This Community Recipe is Chaya Lev’s Vegan Who-Moose Stew. This spicy and fragrant chickpea and vegetable stew is simple to make, includes some delicious and powerful spices and it is full of plant-based protein. Perfect to eat with a side of bread, alongside rice or another grain of your choice, or as a topping for a baked potato or sweet potato. It is a good dish to make for Shabbat or another Jewish holiday.
Jewish Food Hero Community Recipes
Community Recipes is a recurring feature where we share your vegan recipes on the Jewish Food Hero blog. If you want to share a recipe in this series, pitch us your idea here. This series is all about sharing healthy plant-based and vegan recipes. We are creating a positive community around food and sharing.
All about Chaya Lev
Chaya Lev is a California native who then found herself living in Texas and discovered her Judaism and chose to be chosen. Chaya beat Breast Cancer in the USA and then made aliyah. She now Lives in Tel Aviv, Israel. Chaya inspires women to embrace their inner Queen, and to practice self love through movement. She is the creator of Chaya Dance Movement.
Chaya writes beautifully about her experience of breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. Where most people may expect to crumble and be filled with negativity when receiving news about ill-health, for Chaya it was like an awakening. The way she writes is so inspiring and encouraging, it is like a call to all women to live their lives fully and with joy and pleasure. Chaya shows us that self love is a tool to get us through life’s hard times. Thank you Chaya!
Chaya is a passionate lover of dance. She became a dance class instructor to work with women, encouraging them to allow themselves to experience a sense of freedom through dance, sensuality and music.
Cooking and love
Chaya loves to dance. Her idea of an amazing dinner is friends and Shabbat and always plenty of wine! Cooking for others feels like sharing an extension of her heart. She says she cooks with all of her soul and thinks about all of her ancestors when she seasons the food. Chaya doesn’t just want people to taste the food. She wants them to feel the love and have an experience. Sounds delicious to me!
For inspiration, Chaya loves:
The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South Paperback by Michael W. Twitty
Modern Jewish Cooking: Recipes & Customs for Today’s Kitchen by Leah Koenig
How was Chaya Lev’s Vegan Who-Moose Stew created?
Chaya lives in Israel where chickpeas are widely available, known, loved and enjoyed! Chickpeas make any dish hearty, and are accessible even on a tight budget. Chaya likes to serve her Vegan Who-Moose Stew with rice or mashed potato. She will happily feed anyone who wants to eat this stew!
Soaking chickpeas
Dried chickpeas are usually cheaper than tinned varieties. What’s more, the flavor is much more intense and the texture far preferable for cooking, as they will hold their shape better. Some people can be put-off of using dried legumes. This might be because we need to plan a little in advance to have them soaked. Another reason is that people might feel nervous about the right process to use to prepare dried legumes.
Here are the important steps you have to follow to get the best out of your beans:
- Pick through dried beans and legumes to remove and discard any debris, such as small stones, that are mixed up with them.
- Rinse them under cold, fresh water.
- Place into a large pot and cover with plenty of fresh water. The beans will expand significantly during soaking, to twice or three times their dried size. So you need to make sure you use plenty of water and allow lots of room for expansion.
- Cover and leave to soak overnight. In cool climates, you can leave them on the kitchen side. In hot temperatures, it’s best to leave them in the refrigerator.
- The next day, drain discard all of the soaking water. Rinse the soaked beans very well under cold, fresh, running water.
- Use as directed in your recipe!
Key Ingredients in this recipe
Dry Chickpeas
Spicy + Sweet Moroccan paprika
Cumin
Turmeric
Chaya Lev’s Vegan Who-Moose Stew Recipe
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 2 hours
- Total Time: 2 hours 25 minutes
- Yield: Serves 6-10
Ingredients
2 cups dry chickpeas
1 large onion, diced
3 large carrots
8 mushrooms (a mix of button, crimini, and/or portobello)
4 to 6 cloves of garlic, according to preference
1 can of tomato paste (4oz or 6oz both work, more paste creates a more sauce-y stew)
Handful of thyme
Pink himalayan salt to season
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1 tablespoon spicy Morrocan paprika
1 tablespoon cumin
A dash of cinnamon
½ teaspoon turmeric
3 tablespoons grape seed or any other high heat oil
Cilantro and parsley to garnish
Instructions
Put the dried chickpeas in a large pot or bowl and cover with plenty of fresh water. Leave them to soak overnight.
The next day, drain and rinse the soaked chickpeas.
Bring a large soup pot of water to a boil. Add the chickpeas, turn down to medium heat and cook for 90 minutes.
Slice the carrots into semi circle pieces and steam on their own for 20 minutes. Drain and leave to rest.
Heat oil in a large pot. Add the chopped onion and saute until golden brown. Add the garlic, being careful not to burn it, and add salt and pepper. Add the mushroom and continue sauteing until slightly soft. Leave to rest until 30 minutes before the chickpeas are ready.
When the chickpeas are cooked, remove 2 cups of the chickpea cooking water and set aside to use later. Drain the cooked chickpeas and return them to their cooking pot.
Add the blanched carrots to the cooked chickpeas, along with the 2 cups of reserved cooking water and tomato paste. Stir gently to combine.
Add all the remaining herbs, spices and seasonings and extra salt and pepper to taste.
Add the thyme and simmer on low for 30 minutes.
Serve hot and garnished with roughly chopped fresh herbs.
Keywords: vegan, stew, chickpeas, spices
Variations
Oil Free: f you eat oil-free, simply omit the oil from this recipe. Easy as that!
Pressure Cooker: This recipe would be perfect for pressure cooking.
Add more liquid: If you want a more stew-ish dish, you can 1-2 cups of vegetable broth or another can of crushed or stewed tomatoes
More Community Recipes
Sometimes we all need a little inspiration to mix up our regular recipe rotation. Our Community Recipes feature is for just that – to share our favorites and hear from a variety of people in our community. Since you’ve read Chaya’s, do you feel inspired to share your own recipe? Don’t forget to get in touch to share your vegan recipe too!
Check out these other recipes from our community:
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