturtiums, and calendula)
Mix in all the ingredients into the plain fermented cashew mixture, pour into desired containers then top of the reserved greens and flowers. Enjoy!
See pictures below for a better idea of how to make this at home.
 |
| Mince the cucumber |
 |
| All the chopped greens (reserve some for garnish) |
 |
| Big picture of all the ingredients |
 |
| Bergamot |
 |
| This is the opened packet of the kefir starter |
 |
| check consistency of the fermented cashew cream |
 |
| see the air bubbles? |
 |
| It's ready when it looks like this |
 |
| Mix all the ingredients together |
 |
| Don't forget the salt! |
 |
| add pepper (I like a lot) |
 |
| Add lemon and lime juice |
 |
| Stir everything together with a WOODEN spoon |
 |
| Taste |
 |
| If it doesn't taste quite right... |
 |
| Keep stirring... something is missing... |
 |
| Don't forget the garlic! |
 |
| Grate the garlic |
 |
| Use a microplane grater |
 |
| Don't forget the green chili |
 |
| Pour into desired containers and top with garnish |
 |
| Voila! |
 |
| Smile: you did a great job! |
 |
| Take a closer look and appreciate |
 |
| Make sure to scrap the bowl |
 |
| Enjoy the scrapings :) |
 |
| It's your turn |
Tell me what you think. Please let me know how I could make this recipe more precise.
Thank you for visiting, and have a deliciously delightful day!
