It is cold and nasty outside, the last day of a September every bit as wet and wild as 2012's summer that never was.
In spite of the vile weather that began in June and has barely let up since, we did grow plenty on our allotment and in the garden. As ever, though, I failed with tomatoes, with only a few reaching ripeness. Today I gave up hoping that the remaining green ones would even manage a blush of pink, so I picked the lot - lot being about 20 marble-sized fruits - and made them into a salsa.
As anyone who has read other posts here will know one of my favourite cooking verbs is 'to zap'. These enjoyed that treatment, along with some of our own coriander seeds, a red chilli seeds-and-all, some parsley, and salt and pepper. Very very hot, unlike the weather.
That salsa (with some yogurt, it really is damned hot) will coat chicken breasts for baking tonight, to be served with a spinach salad to help the cooling process and offer some green defiance to the unkind elements.
Sunday 30 September 2012
Sweet & Sour Power
Those neat little packets of sauce are so tempting: sweet and sour, black bean, Thai green curry... But a look at the ingredients list often reveals one reason not to buy, and the price for what you get is another - 99p, £1.25, for something you can whip up in seconds.
Last night we had a Chinese banquet, big on veg from the allotment - braised beef with our turnips, steamed kale with chilli and soy sauce, braised courgettes in a simple thickened sauce made with stock, and sweet and sour chicken. The last item was made because I overdid the quantity of sauce for the courgettes (cheaty vegetable stock powder with soy sauce, plus some cornflour to thicken it). A dollop of Heinz, a tablespoonful of sugar, and a big dash of red wine vinegar and it had changed character, coating the stir-fried chicken and red pepper strips deliciously.
The Chinese food we eat here (except in a few restaurants) is for obvious reasons very anglicized, which tends to mean meat-based dishes predominate. When I travelled for work in China and Taiwan banquets and business meals had plenty of vegetable dishes: simple steamed greens, braises, some stir-fried mixes. For a meal at home it is very easy to prepare such things, and healthy, and it means you end up with more dishes on the table so it feels like a feast. The extra colours don't hurt either. Taste and colour highlight for me yesterday was (a tin of) bamboo shoots cut into matchsticks, stir fried till they began to turn light gold, then braised with soy, sugar, a slug of sherry and boiling water until the liquid all but disappeared. Left until cool they were so tasty. A special touch for well under £1, when a packet sauce would have cost more.
Last night we had a Chinese banquet, big on veg from the allotment - braised beef with our turnips, steamed kale with chilli and soy sauce, braised courgettes in a simple thickened sauce made with stock, and sweet and sour chicken. The last item was made because I overdid the quantity of sauce for the courgettes (cheaty vegetable stock powder with soy sauce, plus some cornflour to thicken it). A dollop of Heinz, a tablespoonful of sugar, and a big dash of red wine vinegar and it had changed character, coating the stir-fried chicken and red pepper strips deliciously.
The Chinese food we eat here (except in a few restaurants) is for obvious reasons very anglicized, which tends to mean meat-based dishes predominate. When I travelled for work in China and Taiwan banquets and business meals had plenty of vegetable dishes: simple steamed greens, braises, some stir-fried mixes. For a meal at home it is very easy to prepare such things, and healthy, and it means you end up with more dishes on the table so it feels like a feast. The extra colours don't hurt either. Taste and colour highlight for me yesterday was (a tin of) bamboo shoots cut into matchsticks, stir fried till they began to turn light gold, then braised with soy, sugar, a slug of sherry and boiling water until the liquid all but disappeared. Left until cool they were so tasty. A special touch for well under £1, when a packet sauce would have cost more.
Tuesday 25 September 2012
Shopping Diversity
I have written previously about the money to be saved buying stuff from the 'ethnic' aisles in supermarkets, one example of where this makes sense being coconut milk, about half the price of the posher tin elsewhere. I have started looking at the similar freezer section, and found a couple of bargains there.
The first is frozen okra, cut into short pieces, the bag I think 99p containing enough for three meals' worth (I'd guess 500g). We had some in last night's curry, still tasty, easily prepared (stewed in a homemade, tomato-rich sauce), and a bit of a change. That curry btw was served with rice from a mega bag also in the Asian shelves, better quality than the 'normal' white rice we had previously and pound-for-pound much cheaper.
The other is much dearer, but on the bang-for-your-buck scale is still value for money - large freshwater prawns, raw, prepared with heads off and the body split beneath so they open out nicely in cooking, and are easy to peel. There is no comparison in terms of flavour with the very disappointing Taste the Difference king prawns 3m along the freezer, the freshwater ones reminding me of superb meals in Indonesia and the Philippines. A large bag is more than £6, but there's lots of meat (more than in the BOGOF bags that would cost £5) and tons of taste. Defrosted slowly then simply fried with salt and garlic they need nothing else to make a finger-licking starter - an occasional treat but a genuine one, and genuinely big.
The first is frozen okra, cut into short pieces, the bag I think 99p containing enough for three meals' worth (I'd guess 500g). We had some in last night's curry, still tasty, easily prepared (stewed in a homemade, tomato-rich sauce), and a bit of a change. That curry btw was served with rice from a mega bag also in the Asian shelves, better quality than the 'normal' white rice we had previously and pound-for-pound much cheaper.
The other is much dearer, but on the bang-for-your-buck scale is still value for money - large freshwater prawns, raw, prepared with heads off and the body split beneath so they open out nicely in cooking, and are easy to peel. There is no comparison in terms of flavour with the very disappointing Taste the Difference king prawns 3m along the freezer, the freshwater ones reminding me of superb meals in Indonesia and the Philippines. A large bag is more than £6, but there's lots of meat (more than in the BOGOF bags that would cost £5) and tons of taste. Defrosted slowly then simply fried with salt and garlic they need nothing else to make a finger-licking starter - an occasional treat but a genuine one, and genuinely big.
Monday 24 September 2012
Beating Squirrels
Beating squirrels is not some brutally inhumane conduct towards furry creatures (though grey squirrels as the saying goes are just rats with good PR), but getting to our cobnut crop this year before the little sods raided our plot. Last year we harvested precisely zero, as Nutkin and his posse made off with the lot.
Not a huge crop this year, however, as along with our apple trees and pear the three nut bushes (they call it nut bush, oh! nut bush etc, thanks Tina) were devastated by the high winds and downpours all summer.
What we did gather on Saturday was processed that afternoon, a pleasant task while listening to the radio. We got about 100g of shelled cobs. Never mind. The milky nuts were blitzed in a spice grinder, as was about 150g of home-grown parsley and basil (the basil was perhaps a quarter of the mix, but dominated the flavour), three garlic cloves and some sea-salt, the lot mixed with a load of grated Parmesan and some olive oil to make a nice soft consistency. DIY pesto, enough for a pasta dish for three of us that evening - so simple, so good - and to 3/4 fill a jar, the pesto covered with a layer of additional oil, to keep in the fridge.
Part of Ruth's packed lunch today is a very wet bean and tomato salad with a huge blob of pesto to enliven it, and the rest will not go to waste. It is not something I'd want to eat every day, or even every week, but as a seasonal boon it's great, and I am happy to have used up the lot. Two years ago we picked far more, but only ate a few as nibbles once they had dried out and hardened, the rest left for another day that never came. That's one of the lessons we are gradually learning, that you can only eat something once, so you might as well enjoy it at its best.
In monetary terms taking the Parmesan as bought (it was actually a gift from a recent press trip), it and the olive oil would have cost well under £1, while a jar of purchased pesto that size (roughly 400g) would have cost I'd guess £4 or more. And as ours is super-fresh and far more garlicky than shop-bought I reckon it has the edge on taste too.
Not a huge crop this year, however, as along with our apple trees and pear the three nut bushes (they call it nut bush, oh! nut bush etc, thanks Tina) were devastated by the high winds and downpours all summer.
What we did gather on Saturday was processed that afternoon, a pleasant task while listening to the radio. We got about 100g of shelled cobs. Never mind. The milky nuts were blitzed in a spice grinder, as was about 150g of home-grown parsley and basil (the basil was perhaps a quarter of the mix, but dominated the flavour), three garlic cloves and some sea-salt, the lot mixed with a load of grated Parmesan and some olive oil to make a nice soft consistency. DIY pesto, enough for a pasta dish for three of us that evening - so simple, so good - and to 3/4 fill a jar, the pesto covered with a layer of additional oil, to keep in the fridge.
Part of Ruth's packed lunch today is a very wet bean and tomato salad with a huge blob of pesto to enliven it, and the rest will not go to waste. It is not something I'd want to eat every day, or even every week, but as a seasonal boon it's great, and I am happy to have used up the lot. Two years ago we picked far more, but only ate a few as nibbles once they had dried out and hardened, the rest left for another day that never came. That's one of the lessons we are gradually learning, that you can only eat something once, so you might as well enjoy it at its best.
Sunday 23 September 2012
Order of Play
Why do we eat as we do in this country, as regards the order in which we serve dishes? In short, why start savoury and end sweet? And why do we, where we can, have a light first course, heavier main, then finish with cheese or pudding, the order of those two last elements being the subject of much disagreement and not a little snobbery.
Thoughts on this were prompted the other day in a conversation with my father that somehow brought to mind the story of an arctic explorer (a real one, not one of the stuntmen self-publicists called such by the media) whose cabin stock of tins was soaked, removing all the labels. He decided thenceforth to use whatever was in the two opened for his evening meal combined and heated together, leading to delights like minced steak and custard. In the end, some would argue, it all gets mixed up in our innards.
The French on the cheese before pud theme argue that it is somehow natural to finish on something sweet. There is no logic to that. And why then allow sweeter starters like melon, or indeed anything with good fresh tomatoes at its heart? What about the logic of all those fruit and savoury mixes we British love or loved (and about which I would dearly love to write a book - notes well on already), from Cumberland Hackin to Hindle Wakes?
Centuries ago we, or rather the wealthy in this country, used to eat banquets with a host of dishes served at once, puddings, pies, meats and salads. We are not wealthy, but have of late enjoyed many meals served like a mezze, though that for us is limited to savoury dishes. Some ingredients don't match one another when combined, but can provide a complement or contrast used separately. It also offers a safe route for the host of a party of the less formal type, putting half a dozen things on the table so that at least one or two will appeal to each guest, whereas one grand dish risks being a pet hate for someone, spoiling their evening and yours. And there is a feeling of generosity about putting half a dozen platters on the table of course.
Thoughts on this were prompted the other day in a conversation with my father that somehow brought to mind the story of an arctic explorer (a real one, not one of the stuntmen self-publicists called such by the media) whose cabin stock of tins was soaked, removing all the labels. He decided thenceforth to use whatever was in the two opened for his evening meal combined and heated together, leading to delights like minced steak and custard. In the end, some would argue, it all gets mixed up in our innards.
The French on the cheese before pud theme argue that it is somehow natural to finish on something sweet. There is no logic to that. And why then allow sweeter starters like melon, or indeed anything with good fresh tomatoes at its heart? What about the logic of all those fruit and savoury mixes we British love or loved (and about which I would dearly love to write a book - notes well on already), from Cumberland Hackin to Hindle Wakes?
Centuries ago we, or rather the wealthy in this country, used to eat banquets with a host of dishes served at once, puddings, pies, meats and salads. We are not wealthy, but have of late enjoyed many meals served like a mezze, though that for us is limited to savoury dishes. Some ingredients don't match one another when combined, but can provide a complement or contrast used separately. It also offers a safe route for the host of a party of the less formal type, putting half a dozen things on the table so that at least one or two will appeal to each guest, whereas one grand dish risks being a pet hate for someone, spoiling their evening and yours. And there is a feeling of generosity about putting half a dozen platters on the table of course.
Thursday 20 September 2012
I Love it When a Plan Comes Together
Faced with a block of tofu rapidly approaching its sell-by-date (it had seemed like a good healthy idea in the shop), some chicken leftovers from a roast at the weekend also in need of quick use, and the liquid and veg remains of a very unsuccessful stew, I incorporated them all in a curry.
The stew remains (which as stews do proved tastier after a day or so in the fridge than they were when first cooked) were put through a sieve to get the juices, the chicken cut into small chunks, and the tofu simply sliced into bits the size of a big Lego brick. A chopped onion and a few pieces of red pepper were fried, then some slices of fresh ginger added (another fridge bottom find, so calling it fresh is stretching things). Juice poured in and thickened with cornflour, flavoured with soy sauce, curry powder and lots of cayenne, followed after a minute or two of simmering by the tofu and chicken, and the lot left to bubble quietly while rice was cooked.
The fridge curry can be a horror, a reminder of student days, but this one was really good, the cayenne giving it a back-of-the-throat kick, the tofu and chicken contrasting textures, and the sauce thick and satisfying. I do love it when a plan comes together, though I would have been happier had my son not insisted on calling the dish a soup.
The stew remains (which as stews do proved tastier after a day or so in the fridge than they were when first cooked) were put through a sieve to get the juices, the chicken cut into small chunks, and the tofu simply sliced into bits the size of a big Lego brick. A chopped onion and a few pieces of red pepper were fried, then some slices of fresh ginger added (another fridge bottom find, so calling it fresh is stretching things). Juice poured in and thickened with cornflour, flavoured with soy sauce, curry powder and lots of cayenne, followed after a minute or two of simmering by the tofu and chicken, and the lot left to bubble quietly while rice was cooked.
The fridge curry can be a horror, a reminder of student days, but this one was really good, the cayenne giving it a back-of-the-throat kick, the tofu and chicken contrasting textures, and the sauce thick and satisfying. I do love it when a plan comes together, though I would have been happier had my son not insisted on calling the dish a soup.
Wednesday 19 September 2012
And Even More Bloody Courgettes
Though the title of this post suggests otherwise, we're still grateful for the continued cropping of our allotment courgettes. And I'm still trying to find different ways to use them. With four tennis-ball sized Ronde de Nice fruits in the fridge needing to be used I tried a take on moussaka last night.
The bechamel was made properly too, milk heated with various flavouring veg, bay leaves and nutmeg, then left to steep for several hours. It makes all the difference, that pasty flour taste you can get hidden away behind more interesting stuff. A fairly dry ragu made with beef mince was then layered with the very thinly sliced courgettes and the sauce, ending with a thick layer of sauce topped with plenty of Parmesan. Even though the ragu was pretty dry the end result was on the sloppy side, but the taste got the thumbs up (with the proviso from my son that he still prefers lassagne if there's a choice).
That Parmesan from the press trip to Parma is still keeping perfectly (wrapped in clingfilm in the fridge), and still bears an occasional sly sniff - the technique of breaking a lump beneath the nose as demonstrated by Igino Morini during the dairy visit maximising the aroma.
The bechamel was made properly too, milk heated with various flavouring veg, bay leaves and nutmeg, then left to steep for several hours. It makes all the difference, that pasty flour taste you can get hidden away behind more interesting stuff. A fairly dry ragu made with beef mince was then layered with the very thinly sliced courgettes and the sauce, ending with a thick layer of sauce topped with plenty of Parmesan. Even though the ragu was pretty dry the end result was on the sloppy side, but the taste got the thumbs up (with the proviso from my son that he still prefers lassagne if there's a choice).
That Parmesan from the press trip to Parma is still keeping perfectly (wrapped in clingfilm in the fridge), and still bears an occasional sly sniff - the technique of breaking a lump beneath the nose as demonstrated by Igino Morini during the dairy visit maximising the aroma.
Tuesday 18 September 2012
Simple Is Best
Three dishes made last night showed that KISS as with so many other things in life definitely applies to food. I did a stew with too many ingredients that was messy and had loads leftover, with thin juices - the horror. I will find a home for the juices, but guess that the veg, unless I try to pass it off as a soup having zapped the stuff, will be wasted. I hate waste, and I feel that every meal should be a good one: eating is one of life's great pleasures.
On the other hand as we had started to build an intervention stock of eggs I did a small starter of egg mayonnaise (Hellmann's, sorry purists) of which barely a molecule was left on our plates.
For pudding (adults only) I had soaked some figs, bought cheaply at Booth's, in spiced rum (a freebie for a review), plus a few spices and some sugar and lime-juice. After half a day in the liquid they were well and truly infused, and very lovely too. Two minutes of prep and a very rich pudding with a certain healthy credibility (of the figs are the digestion's Draino type) resulted.
On the other hand as we had started to build an intervention stock of eggs I did a small starter of egg mayonnaise (Hellmann's, sorry purists) of which barely a molecule was left on our plates.
For pudding (adults only) I had soaked some figs, bought cheaply at Booth's, in spiced rum (a freebie for a review), plus a few spices and some sugar and lime-juice. After half a day in the liquid they were well and truly infused, and very lovely too. Two minutes of prep and a very rich pudding with a certain healthy credibility (of the figs are the digestion's Draino type) resulted.
Monday 17 September 2012
Chicken Burgers Needn't Be Sad
Saturday's evening meal here tends to be a bit more relaxed, finger food stuff, and this week we went down the burger route. That need not mean some vile mechanically recovered slurry dried and reprocessed with 50 per cent salt. I used £3 worth of Sainsbury's chicken thigh fillets zapped to a coarse consistency, with some onion, a whole red chilli for a bit of kick, parsley and par-cel from the allotment, and freshly-ground spices -pepper, cumin and fennel, the lot held together with a large egg and seasoned with salt.
The only drawback to cooking these is that unlike say lamb or beef burgers you really need to make sure they cook all the way through - raw chicken is not good for you. So they were made as flat as was practical, and then fried over a medium heat in a bit of olive oil and turned regularly until the outside was crisping up nicely. I have to admit to putting them in the microwave for a couple of minutes at the end to make sure any nasties had been killed off.
Served in the flat-breads about which I wrote some time back, and with a simple salsa of tomatoes, green chilli, parsley and onion turned into mush by the spice grinder there was plenty of flavour and the crispy outside was a treat.
The only drawback to cooking these is that unlike say lamb or beef burgers you really need to make sure they cook all the way through - raw chicken is not good for you. So they were made as flat as was practical, and then fried over a medium heat in a bit of olive oil and turned regularly until the outside was crisping up nicely. I have to admit to putting them in the microwave for a couple of minutes at the end to make sure any nasties had been killed off.
Served in the flat-breads about which I wrote some time back, and with a simple salsa of tomatoes, green chilli, parsley and onion turned into mush by the spice grinder there was plenty of flavour and the crispy outside was a treat.
Wednesday 12 September 2012
Peasant, Classic and Austere
Last week on a press trip to Parma - the details to feature on The Culinary Guide and Selectism - I tried as ever to eat things that seemed rooted rather than the product of a cheffy imagination. It has to be said that Parma is a great place to carry out such searches.
The most memorable of the dishes digested on the all too brief trip was anolini in brodo, which was gloriously simple and second-helping moreish: curved and rather cute little ravioli filled with Parmesan, served in a broth that reflected the care of the kitchen and respect for the dish's origins.
The representative of the Parmesan Consorzio with us at the restaurant said it was a beef broth, but I remain convinced that this was chicken, with the depth added by the generous use of vegetables including celery. Generous but not overwhelming. It had loads of flavour, but at the same time was restrained, nothing bullied its way to the front (hence the debate, beef or chicken).
The representative of the Parmesan Consorzio with us at the restaurant said it was a beef broth, but I remain convinced that this was chicken, with the depth added by the generous use of vegetables including celery. Generous but not overwhelming. It had loads of flavour, but at the same time was restrained, nothing bullied its way to the front (hence the debate, beef or chicken).
For the first bowlful I followed instructions and added Parmesan aplenty (the cheese one of the reasons for the trip), but more was less, so for the second only a few diplomatic strands were lobbed in. I haven't made my own pasta in ages, but this has prompted me to do so again. Making pasta is one of those things like making your own bread, and producing a good stock from bones and a few veg - the cost is negligible except in time, and the reward in flavour is great.
Tuesday 11 September 2012
An Omelette and a Glass of Wine
Real austerity of course would mean doing without the second part of that pairing (the book by Elizabeth David my introduction to her writing by the way, a step change in my culinary existence), but the simplicity of an omelette and its easy co-existence with a glass of wine mean they are cosmically made for one another. And the wine, unless an addition to the eggs clashes, can be either red or white, full bodied or thin. Just not sweet unless you are going pre-war with a jam omelette.
Last night's first course was an omelette, with a load of Parmesan grated in with the beaten eggs, a pinch of salt and a turn of pepper. Fried in olive oil and butter it was ready in five minutes from cracking the eggs to table, which doubtless some 'easy-cook' microwaved dish for twice the price or more would also take to prepare.
We have 'free' eggs from our own hens (and tasty too with all those worms and things they forage when let out), but even bought the four eggs and cheese, enough to feed the two of us (one absentee last night) would have cost around £1. I often include herbs from the garden as a clean-tasting way of changing the flavours, and they are essentially for nothing: parsley, par-cel (leaf-celery for those not in the know, easy to grow and prolific, no sticks to speak of but tons of taste in the leaves), tarragon...
Omelettes are not for every day, though nutritionists (as so often) cannot make their minds up about the 'dangers' of eggs. But they are for regular consumption.
The book An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, as mentioned above, was something of a game changer for me, but an omelette was the first thing I ever learned to cook, and very badly too, as a sixth former. Onion fried for 30 seconds if that, bacon cut into thin bits the same, sometimes tiny potato cubes too, before the eggs were added. But it was a start, and I learned from my crunchy under-cooked mistakes. Making omelettes was how I started my son cooking (rather earlier than the sixth form), and he has fared a lot better than I did.
Last night's first course was an omelette, with a load of Parmesan grated in with the beaten eggs, a pinch of salt and a turn of pepper. Fried in olive oil and butter it was ready in five minutes from cracking the eggs to table, which doubtless some 'easy-cook' microwaved dish for twice the price or more would also take to prepare.
We have 'free' eggs from our own hens (and tasty too with all those worms and things they forage when let out), but even bought the four eggs and cheese, enough to feed the two of us (one absentee last night) would have cost around £1. I often include herbs from the garden as a clean-tasting way of changing the flavours, and they are essentially for nothing: parsley, par-cel (leaf-celery for those not in the know, easy to grow and prolific, no sticks to speak of but tons of taste in the leaves), tarragon...
Omelettes are not for every day, though nutritionists (as so often) cannot make their minds up about the 'dangers' of eggs. But they are for regular consumption.
The book An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, as mentioned above, was something of a game changer for me, but an omelette was the first thing I ever learned to cook, and very badly too, as a sixth former. Onion fried for 30 seconds if that, bacon cut into thin bits the same, sometimes tiny potato cubes too, before the eggs were added. But it was a start, and I learned from my crunchy under-cooked mistakes. Making omelettes was how I started my son cooking (rather earlier than the sixth form), and he has fared a lot better than I did.
Sunday 9 September 2012
Austerity and the Soup Kitchen
Austerity for us means taking a bit more care over shopping, avoiding waste, making the best of our allotment and the beds we've made in the garden, and cheap protein from our own eggs. A friend who works for a soup kitchen offers another perspective on what austerity means for some less fortunate.
She volunteers as a cook and server. The people who now come to the centre for a good meal have changed of late, the numbers increased. The dyed-in-the-wool street-livers are still there, and the homeless who are getting by on friends' sofas. But they have been joined by people who are simply struggling to find the money to feed themselves and more poignantly their children. We picked the last of our potatoes yesterday, they won't store so we will send a small sack to help the kitchen out. And when I look at our cupboards, there's plenty more that we can add to that.
Such a situation makes you think. The other day passing through London the contrast of the Hilton near Euston being across the street from a church porch where people were sleeping rough was a snapshot of Britain in 2012.
And Yet More Courgettes
Well into September and the courgettes keep coming, and I have to find different ways to serve them.
Our favourite way of using them is as what is impolitely termed by my wife and son 'courgette muck'. This simply involves slowly cooking sliced or chunked courgettes in plenty of olive oil, then when they are soft enough bashing them with a wooden spoon or potato masher, depending on what texture you're after, and adding salt and crushed garlic (lots of crushed garlic) to boost the flavour.
It is something that can be used in a variety of ways (btw HF-W does something very similar), including last night's effort of a pasta course (little tubes) with nine skinned tomatoes (Spanish, from Lidl) and a dollop of Heinz tom sauce to sweeten it a bit, plus a half teaspoon of cayenne to give it some zing. Moist, loads of flavour, and a teeny bit virtuous into the bargain.
Having an allotment (and maybe nine courgette plants) means we can afford to pick baby courgettes: they are good just cleaned and thinly sliced in salads or dressed as a salad in their own right; or boiled whole for three minutes then served as a vegetable accompaniment or sliced warm and dressed with olive oil, salt and garlic. Raw or boiled these little ones are also nice grated and enlivened with oil and lemon.
The ones we miss and then discover as proto-marrows tend to go into soups to bulk them out, or if they are too huge onto the compost pile, the rule being that the bigger the courgette the poorer it tastes.
Large ones in need of something to sharpen them up are good sweet and sour (Italian cookbooks and various Middle Eastern ones have something along these lines). Thick slices of courgette are cooked slowly in olive oil for a couple of minutes, then sweet and sour elements added to cook for a few minutes longer. Wine vinegar works better than lemon juice for the sour, and just a couple of teaspoons of sugar (the books always say Demerara but white granulated works better for me), plus some spices and herbs according to your palate and needs round it off. A few chopped anchovies changes it again, garlic is always a good partner, and additions like sultanas, finely chopped red chilli peppers, and pine kernels make the dish prettier and more substantial.
To peel or not to peel? Given much of the goodness is in the peel or near to it, if they scrub up nicely then intact is best. But if they have become too muddy to wipe clean then I peel them as thinly as possible and use the peelings cut up with scissors for a nutritious treat for the chickens.
The plan this year is to transfer one courgette plant deliberately started late into a big pot and as the weather cools transfer it to the greenhouse. Potting it on is this afternoon's task: though the days currently are warmer than most of the summer, the chilly early mornings herald the first frosts soon.
Friday 7 September 2012
Cheap and Exotic - Spicy Meatballs
Cheap and Exotic
A recent fascination with food from the Middle East has led to some spicy little efforts in the kitchen, one of the most successful last night's lamb and rice meatballs. I had some leftover rice to use up, and was making a meze for our evening meal, so gave it a go via the general principles route rather than following a set recipe.
Starting with a spice mix I ground cumin, pepper, rock salt, and fennel, added some ground chilli pepper and sumac, and when all that was mixed zapped it again with some onion tops. For 500g of minced lamb about 250g of boiled white rice was incorporated, plus the spices and two eggs to bind the lot together.
Formed with wet hands into 12 substantial meatballs, with the oven preheated to 175 Celsius, they needed 35 minutes of cooking. During that time a lot of the lamb fat melted out, and was easily poured off to make us feel virtuous.
The results were nicely spicy without any real heat, and provided us with a protein basis for the meal at £3 for the mince and pennies for the rest (eggs from our own hens).
These meatballs went well with a Greek-style dish of green beans: beans (from the garden) boiled for six minutes then added to a pan where a chopped onion had been sweated before a 37p tin of chopped tomatoes was added, with more sumac and loads of pepper. The pan of beans and toms was left to simmer while the meatballs baked.
The vegetable side of things was finished off with a big pan of chopped courgettes (zucchini) slowly fried in olive oil for ages, stirred regularly to keep from catching, the courgettes bashed with a wooden spoon and salted near the end of cooking, when four cloves of crushed garlic were added and given a minute or two to cook. It looks messy, but tastes great - good on bread too.
Anyone with a garden should have at least one courgette plant: in the shops you pay maybe £2 for a sad pack of three picked days ago. We have I think eight plants on our allotment, at least four different varieties, and from July to (with luck) mid-October will have as many as we can cope with. The different shapes and colours - last night yellow, dark green and the almost grey-green Lebanese - make for bright dishes too.
A recent fascination with food from the Middle East has led to some spicy little efforts in the kitchen, one of the most successful last night's lamb and rice meatballs. I had some leftover rice to use up, and was making a meze for our evening meal, so gave it a go via the general principles route rather than following a set recipe.
Starting with a spice mix I ground cumin, pepper, rock salt, and fennel, added some ground chilli pepper and sumac, and when all that was mixed zapped it again with some onion tops. For 500g of minced lamb about 250g of boiled white rice was incorporated, plus the spices and two eggs to bind the lot together.
Formed with wet hands into 12 substantial meatballs, with the oven preheated to 175 Celsius, they needed 35 minutes of cooking. During that time a lot of the lamb fat melted out, and was easily poured off to make us feel virtuous.
The results were nicely spicy without any real heat, and provided us with a protein basis for the meal at £3 for the mince and pennies for the rest (eggs from our own hens).
These meatballs went well with a Greek-style dish of green beans: beans (from the garden) boiled for six minutes then added to a pan where a chopped onion had been sweated before a 37p tin of chopped tomatoes was added, with more sumac and loads of pepper. The pan of beans and toms was left to simmer while the meatballs baked.
The vegetable side of things was finished off with a big pan of chopped courgettes (zucchini) slowly fried in olive oil for ages, stirred regularly to keep from catching, the courgettes bashed with a wooden spoon and salted near the end of cooking, when four cloves of crushed garlic were added and given a minute or two to cook. It looks messy, but tastes great - good on bread too.
Anyone with a garden should have at least one courgette plant: in the shops you pay maybe £2 for a sad pack of three picked days ago. We have I think eight plants on our allotment, at least four different varieties, and from July to (with luck) mid-October will have as many as we can cope with. The different shapes and colours - last night yellow, dark green and the almost grey-green Lebanese - make for bright dishes too.
Thursday 6 September 2012
Elegance for Pennies - Floaty Cheese Dumplings
This post harks back to the whole austerity cooking thing of buying the most bang for your buck, as yesterday I made some very pretty little cheese dumplings with Parmesan. Any well-flavoured hard cheese would do, but Parmesan was to hand so I used it. A cheese with little flavour would have been cheap compared to Parmesan, but more would have been needed which balances it all out. You gets what you pays for. And for the same flavour cheap cheese would have meant eating much more fat.
The cheese was in fact free to be honest, as I just returned from a press trip to Parma with a suitcase weighed down with some wonderful samples, gratefully received, though I had some in my fridge anyway and it is what I would have reached for.
In the morning I had made some chicken stock with the carcase of a bird roasted at the weekend and a few pot vegetables - turnips past the first flush of youth, a carrot, sage, onion, garlic, leeks, par-cel and bay all from the garden or allotment, and a half chilli looking sad and unwanted. To make it more substantial as a first course and to use up a dried-out bread roll I later made some dumplings to poach in the stock.
Bloke cooking means no precise measurements were made, but in rough terms I used about half the crumbs from the roll, added the yolks of two eggs, some seasoning, and maybe three or four tablespoons of finely grated Parmesan. The egg whites were beaten till stiff-ish, a little stirred into the crumb/cheese mix to loosen it, then the rest incorporated as lightly as possible. More crumbs were needed to make a consistency that would hold together. In wet hands I formed the resulting mix into big marble shaped and sized pieces, and dropped them into the simmering stock to poach for about five minutes.
The results looked and tasted so good - they were really light and soft, (very different from my usual efforts in meat stews) that they were served out of the stock with more cheese grated on them, the stock served as a consome after them.
The cheese was in fact free to be honest, as I just returned from a press trip to Parma with a suitcase weighed down with some wonderful samples, gratefully received, though I had some in my fridge anyway and it is what I would have reached for.
In the morning I had made some chicken stock with the carcase of a bird roasted at the weekend and a few pot vegetables - turnips past the first flush of youth, a carrot, sage, onion, garlic, leeks, par-cel and bay all from the garden or allotment, and a half chilli looking sad and unwanted. To make it more substantial as a first course and to use up a dried-out bread roll I later made some dumplings to poach in the stock.
Bloke cooking means no precise measurements were made, but in rough terms I used about half the crumbs from the roll, added the yolks of two eggs, some seasoning, and maybe three or four tablespoons of finely grated Parmesan. The egg whites were beaten till stiff-ish, a little stirred into the crumb/cheese mix to loosen it, then the rest incorporated as lightly as possible. More crumbs were needed to make a consistency that would hold together. In wet hands I formed the resulting mix into big marble shaped and sized pieces, and dropped them into the simmering stock to poach for about five minutes.
The results looked and tasted so good - they were really light and soft, (very different from my usual efforts in meat stews) that they were served out of the stock with more cheese grated on them, the stock served as a consome after them.
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