Topics: Recipe: Mark’s African Stew, and converting my Clojure CookingSpace web site to JavaScript

I wanted to convert my server side web site CookingSpace.com to mostly client side JavaScript. I used the Replit.com AI coding agent to do this, and while this is a subject for another blog article, I showed the Replit coding AI a snippet of my JSON recipes and nutrients file, and described in a few paragraphs the functionality of the new web site.

I want to share a recipe that I created: 

Mark’s African Stew

Ingredients

• Optional: 3/4 to 1 pound of Lamb shoulder, deboned and cut into cubes, leaving some fat on the meat

• 2 tablespoons of any non-seed oil (Avocado Oil is good). (Avoid seed oils like Canola, Corn, Soybean, Sunflower, etc.)

• 1 brown onion, coarsely chopped

• 1 egg plant, partially skinned,  chopped into bite sized pieces, and heavily salt in a strainer. Before cooking, rinse well to remove excess salt!

• ground coriander (at least 1 teaspoon)

• Cumin  (at least 2/3 teaspoon)

• paprika (1 to 2 teaspoons, depending on how you like the taste of paprika)

• ginger powder ( at least 1/2 teaspoon), or, even better use finely chopped fresh ginger

  pealed and finely chopped)

• cinnamon (1/4 to 1/4 teaspoon depending how much you like the taste of cinnamon)

• black pepper (at least 1/3 teaspoon - nutritionally pairs well with the turmeric)

• turmeric (bout 1/4 teaspoon), or, even better use fresh turmeric root peeled and finely chopped.

• fresh chopped garlic (or garlic powder) added to taste. I use about 3 garlic cloves, you probably want less.

• Something hot and spicy: dried chili peppers, or fresh chopped chili peppers, or hot chili sauce - whatever you like, adding enough ‘hot’ for your tastes.

• 1 cup chicken broth, or vegetable broth if you are not using the optional meat.

• 4 cups water, or more in stew dries out while cooking

• 1/4 pound of lentils

• 2 or 3 celery stocks, coarsely chopped. Use the green tops also! Use the root also.

• 1 14oz can of diced tomatoes

• 1 16oz can of cooked garbanzo beans, using water in can

• 2/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro, I use about half the stems (finely chopped)

• Small pasta noodles, I use a very small amount as an accent

• Optional: a table spoon of honey added after heat is turned off.

• Juice from 1 fresh lemon (optional, but…)

Directions:

Brown the lamb in about 2 tablespoons of any non-seed oil (Avocado Oil is good) and remove, leaving oil and the small amount of fat from cooking the meat.

Sauté the onion

Turn off heat and add rinsed lentils, prepared eggplant (rinse salt off before adding to pan), and all spices.

Cook covered under low heat for about 20 minutes.

Add everything else: canned garbanzo beans, chopped celery, cilantro, diced tomatoes, and return the meat to the heavy pan, cover and simmer for a while. Cook for at least 10 minutes before adding pasta:

Add the small amount of plaster noodles last, calculating how long they should cook by doubling the time that you would cook them in boiling water.

When the pasta tastes done, cover the heavy pan, cook another minute, then turn off heat leaving the heat and leave the pan covered for 5 to 20 minutes.

Stir in fresh lemon juice and serve. After tasting at the table, add salt if necessary.