Christmas Leftover Surprise!

It's the week after Christmas and we haven't been to the supermarket (in fact we've barely been out of the house -- or bed for that matter) but the fridge is still full.  So here is a recipe for using up leftovers!  The surprise?  It doesn't have anything to do with turkey.

In the outdoor fridge (otherwise known as the back garden) were several cans of Carlsberg, the remains of an entire slab brought by a guest back in mumblymumble-aprilorsomething and not consumed at any of our subsequent parties, since we don't really drink beer and all our friends prefer the posh bottled stuff.  The cans were marked 'best before Feb 2013'; I figured they needed using up... somehow.

In the indoor fridge, a bag of shredded cheese, bought for the purpose of making nachos at our pre-Christmas party -- nachos which never eventuated, given the amount of other food produced for the occasion.

Also left over in the fridge: pancetta (from roasted brussels sprouts with caramelised pancetta); sour cream (also aforementioned non-existent nachos); a ridiculous quantity of roast potatoes ("Are you sure 2.5kg of potatoes is enough?" I asked.  "Hmm, maybe not," said Lee.  "But don't forget there are also parsnips, sweet potatoes, sprouts, broccoli, beans, carrots, stuffing and little sausages wrapped in bacon."  "Well, ok then, that will probably do."  Note to self for next year: 2.5kg is MORE than enough) and an obscene amount of turkey stock (ok, I lied).

The solution?  Clearly: make soup!  Soup is the solution to all leftover problems, always, no matter how bizarre a combination it might seem.  And, as luck would have it, beer and cheese soup is actually a recognised thing.  (You know, a thing.  Yes, one of those.)  Of course, I can't resist a good soup-Spoonerism... so here is my recipe for Cheer and Bees Soup.  Recommended for increasing levels of cheer, and with the special bonus surprise that it doesn't contain any bees!

Cheer and Bees Soup
100g diced pancetta
1 red onion
1 large carrot
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried oregano
2 handfuls (about 1 cup?) leftover roast potatoes, chopped into small pieces
1 can Carlsberg
2 cups stock
2 tbs sherry
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1 heaped tsp dijon mustard
1 heaped tsp seeded mustard
2 handfuls (about 1 cup?) grated cheese
2 tbs cornflour
a few globs (about 1/3 cup?) sour cream
salt and pepper

Heat medium saucepan and fry pancetta in its own fat until crisp and browned.  Meanwhile, chop onion and carrot finely (or blitz in food processor).  When pancetta is done, remove oh-so-tasty little crunchy pieces to a plate and set aside (resisting the temptation to eat them one-by-one while making the rest of the recipe); add onion, carrot and herbs to remaining fat and cook until softened and fragrant.  Add beer, potatoes and stock and bring to a simmer.  Add sherry, Worcestershire sauce and mustards; remove from heat and stir in cheese and sour cream.  Return to gentle heat and continue to stir until cheese is mostly dissolved.  Mix cornflour with a little water and add to pan; bring just to the point of boiling and simmer until thickened.  At this point the soup may still be a bit stringy from the cheese -- a quick whizz with the hand blender should bring it together nicely and thicken the texture.  Taste, season and serve with little bacon bits sprinkled on top.

Experiments in mulling

It being the season to be jolly, I find a cup of hot spiced wine helps immensely with achieving said jollity.  Now, in Manchester one can easily find mulled wine at the Christmas Markets all over the city, but that requires a) venturing out of one's house, b) braving the Christmas shopping and market crowds, and c) paying far more than I consider reasonable for what you get.  So I have been experimenting with making my own mulled wine at home.  Reviews from guests so far have been eminently favourable and for the price of about 4 drinks at the markets, I have been able to produce enough of this mulled wine to supply a small army, so I consider the experiment to be an unqualified success. 

Red mulled wine

2 cups strong-brewed Christmas tea (or water)
zest of 3 oranges, 2 lemons, 1 lime
1/4 cup demerara sugar
6 star anise
12 cloves
9 cardamom pods
3 cinnamon sticks
4-inch piece ginger, finely sliced
1 orange, sliced
1 lemon, sliced
3 bottles red wine
1/4 cup honey (to taste)
200ml brandy
juice of 1/2 lemon

Place tea (or water), zest, sugar, spices and ginger in a large saucepan, cover and bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer covered about 20 minutes to let spices infuse.  Add citrus slices and red wine, heat until barely simmering.  Add honey and lemon juice to taste.  Put a splash of brandy in each mug and ladle hot mulled wine over to serve.

But why stop at the usual red mulled wine?  Today's experiment: white mulled wine, in a single-bottle quantity for testing purposes:

White mulled wine

1/2 cup water (or strong-brewed Christmas tea)
zest of 2 lemons, 1 lime
2 tbs white sugar
1 star anise
6 cardamom pods
6 cloves
pinch cinnamon
2-inch piece ginger, finely shredded
250ml apple juice
1 apple, sliced crossways
1 lemon, sliced
1 lime, sliced
1 bottle white wine
1 dsp honey
1/4 cup brandy

Place tea or water, zest, sugar, spices and ginger in a saucepan, cover and bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer about 20 minutes.  Add apple juice and sliced fruit, continue to simmer about 10 min.  Add white wine, honey to taste and brandy.

When you can't do anything useful, make lasagne

I like making lasagne.  It's such a project -- the sauce to be simmered, then béchamel made, the whole thing assembled and then cooked again -- that it always feels satisfactory, like I've achieved something.  And in these sad and troubled times, that is a feeling to be treasured.

I recently saw this recipe for pasta with mushroom ragu on Serious Eats and was intrigued by the possibility of using the food processor to create a sort of vegetable mince for pasta sauce -- or, more precisely, the idea of (in Kerry Saretsky's own words) using it to 'blitz' vegetables 'to a rubble'.  I use my food processor all the time to make curry pastes, dips etc, but not so much as a chopping device; my knife skills aren't bad and I can produce a pretty reasonable 'medium dice' out of carrots, onions and celery which is good enough for most purposes.  But the picture associated with this recipe didn't show anything recognisable as little carrot cubes, just a rich, textured sauce.  Blitzed to a rubble indeed.  So this idea lurked in the back of my mind for a few days -- much as, I realised today, there were carrots, onion, celery and mushrooms lurking in the vegetable crisper! 

For dedicated meat-eaters, a vegetarian pasta sauce often isn't the most appealing choice.  Turn it into lasagne, though, and the extra infusion of cheesy baked goodness somehow renders it much more acceptable.  So when I asked Lee what he wanted for dinner and he suggested pasta, my upping the ante to lasagne seemed like an ideal compromise.  (Note: Lee is not home yet and therefore has yet to discover that it is vegetarian lasagne or actually taste it.  Nevertheless I am hopeful that it will not be found wanting...  He cannot be expecting meaty lasagne as there was no minced beef in the house!)

In the whirl of lasagne excitement, perhaps the absence of meat will go unnoticed?

There was, as well as the other vegetables, half a butternut squash in the fridge -- knd of like carrots, right?  There was also a bunch of baby spinach (both of the above left over from a roasted squash, spinach, goats cheese and pine nut salad I made on the weekend), and since I've had reasonable success with spinach in lasagne before, I decided that could go in too.  We have had a block of orange cheese in the fridge since September (left over from Fresher's Week events, don't ask) and I always like to have a wedge of Parmigiano in the fridge, so that was the cheese element sorted, and I may or may not have sneakily anticipated the potential for a lasagne-making situation and bought a pint of milk on the way home, for the béchamel sauce.  Everything was set for Operation Lasagne With Blitzed Vegetable Rubble!  I chopped the onion myself, by way of comparison, and used the food processor for the rest of the vegetables. 

Did it work?  Reader, I would marry my food processor if I could.  It worked like a dream to create a beautiful, finely textured 'rubble' -- not a paste as I had feared, nor an uneven mix of large awkward carroty parts and small shaved carroty bits.  Once added to the pan and cooked, this produced a sauce with a heft and consistency not too dissimilar to a beef-mince-based bolognese, but with a much lighter mouth texture due to the vegetables.  Perfect for all your lasagne-making needs!

So, the lasagne is in the oven as I write. It smells tomatoey, savoury and cheesy in all the right ways; the orange cheese is aesthetically bit odd but should taste fine (at this kind of cheese level, orange probably just means food colouring more than any specific flavour such as Double Gloucester).  And I feel like I've actually done something useful for the evening.  We'll see what Lee thinks...

Blitzed Vegetable Lasagne

Vegetable ragu

• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 4 small carrots, roughly chopped (~1cm pieces)
• 2 sticks celery, roughly chopped
• 300g mushrooms, roughly chopped
• ½ a butternut squash, peeled, de-seeded and roughly chopped
• ½ cup wine
• 800g tinned tomatoes
• 100g tomato paste
• 3 tsp oregano
• 1-2 tsp ground black pepper (to taste)
• 1-2 tsp salt (to taste)

Heat large heavy-based pan over medium heat.  Add a drizzle of olive oil and when hot, sauté onion until translucent.  Meanwhile 'blitz' carrots and celery in food processor until finely chopped ‘rubble’ results; add to pan and continue to cook.  Do the same with mushrooms (in 2 batches if necessary) and squash.  Add wine and allow to bubble; add tomatoes, tomato paste, herbs and seasonings and simmer for about 20 min or until vegetables are cooked.  In the meantime, make béchamel sauce.

Béchamel sauce

• 25 g butter
• 1 heaped tbsp flour
• 500ml milk
• small chunk (30g) parmesan cheese, shredded
• white pepper and salt

Heat butter in small saucepan over medium heat until just melted.  Off the heat, add flour all at once and whisk in quickly to form a smooth paste.  Continue to cook for a few minutes to make sure well combined.  Add milk a tablespoon or so at a time to begin with, whisking until fully incorporated between each addition, until the mix is quite liquid and there is no chance of lumps, then add remaining milk.  Return to heat and cook, whisking occasionally, until sauce thickens and bubbles.  Boil for a few minutes, whisking, then remove from heat, whisk in cheese and season with pepper and salt to taste.

To assemble

• 1 box (500g) lasagne sheets (I didn’t use quite the whole box)
• several handfuls fresh spinach (because I had some to use up)
• 100g shredded cheese (I used a bit more Parmesan for flavour as well as some of the orange cheese)

Lightly coat the bottom of a large (mine is probably about 30 x 60 cm) baking dish with a few spoonfuls of the ragu sauce; layer lasagne sheets, ragu, béchamel and spinach as desired and as dictated by the dimensions of your baking dish, finishing with a thin layer of ragu topped with béchamel then sprinkled with cheese.  (My layers went: ragu, lasagne, ragu, béchamel, spinach, lasagne, ragu, lasagne, then topped with remaining ragu and béchamel followed by cheese.)

Bake in oven at 180C for 40 minutes or until lasagne sheets are cooked and top is nicely browned and bubbling.

Lee's reaction?  Apparently: acceptable!

 

Addie's Thai, Earl's Court, London

A delicious smell assails me as I walk in the door -- sharp lime and fragrant fish sauce with hints of fresh garlic and pungent Thai herbs. I inhale a few deep, appreciative sniffs as I enter the low-lit, welcoming atmosphere of Addie's Thai.

 Despite it being a mere 2 hour train journey from Manchester, I don't get to London all that often, and when I do it's usually just for the day, just for work and with no time to muck about visiting my favourite galleries or eating spots. This week, I'm here  on an overnight stay for work, killing two birds with one stone. For whatever reason, the bird organising my hotel has booked me into a place quite a way across town from its nest(a). This would be more annoying were it not for the fact that it gives me the opportunity to try a new and well- written-about Thai restaurant!

Reviews of Addie's on Urbanspoon are good and I'm encouraged by various bloggers and reviews describing it as some of the best, and fairly authentic, Thai in London.  While I happen to think that in Manchester we have one of the best Thai restaurants anywhere in the form of Try Thai (fortuitously also just round the corner from my house!) it's worth seeing what the competition has to offer.

Addie's is located just a block or so up the road from Earls Court Station, and despite (or perhaps because of?) reports that earlier incarnations were hard to find, is now well signposted from the street. I'm made to feel instantly welcome both by the general atmosphere and by the smiley, friendly staff, who show me unhesitatingly to the requested 'table for one, please'.

 Service is swift -- almost alarmingly so when it comes to receiving food! I estimate it's less than 5 minutes from the time I place my order to my tom yam goong landing on the table -- followed, before I've had time for more than a couple of spoonfuls, by the other dishes. I'm initially surprised -- do they think I'll have finished my soup so quickly? -- but then recall that in a typical Thai meal, soup is served not as a starter but as part of the whole spread, to be consumed alongside the other dishes.

It's hard to go too far wrong with tom yam, and Addie's version is no exception to the rule. While perhaps not quite living up to the promise created by my initial smell-based impressions, it delivered the requisite hit of punchy flavours along with 2 decent-sized juicy, bouncy, tail-on prawns.

The other dishes shine far more, however, especially the som tam. This salad of shredded green papaya, carrot, green beans and cherry tomatoes in a spicy-sour dressing with crunchy peanuts is one of my favourite things, done well (we won't speak of those occasional travesties made with apple rather than papaya, overly sweet and with no chilli in evidence). There are several varieties to choose from, starting with the basic 'dried prawns', passing through the intrigue of raw prawns en route to the priciest option of deep-fried soft-shell crab. I ask the waitress what she recommends and she indicates the basic option, but when I ask about the 'dried prawn and salted crab' version and whether that refers to fermented preserved crab pieces (one of the traditional possibilities for som tam in Thailand but rare outside it -- palates unaccustomed to SE Asian food seem often to balk at fermented seafood, I've no idea why), she looks pleased and nods yes, so I opt for that.

My other choice is a recommendation from one of the reviews: the 'pla pad prik sod', deep-fried cod with morning glory and a chilli-garlic sauce. I was somewhat tempted to go for a pad thai or curry instead, other staples that are often benchmarks of quality for judging a new Thai restaurant, but didn't quite feel in the mood for either. Plus, eating a whole coconut curry on one's own is ineffably sad, and a recipe for heartburn besides.

In any case, I'm very pleased with my choice of cod when it arrives: large crisp-fried pieces of fish tossed in a salty, savoury sauce amongst tender, flavoursome greens and sliced chillies.  The som tam is bursting with zingy flavour and plenty of crunch from the shredded papaya and beans, fresh juicy tomato and a mouthwateringly sour-sweet dressing, with the fermented crab adding a real hit of funky, salty flavour. I decide some sticky rice is needed to soak up all this deliciousness -- it too appears with magical speed.


A word of warning to the somewhat faint-of-tongue: the chilli indications on the menu should be taken with some seriousness! While I don't consider myself a rabid hothead, I do like a fair bit of kick to my food and am usually the one amongst my friends who can be found doggedly but blissfully scarfing down the sliced chillies from a stir-fry, spooning up the last incendiary mouthfuls of a hot chilli sauce or sprinkling Tabasco on my food with gay abandon.  The som tam was marked at 2 (out of a maximum 3) chillies for heat rating, but I soon found myself in that sweaty, slightly delirious, tear-inducing, endorphin-producing state that marks the verge of good chilli-eating. Any hotter and it would have become more pain than pleasure; as it was, this was the kind of masochillistic experience that I was rather glad to be enjoying as a solo diner...

My only other caveat about Addie's is that the portion sizes aren't huge. I am a self-confessed glutton and have on occasion surprised friends with my eating capacity; that does also have to be understood in the context of me being a not-too-tall female of no more than medium build -- in other words, I eat lots for my size but plenty of my male friends still eat more than I do!  I thought that in ordering a soup, salad and main I was probably setting myself up for an 'eyes bigger than stomach' fall, the more so once sticky rice appeared on the agenda. Instead I found myself pleasantly but not uncomfortably full after meticulously consuming every last shred of tangy papaya and shard of crispy fish (too good to waste!)  I could have been satisfied with less; as it was, I had the opportunity to try more dishes without feeling guilty about wasting any leftovers, but big eaters may want to think about ordering more than the usual main + side per person.  That said, the prices were fairly reasonable: a large glass of wine plus all that food came to about £30.

Was Addie's the best Thai I've had in London? Admittedly that's not much of an accolade given my limited previous experience, but I'm still happy to say a definite yes and to hazard a guess that it might be quite some time before I find one better! Bonus points for lovely staff and service - unobtrusive but efficient, and gave no indication of hurry even when I'd finished my food and was sipping the last of my wine, despite a posse of customers waiting for tables (I hurried myself a little, once I noticed). But was it better than Manchester's finest? I have to say, Try Thai still has my vote -- the freshness and intensity of the flavours I've experienced there has yet to be matched by any other UK restaurant. We really are lucky to have it up north! I'm going to award Addie's a well-deserved and in no way dishonourable second place.

Just as well I suppose, or I'd have to be finding excuses to trot down to London for my weekly fix...

Addie's Thai
121 Earl's Court Rd
SW5 9RL 

The burgers are better in Copenhagen

A couple of weeks ago we were in Copenhagen, and five nights gave us plenty of time to experience the local culinary scene. So , Danish food: you're thinking smoked fish platters, open sandwiches, butter cookies and pastries, right? Oh, and bacon. (Don't forget the bacon!) Well, think again: think -- burgers!

We did actually go to a Danish restaurant on our first night; we also tried a Vietnamese cafe down Vesterbrogade and found a delightful wine and tapas bar up near Norreport, but these are subjects for another post. For our last night in 'Hagen, we knew what we wanted: somewhere cosy, comforting, friendly, satisfying, not too far to walk or too stiff and formal, laid-back but also a bit fun and trendy. Walking us around when we first arrived, our native guide Carole had pointed out a local recommendation: a bar/cafe with a giant pink tongue painted over the front window; good for burgers. That sounded like just the thing for tonight, and so -- without any idea of what the place was called, nor a clear recollection of where exactly it was, we set out to find the mysterious cities of gold -- um, I mean, burger bar.

Halifax: spot the tongue!

Luckily, it turned out to be almost exactly where we thought it was (though we had to walk past twice before we saw it -- giant pink tongue less obvious than I thought it would be from my first memory of it!) and to be called Halifax -- named, it seems, for the brewery whose excellent beverages feature at the bar. And, as promised, they specialise in burgers, to the extent in fact that the menu consists solely of burgers, with a few (mostly) appropriate sides available: fries, mash, salad and... nachos. (I did say mostly!!)  Diners are instructed to 'vaelg din burger her' with the explanatory note that 'pa Halifax opbygger du selv din burger tallerken'.

Fortunately for the linguistically challenged among us, there's also an English menu to guide you through the steps of selecting your desired burger type, your preferred patty, your chosen side and your accompanying dipping sauce.  The burger varieties are named for globetrotting destinations with flavours supposedly appropriate to the location: the Biarritz has goats cheese and chilli-fried mushrooms (quel francais), the Crete is topped with Greek salad ingredients such as feta, olives and tzatziki, while the Liverpool promises the full English breakfast experience in burger form.

Cosy but cool: the Halifax vibe

As a recovering vegetarian, I have to fight the automatic tendency simply to order whatever non-carnivorous option is on the menu (sometimes there's more than one. Then it gets difficult because you have to choose!)  That's made even harder at Halifax by the fact that there are actually two kinds of vegie patty, not just the more common falafel but an intriguing celeriac and root vegetable burger. My decision is settled, though, when I read the fine print at the bottom of the menu, which gives an obligatory health warning about the potential dangers of eating undercooked meat before going on to note that, for reasons of flavour and juiciness, they cook all burgers to a perfect pinkness in the centre unless otherwise requested (by pregnant women and other food paranoiacs, one assumes). This sounds like a beef burger well worth eating!

If one is going to go the whole hog one may as well go the whole cow, so I plump for the Nakskov. "Have you forgotten how good it is? We have pimped the classic burger..." With all the most decadent, cholesterol-laden toppings including crispy onions, soft onions, cheddar cheese, bacon, mustard, pickles and remoulade, this is a burger to end all burgers. In fact the menu even recommends that you opt for salad as a side when having this burger (presumably because having too many calories in the same place at the same time creates an OH&S issue or at least requires some sort of statutory health warning) but I don't care and pick the fat chips anyway. I do show at least some prudence and refrain from super-pimping my Russian Pimp Burger with an extra-large beef patty (250g rather than the standard 175g); Lee demonstrates no such restraint but then I suppose he is just having the Copenhagen -- a relatively civilised classic with relish lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion on a sesame seed bun (as indeed are all the burgers) -- so a super-sized all-beef patty seems not inappropriate.

While waiting for our burgers, we kick back with a couple of the aforementioned Halifax brews. My dark ale is mild, well-rounded and not at all bitter (a surprise to me as most of my admittedly limited beer experience is with English beer - the darker the bitterer, as a rule). Lee has the cider, a lovely light colour and flavour to match -- apparently made from apples but with the fragrant softness of pear ciders and not a hint of the battery-acid taste that can mar apple ciders. Both our drinks come by the metric pint, that is, 500ml -- we're amused to find that this, in Denmark, is referred to as 'a half'.

The classic Copenhagen burger

Squishing is futile; this burger is still more than mouth-height!

The burgers, when they arrive, are truly epic. There's no question of picking them up to chow down; I see now why the door-sized mouth is an appropriate decor choice. Slicing a slightly more manageable (though still hefty!) wedge from my burger reveals oozing remoulade, mounds of crispy and soft onions, melty cheese and the promised pink'n'juicy beef. It tastes unbelievably savoury, rich and luscious.

The accompanying potato wedges are a fine complement, crisp and brown outside, a nice balance between waxy and fluffy inside. The chipotle dip doesn't taste especially chipotley, the salsa has a bit more zing, however ketchup is provided at each table by the bottle; can't have chips without it!  But it's the burger that is the absolute star of the show. I eat every last bite of mine and surreptitiously lick my fingers.  Mmmmm.  I have to leave a few chips behind but the burger is worth the sacrifice.

 PIMP THAT BURGER!

Sitting replete and slightly dazed by deliciousness, full of burger and beer, we notice that the table next to us have ordered one burger & chips between two to share. Given the level of stuffedness I'm experiencing, I reflect to myself that this might have been the sensible option. But then, who wants to be sensible? Warm and fed, we waddle out into an autumnal Copenhagen night.

It's been probably 10 years -- no, more -- since the last time I ordered a hamburger.  If I had to eat only one burger to last me the next 10 years, I'm glad I chose this one. But hey, maybe we'll be back in Copenhagen before that!

Lazy cook's hot and sour soup

I am sick.  The onset of cold weather, start-of-term stress and start-of-term germs from the influx of new students have all combined to make me sick.  And when I am sick, what I usually want to eat -- almost without exception, in fact -- is hot and sour soup.  Either the Thai variety, with its deliciously tangy hit of sharp-sweet-sour-salty-hot flavours that can clear out your sinuses and blast through to the most cold-deadened tastebuds, or the ginger-laced, savoury, peppery, nourishing, egg-enriched Chinese version; both are eminently suitable.

The only difficulty is that soup is one of those foods that, in general, also benefits from long slow cooking to extract and meld flavours together (think stock simmering for hours on a low stove).  And although I want to eat soup, the last thing I want to do when I am sick is spend ages cooking.  I nearly went to Chinatown to buy prawns and lemongrass for tom yum soup, but the thought of all that shelling and sauteing and simmering and straining before I even got to making the soup defeated me; meanwhile, suan-la-tang (Chinese H&S soup) usually also requires a plethora of exotic ingredients: char-siu pork, shrimp, firm and soft tofu, bamboo shoots, two different kinds of mushrooms...

The trick, however, is that the flavours of the latter don't absolutely require all of these ingredients to be present for the soup to work.  Although the absolute best results would probably be obtained with a homemade long-simmered stock, the rich tang of the vinegar and the heat from peppers and chilli paste do their work even on an instant broth.  Having the basic elements for a Sichuan sauce on hand as well as some vegetables and oddments (such as dried wood ear mushrooms -- which last forever in the cupboard and swell up to three or four times their size in water, meaning one packet has lasted me years so far!) also helps; and a packet of ready-to-eat fried tofu puffs in spicy chilli oil provided the last element for a hot-and-sour soup that was everything I wanted on a cold (in both senses of the word) night.

Don't be put off by a seemingly long list of ingredients; once the first batch is sizzling in the pan, each new addition can be chopped as the previous one cooks, and most ingredients can be substituted out if you don't have something on hand.  The whole soup took me less than 20 minutes from start to yum.

Fast Hot & Sour Soup

2-inch piece ginger, peeled and shredded finely
2 fat cloves garlic, chopped small
1 red chilli, finely sliced
1 tsp sichuan peppercorns, roasted and crushed
several grinds black pepper
6 pieces fried spicy tofu, sliced
4-6 large leaves chinese cabbage, finely sliced crossways
4 dried wood ear mushrooms, soaked in hot water and sliced
~1 litre hot water
2 tsp vegetable stock powder
2 tbs shaoxing rice wine
2 tbs chinkiang vinegar
1 tbs light soy sauce (to taste)
2 tsp sugar
1-2 tsp chilli bean paste
1-2 tsp chiu chow chilli oil
handful enoki mushrooms
1 egg
2 spring onions, finely sliced

In a medium saucepan, heat a drizzle of oil (if the tofu came packed in oil, you can use this) and saute ginger, garlic, chilli and peppercorns for a few minutes, until fragrant.  Add sliced tofu and continue to cook; add stem parts of cabbage and give it all a good stir.  Add rice wine, vinegar and soy, then hot water and sugar, and remaining cabbage.  Bring to a simmer, taste for seasoning and add more soy (or vinegar or sugar) if needed, remembering that the chilli paste is salty.  Stir in chilli paste and oil; add mushrooms and bring just to the point of boiling.  Stirring, add the egg in a thin stream (you can beat it in a cup first or if you are lazy like me, just crack it and open it over the pot with one hand while stirring vigorously with the other).  Mix in spring onions and serve.

Makes 2 large bowlfuls (I ate them both :-9)

Note: Yes, I just happened to have enoki mushrooms needing to be used in the fridge.  Any sort of shredded vegetable would work here, though I find the texture of enoki particularly toothsome in soups.  Ditto the wood-ear mushrooms; they're a customary ingredient but not essential. 

The tofu I used comes as fried puffs (spongy not solid) in a chilli oil already spiked with sichuan pepper, adding to the flavour.  I can't find an exact picture online but it's probably similar to this: http://shop.waiyeehong.com/food-ingredients/snacks-sweets/crisps-snacks-nuts/savoury-snacks/marinated-tofu-spicy

Slow-roasted tomato and caramelised onion tart with white bean puree

This is a vegan riff on the classic flavours of roasted tomatoes and caramelised onions that are often paired with pastry, together with a creamy but sharp / salty cheese such as goats' or feta.  Here a white bean puree, made creamy with olive oil, pungent with garlic and seasoned with lemon juice and sea salt, takes the place of the cheese.

Pastry:
1 3/4 cups plain flour
pinch salt
125g vegetable shortening, cut into pieces
1/3 - 1/2 cup cold water
1-2 tbs soy milk (optional)

In a food processor (or with a fork or pastry cutter, but that's so much harder work!) pulse flour, salt and vegetable shortening until shortening is in pieces the size of small peas.  Empty mixture into a bowl and sprinkle over cold water (start with 1/3 cup first and add more if needed -- I ended up using a full 1/2 cup plus the soy milk), then mix lightly and quickly with a knife until mixture just comes together into a crumbly, fairly dry dough.  If mix is too dry add more liquid gradually as required to achieve the correct texture.  Wrap mixture in clingfilm, press dough into a ball to encourage it to come together, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Roasted tomatoes and caramelised onions:
~1lb small ripe vine tomatoes (I got 11 in my pack)

Cut tomatoes in half (or thick slices if large), spread on a baking tray, scatter with salt and pepper and roast at 150C for about 20 min or until soft.

3 red onions, finely sliced
1 tsp olive oil
2 tbs balsamic vinegar
2 tbs brown sugar
pinch salt
black pepper

Over low heat, cook onions with oil until very soft (15-20 min), add vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper and continue to simmer until sticky and reduced.

When ready to cook tart, preheat oven to 200C.  Roll out pastry to a rectangle, fold in thirds to form a block, roll out again and fold in thirds the other way, then roll to desired size (mine was about the size of an A4 sheet of paper).  Score a line all the way around, about 1-2cm from the edge, to make a border; form a slight lip around the edge and prick pastry in the middle.  (The aim of all this is to try and get the edge to rise more than the middle... mine ended up pretty flat all round even so!)

Bake pastry until just starting to brown (10-15 min), remove from oven and spread caramelised onions all over, arrange tomatoes on top (squoosh them into the onion a bit), return to oven and bake another 10 min or until pastry is browned and juices bubbling. 

White bean puree
1 tin (400g) butter or cannellini beans
1 tbs olive oil
1 large clove garlic, crushed
zest of half a lemon
lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste
fresh basil, finely sliced

Whizz beans, olive oil, garlic and lemon zest in food processor until smooth puree is formed.  Taste and season as required.

When tart is cooked, dollop heaped teaspoonfuls of puree all over in an apparently-artlessly-random-but-actually-carefully-arranged-to-look-random pattern.  Scatter with basil.  Slice into rectangles and serve with a green leaf salad tossed with a sharp dressing.

The ideal logistical order to prepare all the different components would probably be:

• Slice onions and set over low heat to caramelise
• Turn on oven for tomatoes
• Make pastry to refrigeration step
• Pop tomatoes in to roast
• Go do something else for a bit, keeping an eye on onions and stirring occasionally (add vinegar & sugar when ready and continue to cook)
• When tomatoes are done, remove and crank oven to 200C (alternatively, you can prepare everything to this stage in advance and then just roll and bake when ready)
• Roll pastry and put in to blind-bake 
• (meanwhile, onions should have become ready)
• Top and finish baking
• Meanwhile make bean puree, slice basil
• Serve and enjoy!

Chilled chocolate thingummyberry

Lack of photos (because I always forget to take any before we scoff all the food) and lack of time are my two main obstacles to posting on this blog.  Undeterred, I press on and make sporadic posts whenever time and inclination are in my favour, absence of photos notwithstanding.

So this time, I have recipes from Another Vegan Dinner to share, even knowing I didn't get round to blogging all the recipes from the last one...  there is something about cooking within limits (be they what you can't use, or what you must use -- this goes some way to explaining my love of Iron Chef!) that, to me, inspires an added frisson of creativity.

This time I was cooking for a Proper Strict Vegan (no honey) as well as my other Not Quite So Strict Vegan friend.  Here is what we ate:

Nibbles
Edamame with sea salt and pepper (no recipe needed; just cook, season and serve!)
Carrot, coriander and sesame dip

Starter
Roasted tomato and caramelised onion tart with white bean puree

Main course
Butternut squash and mushroom makhani (based on this slow-cooker curry recipe)
Green beans and asparagus with fresh tomato dressing (based on this recipe from Kerry Saretsky of Serious Eats)
Sesame-braised baby bok choy (also from Serious Eats, recipe here)
Cucumber and mint salad
Pine-nut pilau rice

Dessert
Chilled chocolate thingummyberry -- a combination of chilled chocolate pudding on a biscuit base topped with a mix of summer berries. 

My piano teacher used to tell me not to start from the beginning every time I practised, or I would end up spending less practice time on the end.  True to form, if I started from the beginning of the menu every time, I'd probably never end up posting the recipes for dessert!  So, in an attempt to buck this trend, I'm going to start by posting the dessert recipe first.  Here goes...

Chilled Chocolate Thingummyberry
(partly based on this chocolate pudding recipe)

10 McVities dark chocolate digestive biscuits (vegan!!)

3 tbs cornflour
30ml (2 tbs) cold water
1/3 cup demerara sugar (you could probably use regular; demerara was what I had)
1/4 cup cocoa powder
pinch salt
1 can (440g) coconut milk (I like Chaokoh brand)
1/2 cup soy milk (again, it was what I had; recipe seems unfussy as to what kind of non-dairy used)
100g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
1 tsp vanilla essence (optional)

1/2 punnet small strawberries, hulled
1 punnet blueberries
1 punnet raspberries
[I'm sorry, I don't know what a punnet is in weight!  Maybe 150g or so grams for the blueberries and raspberries; maybe more for the strawberries?]

Squuunch up biscuits and spread evenly in bottom of dish (my brown dish, about 12" long by 4" wide by 2" deep and oval shaped, is the perfect size).

Mix cornflour and cold water in a mug.  In a saucepan, whisk together sugar, sifted cocoa powder, salt and coconut milk until combined; place over medium heat; gradually whisk in soy (or other) milk.  Heat until simmering; add chocolate, give it a good stir and let sit off heat for a few minutes (until chocolate is melted) then whisk well to combine.  Stir cornflour slurry until well-mixed and whisk in, together with vanilla essence.  Cook over medium heat until mixture is thickened to slightly less than desired consistency (it will thicken further as it cools).

Pour mixture evenly over crushed biscuit base and scatter berries evenly over surface.  Chill 1-2 hours or until ready to serve.

Being permanently in search of the perfect chocolate cake recipe, I had to try this one. "Made with cocoa powder, melted bittersweet chocolate, sour cream, and brown sugar, this cake is rich, moist, and a treat for the hungry school kid in you."  It also uses no butter, which is an advantage when one hasn't been to the shops in over a week!  (Yes, I have bittersweet chocolate and sour cream readily to hand, but no butter to spare.  Such is my life...)

My large cake tins have all gone walkabout (what did you do with my tin-base, people-next-door?) but luckily the recipe specifies that it can be used to make 24 cupcakes instead of one large cake.  I only have one cupcake tin and no patience to do two batches in a row, so I halved the recipe... and then had to make a few more adjustments: demerara instead of brown sugar, an extra egg because the mix seemed too dry.  Still, they came out ok: light and spongy, tender, dark and moist.  Another bonus feature of these cakes is that unlike most cupcakes, they come out with nice flat tops, which can be an advantage for certain sorts of decorating.

Finally, I had no Cocoa Puffs (do they even sell Cocoa Puffs here in the UK?) so regular buttercream frosting had to do instead.  And here they are, boxed up and ready!

Chocolate Cupcakes
1 cup minus 2 tbs flour
1/2 cup cocoa
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda (next time I think I'd use 1/2 tsp each)
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup creme fraiche (ok, I lied about having sour cream)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
100ml boiling water
1 tsp coffee powder
100g dark chocolate, melted

Preheat oven to 185C.  Sift dry ingredients together into a large bowl.  In a separate bowl, mix creme fraiche, oil and eggs until combined.  Add to dry ingredients and mix to form a fairly stiff batter.  Dissolve coffee powder in hot water and mix in.  Stir in dark chocolate.

Spoon mixture into cupcake cases.  I filled mine to about 1cm from the top and they rose over the tops of the tins and puffed out a bit; if you want them contained in their cases don't put too much in!  I got 15 cakes out of this quantity -- three had to be baked without the benefit of a tin and became somewhat deformed as a result (but still tasted good)!

Vegan Dinner Party: Part 2 - Roasted cauliflower and baba ganoush

Following on from my previous post about last week's vegan dinner party, here's the next recipe installment, for the main course of roasted cauliflower and chickpea salad with baba ganoush. 

As I think I have mentioned before, eggplant/aubergine is one of my very favourite things to eat.  In baba ganoush, which is basically a roasted eggplant puree, it bears very little resemblance to its usual texture, form or flavour but is still delicious.  Usually served as a dip, baba ganoush takes the soft flesh of the eggplant, tasting of a subtle smokiness imparted by the charred skin, and combines it with tahini, garlic and lemon to make the best thing ever to put on sliced bread.  (Well, maybe the second best or the third best... beetroot dip has to be up there too, and simple ripe tomato slices with a sprinkle of sea salt and fresh-ground black pepper.  Mmmmm.)

Some versions of this dish are loaded with tahini and olive oil to the point that the dip almost becomes a mayonnaise, creamy and thick-textured.  I prefer the kind where you can still tell it was once an aubergine, where the puree is more juicy than creamy, and with plenty of lemon.  I added sliced basil to this version, and might add a dash of chilli next time if cooking for other spiceheads like me.

Instead of using it as a dip, in this case I used it as a base on which to pile crispy, spice-coated florets of roasted cauliflower and chickpeas.  Since discovering roasted cauliflower last year I have made it on several occasions, including for parties as a nibble and Christmas dinner as an accompaniment, but it really is good enough to eat as the main event in itself, and eminently suitable for a vegan dinner.  Chickpeas and flaked almonds add a bit of extra body, and a squeeze of fresh lemon perks up everything.  I added soft strips of roasted pepper on the top for even more flavour, spooned some tomato-cucumber-onion-parsley salsa around for freshness, and garnished with a few crisp-baked pita wedges for texture -- and as a nod to the more familiar form of baba ganoush.

Baba ganoush
5 medium aubergines
1/3 cup tahini
2 lemons
3-4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbs olive oil
1/2 cup basil leaves, shredded
salt, pepper

Place whole eggplants under a hot grill and cook until skin is blackened (it will turn lighter first as it cooks, then start to char); turn and cook similarly on other side.  Continue to cook until flesh is very soft.  Once eggplants are cool enough to handle, cut in half and scoop out flesh, stripping off skin.  Add tahini, zest of both lemons and juice of one, garlic and olive oil; whiz with hand blender (or mash well with fork) until pureed but not completely smooth.  Stir in basil, taste and adjust seasoning with sea salt, freshly-ground pepper and extra lemon juice as required.

Roasted cauliflower
2 large cauliflowers
2 tbs olive oil
3 tbs ground cumin
3 tbs ground coriander
1 tbs chilli powder
1 tbs chilli flakes
1 1/2 tbs sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup flaked almonds
lemon
Optional: chopped herbs (parsley or coriander), fresh chilli

Cut cauliflower into 2-inch pieces, cutting across some of the florets to expose inner surfaces (this gives extra surface area to develop brown crispy bits and deep roasted flavours).  Steam for about 5 minutes, or until just tender to a knife but still very firm.  Drain and allow to steam-dry.

Heat oven to 230C.  Toss cauliflower with olive oil, then with spices and almonds.  Spread evenly on baking tray, allowing enough space so that florets roast, rather than steam in their own moisture.  Roast for about 25 minutes or until brown, crisp and beginning to blacken just a little at the very edges.  Zest lemon over and squeeze juice. 

(Some fresh herbs are nice to sprinkle over; fresh chopped red chilli is an amazing addition but can be dangerously hot!)

Note: The above amounts made plenty for 5 people with some left over for lunch the next day.  For the chickpeas, I used two tins and roasted them the same way as the cauliflower, using a smaller amount of the same spices without the almonds, then put them all in a bowl at the end before adding the lemon zest and juice and tossing the whole lot together.  Next time I might use just one tin and not cook them quite so long, as they were a tiny bit dry.

Vegan Dinner Party: Part 1 - vegetable tempura

I used to throw Proper Dinner Parties, way back when (I had time, a proper house, decent furniture, etc etc).  They were elaborate, multi-course affairs, beginning with cocktails and elegant nibbles at around 7, progressing through small tasters, plated starter and main course, dessert and petits fours, all accompanied by matching wines, at a relaxed pace and finishing some time after midnight. Nowadays my usual entertaining style is to throw together a huge bunch of random food, pile it all out of the kitchen in a steady stream, let people help themselves and keep the drinks flowing.  But last weekend I decided it was time to return to something a bit more traditional.  I invited a few friends over, keeping the guest list deliberately small (doing a plated main for any more than about 6 people just wouldn't be possible in my current kitchen), and as one guest was vegan and another vegetarian, I planned a(n almost) completely vegan menu.

We began with cocktails made from grapefruit zest muddled with lemon, Campari (1 measure), gin (2 measures), Cointreau (1/2 measure was all I had left), sugar syrup (1 measure) and lemon juice (another splash).  They came out a beautiful pink colour and delightfully zesty, with a palate-tantalising bitterness from the grapefruit and Campari.  Nibbles were wasabi peas and (sadly non-vegan, the only item that was) chipotle-flavoured crisps.  (What's non-vegan about chipotle crisps, you ask?  Whey powder.  Why whey?  I don't know.  Curse you, Walkers.)

To get us properly going, next up was broccoli, asparagus and courgette tempura.  I'm a sucker for anything deep-fried; I also love green vegetables.  Tempura broccoli works particularly well -- there's just something about the way the crisp batter clings to the tender but satisfyingly textured florets, plus the savoury complexity of almost-charred cruciferous vegetable, that makes it the ultimate vegetable for the purpose.  Asparagus and courgette are similarly tender but with different flavours.  Combined with a delicately sweet, gingered soy for dipping, and a glass of Prosecco, it was a simple but delicious starter.

(By the time I thought to take a picture, we'd already eaten most of it...!)

Next course was a rich tomato soup, laced with chilli, lime, black pepper and a dash of gin (no photos but recipe loosely based on The Food Lab's vegan 'creamy' tomato soup, except for, well, the chilli, lime and gin, and with a bit less olive oil).

For main course: roasted spiced cauliflower and chickpea salad on eggplant puree, served with fresh tomato salsa and pita crisps (recipes to follow), accompanied by patatas bravas and a rocket, citrus and beetroot salad (thanks again, Kenji -- I used my standard honey-mustard-lemon vinaigrette rather than the pinenut-sherry-vinegar version, but the grapefruit and beetroot combination was a winner).

[Perhaps Blogger's photo capacity has run out -- my three attempts to upload this picture have resulted, respectively, in a strange red-only version; a half-coloured, half-fuzzy version and a half-only version.  Next time, Gadget...] ETA: aha!

Dessert was chocolate raspberry cake; recipe later perhaps.

For now, here's how I made the tempura:

Batter
2 cups plain flour
2 tsp salt
1 tbs baking powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 cups iced water

Sift all dry ingredients together.  Just before frying, add iced water; stir with chopsticks until just combined (lumps are ok).  [This made too much batter for the below amount of vegetables; I could have done another batch at least with what was left.  Half the amount did about 8 pieces broccoli, 10 pieces courgette and a dozen or so mushrooms.  Go figure...]

Vegetables
I used:
1 small head broccoli, cut into 2-inch florets (about 12 pieces)
12 stalks asparagus
1 small courgette, cut into about 1-1.5cm slices (about 12 pieces)

Dip vegetables in turn and fry in batches: broccoli will take about 4 min, asparagus and courgette 2 min each.  Drain on kitchen towel and then serve with dipping sauce.

Dipping sauce
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs mirin
1 tbs pickled ginger juice
1 tbs chinkiang or balsamic vinegar
1/2 tbs sugar syrup

Cocktail cupcakes? Oh yes!

I have recently discovered the show Mad Men (ah, the biting satire on gender roles in 1950s America; thank goodness we live in a more enlightened time and place.  Ahem.) and less recently, the joy of cupcakes.  Imagine my delight, then, when I came across this:

http://thisisrocksalt.com/2012/03/24/mad-men-season-launch-you-need-these-cupcakes/


"A juniper-scented, gin-soaked sponge with a light and tangy lemon icing..."?  Oh yes, I need these cupcakes, I really do.  Luckily, a friend's birthday tea party last weekend provided the ideal opportunity to try them out. 

I couldn't quite bring myself to use most of a whole block of butter in the cakes AND an entire whole block of butter for the frosting (mostly because I only had one block!) so I fudged the quantities somewhat for the cake and made slightly less frosting, supplementing the butter with gin and lemon juice (for extra tang and because let's face it, gin makes EVERYTHING better).  I was also so inspired by the description of the 'gin-soaked sponge' that I decided a drizzle of lemon-gin syrup would be just what was required. 

My cakes weren't as perfectly pretty as the original examples, but they did come out exceptionally well.  This is probably the most tender, even-crumbed and moist cupcake recipe I've tried yet -- will definitely be using it in future!

Tom Collins Cupcakes

125g butter
2/3 cup caster sugar
zest and juice of one lemon
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup gin

Preheat oven to 180C (185 if you are my oven).  Beat softened butter, sugar and lemon zest together until light and fluffy (I used my hand blender with whisk attachment on medium speed); beat in eggs one at a time.  Fold in half of sifted dry ingredients, then gin and lemon juice, then remaining dry ingredients.

Divide mixture between 12 cupcake cases.  Bake for 20 minutes, rotating halfway through cooking time, or until cakes are lightly browned and spring back when pressed (mine took about 22 minutes).

Lemon-gin syrup
2-3 tbs gin
juice of one lemon (reserve zest for decoration)
2 tbs sugar

Mix together until sugar dissolves.  Drizzle about a teaspoon or so of syrup over each cake while still warm.

Frosting
350g(ish) icing sugar
125g butter, softened
zest and juice of one lemon
a splash of gin

Mix all ingredients together until well-combined, adding more liquid or more icing sugar as required until correct consistency (pipe-able or spreadable) is reached.  Ice cakes when cool; sprinkle with reserved lemon zest.

Sushi is simple

My first exposure to sushi was in my Year 7 Japanese class, when our teacher (who was not by any stretch of the imagination Japanese -- nor, I suspect, did she actually speak much more Japanese or have a deeper understanding of Japanese culture than we did, but bless her, she was willing to teach us anyway) made and brought some in for us to try.  Having a naturally sweet tooth and being fond of strange sweet-savoury combinations, I thought the squishy, sugary rice wrapped in seaweed with canned tuna in the middle, dipped in salty soy, was really quite tasty.

The next time I remember having sushi was about 6 years later, when I had freshly made temaki and nigiri at a high-class Hong Kong hotel.  It was nothing like Mrs O'Callaghan's sugary tuna creation.  It was also utterly delicious.

The Melbourne public must have (re)discovered sushi around the same time I did, because in the following years, sushi hand-roll chains began to spring up everywhere around Melbourne.  Wrapt was memorable for its after-3pm $1 handroll specials -- and also for its antipasto roll, filled with grilled eggplant, roasted red capsicum and shredded parmesan cheese.  I never would have guessed that parmesan and soy sauce would work so well together, but thinking further, it makes sense that their flavours complement each other: salty, fermented, umami-ful.  Another early contender was Yoyogi, on Swanston St, which I think still survives; nowadays the Sushi Sushi chain has grown and come to dominate much of the market.  And let's not forget Melbourne Uni's wonderful Plush Fish, home of delicious fresh salmon and avocado handrolls as well as the best coffee on campus (until Brunetti's opened a branch at the Potter) and an insanely rich white hot chocolate that would keep you on a sugar high all afternoon.

I first tried making sushi from the recipe in Charmaine Solomon's Complete Asian Cookbook.  We didn't have mirin, so I just used the vinegar, sugar and salt; we did have a rice cooker, so I used that to cook the rice.  We didn't have a rolling mat but I soon acquired one: they make it so much easier!

I've stuck to this method ever since, though my technique has improved considerably: early attempts suffered somewhat from too-hard rice, layered too thick, resulting in overstuffed rolls that would split down the sides.  I learned a tremendous amount from watching the sushi chefs in some of the abovementioned sushi outlets: take a modest amount of rice, no more than a tennis-ball; form a hedge of even thickness the entire width of the nori sheet; fold the hedge down with your fingers to form a uniform rectangle, leaving a little strip at the bottom; add your fillings (not too much!) and roll neatly, with the bare strip at the bottom contacting the far edge of the rice; use the edge of the rolling mat to neaten up the ends of the roll.  Or, more impressive, the method for making nigiri I observed from one chef: left hand grabs slice of fish, laying it flat in left palm; right hand grabs just the right amount of rice; right index finger scoops up dollop of wasabi while other three fingers squeeze rice into a neat block; right hand smears wasabi from index finger onto fish in left hand and then plops rice neatly onto wasabi-smeared fish; left hand deposits completed nigiri into tray.  The entire process took no more than five seconds; rinse and repeat.  I've never got quite that good...




Sushi rice
500g uncooked sushi rice (about 2 cups)
An equal volume water, plus a good splash more

Cook rice in a rice cooker until it pops; check, stir, add a bit more water if needed, leave to steam for another 5-10 minutes.

Dressing
80ml white vinegar
60g white sugar
2.5 tsp salt

Mix all ingredients together and heat in microwave, stir until sugar and salt dissolve.

When rice is cooked, remove from heat, pour over dressing, toss well to combine and leave to cool.  (Traditional methods have you fan the rice while tossing it continuously until cool, which results in a glossier grain; I find the lazy way still works fine though.)

Fillings
You can put whatever you like inside.  Some of my favourites:

• California roll: surimi (artificial crab meat) finely chopped and mixed with mayonnaise, avocado, cucumber, carrot and red pepper
• Garden roll: avocado, cucumber, carrot, red pepper, sweetcorn mixed with mayo and pink pickled ginger
• Teriyaki chicken: sliced cooked chicken breast, hoi sin sauce, cucumber and red pepper
• Salmon, avocado and cucumber
• Inari (sweet fried tofu), spinach and avocado/cucumber

(The picture above shows garden rolls, salmon mini-maki and salmon nigiri; the enormous heap of pickled ginger shows how much I love the stuff!)

Happiness is...

... going to make Jill Dupleix's flourless chocolate cake (for the first time in years!) and finding that one has all the necessary ingredients already in the pantry :) 

(Also, separating 5 eggs into the same bowl and not breaking any of the yolks.  I know it's always recommended to separate eggs one at a time, first into a cup and then tipping the white into the mixing bowl, in case you accidentally break one of the yolks and contaminate the batch, but I'm mostly a) quite good at separating eggs and b) too lazy.  When I made a scaled-up triple-quantity version of this recipe for my father's 50th birthday party, though -- then I did the eggs one at a time.  Even with good egg-separation skills, 15 eggs at a time is just pushing your luck...)

We're invited round to our neighbour's place for dinner tomorrow and I've offered to bring dessert.  It needs to be something I can make ahead and bring without last-minute preparations (so creme brulee, for example, is out); it also needs to look a bit impressive though still homemade, so fruit salad probably won't do (though my watermelon with Cointreau-macerated berries and lime zest finished off with sweet sparkling wine is quite swish, if I do say so myself).  I made chocolate raspberry mousse cake for our family-not!BBQ-party thing last Saturday and there's actually still some left in the fridge, so I don't feel particularly inspired to make that again; I contemplated cheesecake, but that takes time.  Then I thought about this recipe, which was one of my favourites from "I Hate To Cook" (by Jill Dupleix, alias Dolly Campbell).  Dressed up with fresh mixed berries piled on top and drizzled liberally with white chocolate ganache and a dusting of icing sugar (which is how we decorated it for my father's birthday, see above), it has the right combination of elegance and wow! factor.

The ingredients really are fairly simple; I stocked up on chocolate last weekend, and we usually have butter.  It's just the ground almonds that might be outside the usual pantry staples -- plus I thought we were out of sugar.  The cornucopia of cooking supplies bestowed upon me by friends moving house came to the rescue in both cases.  Thanks, John and Sheelagh!

Jill Dupleix's flourless chocolate cake

250g chocolate
150g butter
150g sugar
1 tbs strong coffee
1 tbs brandy (we are out of brandy, oops -- I used sherry instead)
125g almond meal
5 eggs, separated

Preheat oven to 180C; prepare a deep 20-23cm round cake tin.  (I use a non-stick loose-bottomed tin, so preparation consists of putting the base into the tin.  Otherwise grease and line.)

Melt chocolate (I used the microwave for 2 minutes), stir in butter until melted (it might need another quick zap in the microwave to get it all to melt in) and then sugar, coffee and brandy, then egg yolks.  Beat egg whites until stiff (peak curls over just at the end) but not dry; stir in a large spoonful to lighten the mix, then fold in the rest using a large metal spoon.

Pour gently into tin and bake for... well, I've set a timer for 40 minutes and am going to check in the expectation that it will need another 5-10 minutes after that.  We'll see!

I'll try to remember to take a picture tomorrow, after I've decorated it and before we eat it.

Curry in not much of a hurry

Curry is supposedly the new national dish of Britain.  Certainly, I've learned that it occupies a very special place in the local culinary consciousness: no more the strange concoction with curry powder, bananas, sultanas and cream that some old recipe books (including Australian ones) prescribe, a British curry (one of which you might 'go for', possibly after a night out -- 'nuff said) comes in more flavours than I'd ever heard of before (dhansak? bhuna? handi?) and is quite a different style to what, living in Australia, I'd come to think of as "Indian food".

Here are some of the dishes I'd expect to find on the menu at an Australian Indian restaurant.  Beef vindaloo.  Lamb rogan josh.  Aloo gobi.  Palak paneer.  Vegetable kofta (a staple of mine at the Roundabout of Death Curry Shop, who endeared themselves to me forever by being willing to deliver a $9 order to me one night at 10pm when I was working late in the lab, and then knocking another $1 off the price).  And chicken makhani, that bright orange, creamy, sweet and gently spicy paragon of bowdlerised -- but still irresistibly tasty -- 'ethnic' food.

To call the entire range of diverse local cuisines that happen to have developed within an area that is classed as a single country in terms of political geography "Indian food" is, I've long since realised, is as bad a culinary over-generalisation as to lump Sichuan, Cantonese, Hunan, Teochew and many other regional styles together as "Chinese food".  But, in the same way that what is known as "Chinese food" outside China began as predominantly Cantonese-influenced and has gradually expanded to include the food of other regions, our impressions of "Indian food" are based more on certain cuisines than others.  A friend with more knowledge than I have (in other words, some) of the various regional cuisines of India tells me that what we think of as "Indian food" in Melbourne is mainly influenced by Punjabi-style cooking, from the north.

Despite 'going for a curry' many times since coming to the UK, in many ways I still feel I have yet to wrap my head around the bewildering array of varieties available at even the average restaurant on the Curry Mile.  At some point I intend to go to a decent curry buffet restaurant and methodically sample all the flavours on offer in order to get to grips with exactly what the difference is between dopiaza and jalfrezi, korma and dhansak, makhani and tikka masala, and all the others. 

In the meantime, though, I still sometimes hanker after good old chicken makhani.  When looking for information on the slow-cooker lasagna I made the other week, I came across this blog and a recipe (originally from here) for slow-cooker "Indian butter chicken".  I was instantly tempted -- it sounded like so little work in return for so much tomatoey-creamy deliciousness.

Of course, I couldn't just follow the directions given.  That would a) have been too simple, and b) required me to go out shopping and buy ingredients, including chicken, and 'tandoori masala', an ingredient that not only do I not know where to get it, I don't even know what it is.  I had several assorted root vegetables left over from the past week's cooking exploits, the makings of a basic curry paste, and tomato paste, coconut milk and spices in the fridge.  Here is what I did:

Vegetable makhani curry

1 large mixing bowlful root and other vegetables (I used:
4 medium carrots
1/2 a large swede
1/2 a large butternut squash
about 100g mushrooms)

Curry paste
1-2 red onions
4 large garlic cloves
3 inch piece ginger, peeled
1-2 red chillies
1 tbs ground cumin
1 tbs ground coriander
1 tbs mild curry powder
15 cardamom pods (NB: would cut down for next time - maybe 10)

1 can (440 ml) coconut milk
1/2 jar tomato pasta sauce (because that's what I had left)
100ml tomato paste
1/2 jar water
1-2 tsp salt
2 tbs sweet chilli sauce


Chop all vegetables into rough chunks.  Preheat slow cooker and place vegetables inside.

For curry paste, blend onion, garlic, ginger and chillies; add spices.  Heat ~1tbs oil in a saucepan and fry curry paste until fragrant; add thick part of coconut milk if needed to keep from sticking.  Add rest of coconut milk, tomato sauce and tomato paste, salt and sweet chilli sauce; heat until just boiling.  Pour evenly over vegetables in slow cooker; rinse jar, can and saucepan with water and add this too.

Cook on high for... well, I meant to put it on high for an hour or two and then turn it down when I left, but forgot.  After about 8 hours on high the vegetables were well and truly soft; somewhat worryingly, things were a bit black around the edges!  Nothing was stuck or tasted burnt, though.  Probably 4-5 hours would have done it, and stirring in the middle might not have been a bad idea either, but it was fine in the end.

The flavour was not quite as creamy as the chicken makhani I remember, but had the right amount of spice and sweetness (helped by the root vegetables) and was still quite rich.  If I'd had the yoghurt on hand recommended by the recipes I (sort of) followed, that might have added to the creaminess; if I'd had any fresh coriander left, I would have chopped that and stirred it through at the end.  The flavour of cardamom -- a key element in makhani as I know it -- was distinct, possibly a bit too much so; I'd probably reduce the number of cardamom pods for next time.  Overall though, it was plenty tasty nonetheless!

I say eggplant, you say aubergine, let's just call it delicious

When I first moved to the UK, I would always get blank looks because I talked about eggplants, zucchini and capsicums rather than aubergines, courgettes and peppers.  Eggplant/aubergine has been one of my most beloved vegetables for a long time, particularly cooked Chinese-style so that it becomes soft and luscious and absorbs all the flavours of the sauce.  One Melbourne restaurant, the name of which I've unfortunately forgotten, served the most wonderful claypot dish with tofu & eggplant in a black bean and chilli sauce.  Another perennial favourite is Sichuan-style aubergine, either the fish-flavour sort (often with minced pork, sometimes also with salt fish though not necessarily) or the kind with a sweet, spicy orange sauce and fresh chopped chillies.  The latter is something I've found mainly in Manchester Chinese restaurants and may not be at all authentic, but it is certainly tasty!

Fish-flavour eggplant is an authentic Sichuan cooking style, though, and I sampled several excellent versions on my first trip to China in 2006.  I also struggled valiantly to learn the name of the dish in Chinese: eggplant is qie zi, which combines two subtly different versions of the hard sibilant sound (variants of which are transliterated q/z/j/ts/hs/x and none of which I can really tell apart) and is thus very difficult for me to pronounce let alone remember!  Nonetheless, with the promise of deliciousness to be had if I could just work out how to order it, I tried very hard, and eventually succeeded well enough to get fish-flavour eggplant in almost every restaurant we visited.

When I returned to England after my travels, I had to satisfy that craving somehow.  I went round the corner to one of our many nearby Chinese restaurants and, although it wasn't on the menu, asked if they could make fish-flavour eggplant.  I received a blank look from the waiter in return and, figuring he might not have understood what I was asking for, decided to put my new vocabulary into practice -- except that I couldn't remember the word!  "Jie-qi?  Xie-zhi?  Zhuang-hsie?"  The waiter just looked more and more confused.  Finally it dawned on me: "Aubergine?"  Comprehension blossomed on his face and he went off to place my order; I'd been trying to hurdle the wrong language barrier.

This recipe for fish-flavoured aubergine comes out just as tasty as the dish I (finally) managed to order at Happy Seasons, and almost as good as the ones in Beijing.  The texture is only very slightly compromised by steaming the eggplant rather than deep-frying it; if you wanted to recreate a version closer to the restaurant-style then deep-frying would probably work too, but I'm too scared to try it given the legendary oil-absorbing properties of the vegetable...

This is based on a recipe from Lizzie Eats London; I reverted to the original minced pork, as I was feeding carnivores; increased the sauce quantities by half (I like sauce!) and changed the method to steam rather than shallow-fry, as I don't think it makes any difference to the taste.

2 large eggplant/aubergine
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2-inch piece ginger, finely shredded
100g minced pork (optional)
40ml chilli bean paste
2 tsp roasted Sichuan peppercorns, crushed
1 tsp light soy sauce
2 tsp dark soy sauce
3 tbs shaoxing (jiaoqing? zhaohsing?) cooking wine
4 tbs chinkiang vinegar
1 tbs sugar
2 tsp cornflour, mixed in a little water
1-2 red chillies, sliced (optional)
2-3 spring onions, finely sliced
dash sesame oil

Cut the eggplant into thick fingers or chunks, place on a covered plate and microwave for 6-8 minutes or until partly softened.  Mix the soy sauces, wine, vinegar and sugar together.  Heat a bit of oil in a wok and stir-fry the garlic and ginger until fragrant.  Add the minced pork and continue to stir-fry until beginning to brown; add chilli paste and Sichuan peppercorns and mix in.  Add eggplant pieces and sauce mixture, toss everything together, cover and let everything simmer for about 5-10 minutes until eggplant is fully softened and sauce is slightly reduced.  In the last couple of minutes of cooking, throw in chopped chillies; add cornflour mixture and boil for a minute until sauce is thickened.  Toss in spring onions and sesame oil.

Makes one restaurant-sized serving -- plenty for five when I made it along with a few other dishes a couple of weekends ago...

A post about soup

For her Christmas party last year, my friend Rachel made the most amazing caramelized onion, thyme and goat's cheese tart.  (But wait! you say, isn't this post about soup?  Yes it is.  Be patient.)  The pastry was rich, crisp and flaky, the goat's cheese the perfect balance of creamy and tangy and the thyme fragrant -- but it was the onions that were the absolute star of the show.  I was fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate, enough to be present in the kitchen as, for an entire hour, they caramelized ever-so-slowly on the stove, turning meltingly sweet and golden in a buttery glaze and releasing the most divine aroma whenever the lid was lifted on the pot.  I say unfortunate because being tantalised by this mouthwatering, heavenly scent, while simultaneously having to resist the temptation to dip a spoon in and just eat the lot, was a form of exquisite torture!

I don't, sadly, have the recipe for this incredible tart.  (Though I am hoping to cajole Rachel into giving it to me at some point; stay tuned...)  And that is why this is a post about soup.

When Lee requested tomato soup from scratch (rather than the usual Heinz classic) for dinner one night, a couple of months ago, I had to think about how I was going to make something that would taste like more than watered-down pasta sauce.  I knew it had to be savoury and aromatic with a sweetness more complex than that produced just by adding sugar -- and my mind jumped, unbidden, back to the intense olfactory memory of those delectable caramelized onions: deliciously buttery, rich and sweet.

I had onions in the pantry and carrots and celery in the crisper, as is usual whenever the kitchen is active (i.e., not in Mother Hubbard mode); canned tomatoes in the cupboard; and an array of flavourings and seasonings to hand.  I caramelized all the vegetables, resulting in added sweetness from the carrot as well as onion, cooked everything slowly to develop a rich flavour, and used some extra touches at the end to zing it up a bit.  The result?  Eminently satisfying.

Lee wanted tomato soup again tonight, so I took this opportunity to recreate the recipe and blog about it...

(yes, my spoon says SPOON.  Just in case you were having difficulty figuring out what it was.)

Rich Tomato Soup
1 tbs butter
2 medium red onions, finely chopped
2 medium carrots, finely chopped
1-2 sticks celery, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2-1 cup red cabbage, shredded (I forgot, this time around, that I used this initially -- soup still tasted good, but the cabbage did add an extra sweetness and also intensified the colour)
1/4 cup white wine (or 2 tbs sherry -- I am out of sherry at the moment)
2 tbs balsamic vinegar
2 cans (440g each) chopped tomatoes
1 can water
2 stock cubes + 2 tsp vegie spice (or use all one sort)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Optional flavourings:
grated zest of 1/2 a lemon or lime
squeeze lemon/lime juice
1-2 tbs brandy or other spirit (+/- a dash extra to serve)
dash Tabasco
sprinkle of chopped coriander

Melt butter in a (preferably non-stick) saucepan over medium low heat; add onions, stir and leave to cook, covered, for about 5 min; add carrot, cook another 5 min; add celery and cabbage (if using) and continue to cook, covered, until vegetables begin to caramelize, another 10 min or so -- they will smell sweet, start to turn golden-brown and try to stick just a bit to the bottom of the pan.  Add the garlic and let caramelization continue for about 5-10 min longer (if mixture is quite sticky then stir frequently; burnt garlic is never a good flavour!).

Splosh in the white wine or sherry and the vinegar and inhale the delicious smell rising from the pan.  Add the tomatoes; dissolve the stock cubes/powder in hot water in the can, to rinse, and add to pan.  Bring to a simmer for about 10 minutes to allow flavours to meld, then whiz gently with a stick blender (did I mention how much I love my hand blender?) until desired consistency -- I like mine without obvious pieces of vegetable remaining, but not completely homogeneous.  Season with salt and black pepper to taste.

At this stage you can add the optional extra flavourings (highly recommended).  The first time I used a bit of lime zest and juice stirred in at the end, and a dash of brandy in each bowl before serving up.  The alcohol helps release the flavour in organic compounds, enhancing the richness and complexity of the soup -- well, that's the theory, anyway.  My philosophy has always been that if you are generous with the drinks, guests never seem to complain about the quality of the food...

Today I was out of brandy (oops) and I wasn't sure whether Lee would approve of gin as a substitute (we are also out of vodka.  It's been a tough couple of months) so I did two serving variations: Lee got a tiny bit of butter swirled into the soup to melt (to carry the fat-soluble flavours and enhance richness), and I tried out the gin option myself.  I also used lemon zest and juice instead of lime (I do have a lime in the fridge, I just thought I'd do something different) and garnished both our bowls with a few coriander leaves.  If I'd been braver (read: more certain it would work well) I would have sprinkled chopped coriander over the top -- it did work, as it turns out!  And the gin was a success too (*hic*): I like my Bloody Marys made with gin, and the subtle juniper flavour also worked well here.  Next time I'll be interested to Margaritise the recipe with tequila, lime and extra black pepper -- I bet the coriander would complement those flavours perfectly!

I don't know about the butter as I didn't try Lee's bowl, but there were no complaints.  (And I didn't give him anything to drink, either.)