Five magic spices

It's been a scorcher of a day and I have had no plans. Gipsy Spread and I have secured these last few weekends in July for ourselves. This has meant that I have had nothing else to think about today other than dinner. This was also a no brainer considering the ingredients in the house. We started with the Gressingham duck legs that Gipsy Spread needed to eat. It might have been a cassoulet, but we only had venison sausages which he wanted to eat seperately. So, tamarind and ginger duck it was for him, accompanied by vegetable noodles.

Sadly the gyoza wrappers had warped in the freezer, so my recipe for these will have to wait for another time, although it's a similar bunch of ingredients and spices.

What you will need
Noodles for 2 (I used wide flat rice noddles I pick up in China Town)
3 cloves garlic
Thumb size piece of ginger
2-3 green chillis (optional)
Soy sauce
Rice wine vinegar (shaoxing is best and can be picked up in china town)
1 aubergine/3-4 baby aubergine
2 leeks
1/2 courgette
1 pepper
1 packet halloumi (optional)
The five spices;
1 star anise
1/2 tea spoon of ground cloves
1 tea spoon of black peppercorn(this is meant to be szechuan pepper)
1/2 tea spoon ground cinnamon
1 tea spoon fennel
Sesame oil (or another)

Firstly, grind all the spices together. I had to grind the star anise, black pepper and fennel together in a pestle and mortar and then added the ready ground cloves and cinnamon I had. The smell is magnificently sweet.

Slice the vegetables, ginger and garlic and add to a tablespoon of oil and saute until, browned, but still crisp. Give the onion, ginger, garlic and aubergine a bit longer.  Add the ground spices and cook for a couple of minutes. Clearly, use or supplement with whichever vegetables you fancy or have in the house.

Whilst this is happening, and if you opted for it, cube half a pack of halloumi and set under the grill to brown, turning as necessary.

Cook the noodles as per pack, just before you want to eat. Then add to the vegetables and spices. Followed by a tablespoon of soy sauce. Be careful with this as you don't want to over salt; although add more if necessary to season the noodles. Add a capful of the shaoxing wine, the chillis and stir the noodles and vegetables together just for a minute, you may need to drizzle over a bit more oil to stop them sticking.

Serve the noodles with the optional halloumi mixed through and some fresh coriander.

 

 

For Gipsy Spread's duck, I scored the duck skin in a criss cross pattern and browned the skin to crisp up. I then mixed a heaped tea spoon of tamarind concentrate with some sliced ginger and a tea spoon of sesame oil and rubbed over the duck. This was then cooked in the oven for 20 minutes at 180 degrees. The duck was faleked through his noddles.

Dahling spinach

This is the easiest spinach dahl recipe in the world. Dahl is a massive staple of mine through the winter months as a healthy, low fat and satisfying work lunch. I could quite happily eat it every day and some weeks in winter I most likely do.

So this is thali dish number two.
 
What you will need
250g split red lentils
2 tea spoons ground coriander
2 tea spoons ground cumin
1 tea spoon chilli powder
1 table spoon of tomato puree
3 dried whole chillies
150g spinach
 
Basically, put everything into your saucepan, season with salt and add double to triple the height of the lentils in the pan worth of water. Cook through over a low to medium heat for about 20-25 minutes. You may need to top up the pan with more water if you want a thinner dahl.

Simples.

Baby spice

Okay, well I keep going on about my perfect Indian thali, so I thought I should most probably kick this off. There are clearly all manner of Indian curries and side dishes that could be included, so I’ll start with one and I can build on that. The Cat, Alice and I were yet again in the Tachbrook market, tempted out of the office by the sun and to the market by the new empanada street food stall. They were sampled on this occasion by Alice and the Cat; I stuck with the falafel due to my fear of the pastry on that day.

At the same place where I bought my lovely yellow tomatoes I bought a bowl of baby aubergines. I have to admit, I’m a sucker for those shops that sell bowls of fruit and veg for £1. I once scored a whole bowl of mangoes, although I did quickly have to make them into mango chutney. Anyway, I digress.

So I came home with a bowl of baby aubergines (sans bowl); in honour of the Cat who can only eat aubergines on a Wednesday night when the Mouse is out, leading his Boy Scout troop (this isn’t a euphemism). He just doesn’t like aubergine.

I decided to make my dry spice stuffed baby aubergines (brinjal bhaji), which is ideally eaten with bread (no sauce for rice you see – unless there is something else saucy in your thali). Instead I opted for my favourite store cupboard ‘easy’ of gram flour pancakes. Yes, less carb and no, I am not fixated with carbs.

What you will need
6 baby aubergines (I have 3 left from my bowl)
2 cloves garlic
Thumb sized piece of ginger
1 onion
Oil
2 tea spoon ground coriander
2 tea spoon ground cumin
1 tea spoon chilli powder
1 tea spoon turmeric
1 tea spoon amchur (ground mango- although you could use dried pomegranate)
1 tea spoon tomato puree
2 fresh chillies

 

Chop the onion, crush the garlic and grate the ginger. Sauté all of this in oil until softened for about 5-10 minutes. Add all the spices and toast just for a minute before removing everything to a bowl. At this point add the fresh chillies, seasoning, tomato puree and more oil (about 2 tablespoons) to bind the spice mixture and create a paste.

Hold the Baby aubergines by the narrow leafy end and score a cross through the bulbous end almost to reach the base, but not quite. Proceed with stuffing the spice paste into the baby aubergine. It doesn’t matter if you over stuff; more is more in this case.

Cook the baby aubergines in a table spoon of hot oil for about 10 minutes until they start to brown and soften. At this point turn down the heat and pour over some water (about 4-5 tablespoons), place a lid on the pan to let the aubergine steam and the water evaporate. They should be ready after five minutes.

If you want to, this can be served with some natural yoghurt and a simple gram flour pancake. For the pancake, make a thin batter with gram flour and water. Mix through some chopped fresh coriander and season. Heat some oil in pan and then add a light coating until cooked on one side, then turn over. Voila – it couldn’t be easier.

Of course, this is just one of the dishes in my thali. I would expect to have a dahl, maybe a chickpea or potato dish, a kuchumber or raita; never mind the muttar paneer (aka cheesy peas) and vegetarian keema. Watch this space.

We'll always be together in electric dreams...

Feeling a little bit tender today after the awesome Human League gig. It was the way I think all gigs should now happen; in Kew Gardens with a blanket, picnic and your own wine, as well as a group of your best chums. A little bit gutted that Blondie had also been on earlier in the month and I’d missed it. Oh well, next time.


So I didn’t really want to mess around and spend ages on dinner tonight. I knew I had some vac packed beetroot in the fridge and some feta and therefore decided to stuff one inside the other and be done with it. Gipsy Spread is currently rolling in meat because of the recent big shop, so he was able to simply place the Waitrose lemon and pepper chicken in the oven to have with it.


What you will need
1 packet of vac packed beetroot (knock yourself out if you do want to cook the fresh stuff)
Lettuce (any will do, I often like spinach leaves)
Feta
Pine nuts
Lemon thyme
Cherry tomatoes
2 slices of bread
Olive oil
Chilli flakes
1 clove garlic

Chicken optional

I sliced my beetroot in half and used a tiny teaspoon to scoop a ball shaped piece of beetroot flesh out of the centre. I stuffed this full of feta.

I stood these up in an oven dish – if you really want them to stand up, you can take a thin slice off the bottom to give you a flat surface. I sprinkled over the lemon thyme, salt and black pepper, as well as a tiny drizzle of oil and a handful of pine nuts and placed in the oven for 20 minutes at 180 degrees.

At the same time I made some croutons with the now going stale ‘holy cow’ sourdough bread. I sliced the bread to be 1 cm thick, removed the crusts and cubed. I chopped the garlic and added it to a tablespoon of olive oil and a teaspoon of chilli flakes. I tossed the cubes of bread around in the oil until they were brown and toasted.

I served the warm beetroot on some leaves with the croutons, some cherry tomatoes and just a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Gipsy Spread, of course had chicken with his.

Spinach cheesecake

We were heading out to Kew Gardens to see the Human League and in the way of civilised drinking on a school night in the outdoors; we decided to take a picnic. Daffydos III was in charge of cheese and port, so I opted to make a spinach and ricotta cheesecake. I could carry this to the event in its own quiche dish and I was hoping it would be relatively easy to carve up and eat. So why is this not a quiche or a soufflé? Well, it’s the base. It is indeed biscuity/cakey. I dug out the box of porridge outs that have been lying in the cupboard for ages (no doubt for a previous flapjack making event) and got creative.

What you will need
120g porridge oats
50g melted butter
2 handfuls of seeds (sunflower, pumpkin or mixed)
50g cheddar
30g parmesan (or another strong hard cheese)
200g wilted spinach
250g of ricotta
2 tea spoons of Dijon or English mustard
Nutmeg
3 eggs

Starting with the base, melt the butter and add to the porridge oats and seeds. Grate in the cheddar to the mix and pat down in your buttered quiche dish or cake tin. Bake this in the oven for 20 minutes at 220 degrees to crisp up the base.

Whilst it is cooking, blend the spinach, ricotta, parmesan, mustard and eggs together with a grating of nutmeg. Season the mix well with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Once the base has crisped up, add the filling and return to the over for a further 30-40 minutes.

I would normally serve this with a salad. It’s a great lunch time or picnic dish as it can be eaten cold, but is also great straight from the oven steaming hot. In winter I might be inclined to serve it with some garlic and herb roasted new potatoes.

We had new potato salad dressed in my leftover rocket and parsley pesto and fresh lemon juice.

Push the envelope

Love, love, loving this weather. It does force you to be more creative with meals. No simply shoving a baked potato in the oven.
 

I was also preparing for a picnic in Kew Gardens tomorrow night so I wanted something relatively simple, but nutritious for dinner. Opening up my fridge door, I saw the vegetables that needed to be used up, which included an aubergine. I could have gone for my usual aubergine parmiagiana, but with the heat, I wanted something a bit more salad-y. So inspiration struck once again and with no need for any excuse for me to chow down on halloumi, I decided to nip, tuck and roll my vegetables. This meal also had the added bonus of allowing me to crack open my Anatolian bottle of pomegranate molasses – woop woop!


What you will need
1 aubergine
1 courgette
A packet of halloumi
Olive oil (chilli oil optional)
Lettuce (any leaves will do)
Pomegranate molasses (balsamic will do)
Lemon
Chilli flakes


I started by slicing both my aubergine and courgette lengthways. I managed to obtain about 7 slices of the aubergine and 5 of the courgette. I salted these a little bit, just to help them start to soften. I then added a tiny brush of chilli oil to one side and griddled for 3-4 minutes until brown and then repeated on the other side. Remember the rule for grilled pans is to oil the food and not the pan. If you don't have a griddle pan, place under the grill until browned each side. Make sure the vegetables are cooked and maleable.


I sliced the halloumi into 8 slices and wrapped four of the slices in aubergine and four in courgette. I then placed under the grill to soften the halloumi and brown the ends poking out either side of each envelope.


Meanwhile I made my dressing. I like to make mine in the old rose’s lime marmalade jar we have. I added 3/4 oil to a 1/4 of the pomegranate molasses, tasted and adjusted to taste. I seasoned and added some dried chilli flakes (to taste) and a squeeze of lemon to cut through the sweetness and shook the whole thing up – make sure you remember the lid!


I set two of the courgette and two of the aubergine halloumi parcels onto a bed of leaves when they were ready and poured over some of the dressing. Some actual pomegranate pearls would have made the whole things look even more beautiful. I garnished mine with fresh lemon thyme and Greek basil.

And yes, you guessed it. Gipsy Spread had his with the never ending Waitrose pulled pork and some of the ‘Holy Cow’ organic loaf we picked up at the weekend.

These parcels would work equally as well served with cous cous, but I opted to remain carb-less, still reeling from my pastry fuelled weekend.

Hot as hell(im)!

Well, after pie gate yesterday (it wasn’t really a 'gate'); I opted for a no carb. salad dinner tonight, in keeping with the hot weather. I had previously knocked up some rocket and parsley pesto from the leaves given to me, again by Mother in law Spread after our last visit. I had frozen some as I had made so much and this was going to be the perfect dressing for my butter beans with grilled halloumi.


What you will need
1 bag/bunch of rocket (about a handful)
A bunch of parsley (about a handful)
2 cloves garlic
1 handful of pine nuts or walnuts
Olive oil
Parmesan (about a handful)
1 tin of butter beans
1 pack of halloumi
Lemon
Fresh basil


Blitz the rocket, parsley, garlic and nuts together (whichever you chose) in a blender. Either add what seems like a handful of parmesan to the blender or grate separately and stir into the blended ingredients. Season the pesto with salt and pepper and add olive oil to bind. You don’t necessarily need that much if you are going to be eating it immediately. I prefer to make it rather than buy it as I don’t need to add so much oil as I’m not preserving it.


Stir as much as you fancy of the pesto through a drained can of butter beans. I just add a squeeze of lemon juice to freshen the whole thing up before topping with three to four slices of oozy, bubbling and brown halloumi. Serve garnished with a sprig of fresh basil.

Gipsy Spread had a great time with his rocket pesto and butter beans salad as he also had Waitrose’ pulled pork. Thanks Ocado for the awesome meat treat for my man. Although, he does very much like the hellim, so I let him have one slice with his pork.


He still has a lot of the pork left, so the challenge of dinners to accompany pulled pork continues. If he's lucky, I might make gyozas this weekend with it. Watch this space.

Here's mud in your eye

Well, a two week heat wave. So I should have clearly been cooking and eating the foods of the hot countries; India, Mexico, Spain, Italy and Turkey, where the ingredients and spices are designed to cool and refresh.


But no, we were in the Home Counties at the weekend and I popped into the Holy Cow in Petersfield to pick up Mother in Law Spread’s seeded loaf and spotted my favourite pies. I have previously made the special trip to Midhurst to pick up the delicious ‘Mud’ pies, but no more, thanks to the Holy Cow. A Holy Cow indeed!


So, it was 27 degrees outside. We’d driven home in the sauna of a car; we had a bottle of fizzy pink prosecco on ice (to toast Murray of course) and I put the pies in the oven to heat through for dinner.


Mine was the deliciously earthy and rich wild mushroom and asparagus pie, with the beautifully short, but naughty crust. Gipsy Spread had a lamb and rosemary pie with the same all encompassing buttery crust.

I expect these Mud pies will find their way to London from Hampshire, but I would most probably rather they didn’t – you know, so I’m not eating a proper pie as frequently. When I make my own, it’s usually with just a pie crust top. Although, my point is that these deliciously organic, homemade type pies are a joy and if I’m going to eat a pie, I do want it to be really good.


So thanks Mud for making my Sunday even better, but I am definitely in need of a run this week, with this hot weather meaning I need to peel off the layers.

You can see where they are sold via their website http://www.mudfoods.com/

The Murray Medley

Wow, so what a scorcher today turned out to be, as well as an exciting finale to Wimbledon.


Gipsy Spread and I were in the home counties this weekend, visiting Mother in law Spread and attending a first birthday party in an eclectic garden. Think, piano outside on patio with flowers growing out of it, a vegetable patch and wild flower conservation area, y'know for the bees. There was also a paddling pool for the children, which made me wonder why there are not paddling pools for adults?


Anyway, after the party we headed back to the cottage, planning on removing back to London. We were all parched from the sun, and as we noted the Wimbledon scores, we settled down to see whether the finale was indeed soon, before heading back to London. I therefore decided to knock up some mocktails for us to help quench our thirst.


I had purchased some cranberry cordial yesterday, which I poured over ice into a jug. I picked some fresh mint from the garden and added several spriggs to the jug, a squeeze of a fresh lemon and some of the lemon zest, then topped this up with fizzy water.

This is what we were all drinking in the final 30 minutes of the most tense sporting event I have witnessed (perhaps this is because I don't generally watch much sport!?). So, I name this very simple, but refreshing mocktail the Murray Medley, in his honour. Cheers Andy!


Now we are back at home, where's the real stuff...?

Crumble with cheddar and herbs

I promised my vegetable crumble recipe the other day, and so I have delivered today. Although, in reality this recipe varies based on the vegetables I have in the house. For example in the winter, it might consist of root vegetables in which case I would make the sauce more stock and gravy-like with sage and rosemary in the crumble. Alternatively, and like today, if I have the more Mediterranean vegetables in the house, I will opt for a tomato based sauce with oregano and basil in the crumble. Basically, the choice is yours.


What you will need

1 aubergine

2 cloves of garlic

A pinch of chilli flakes

1 courgette

2 leeks

1 onion

½ a butternut squash

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

2 table spoons of tomato puree

1 table spoon of chopped capers

2 table spoons of balsamic vinegar

150g plain flour

100g of mature Cheddar

50g of softened butter

1 table spoon of seeds (optional)

Handful of fresh herbs (I opted for oregano, basil and chives)


Chop the onion and garlic and sauté in some oil until softened. Slice the courgette and leek and chop the aubergine and butternut squash into cubes and add to the softened onions and garlic. Soften the vegetables for 5-10 minutes on a low heat before adding the chopped tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, chilli and tomato puree. Add the same amount of water as tomatoes (i.e fill the tin and add to the pan, plus a little bit more). Cook and reduce the vegetables for about 20 minutes. You will want to ensure there is still some sauce for baking. 


In this time you can make your crumble. It is not dissimilar to making a sweet crumble, it’s a similar process of combining flour with butter, but instead of sugar, the other ingredient is cheddar and I add my omega 3 mixed seeds and the chopped herbs. Place all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together using your fingers and thumbs to combine until they look like breadcrumbs.


Transfer the vegetables to a casserole dish and cover with the crumble and bake for 30-40 minutes in a preheated oven at 220 degrees until the crumble has browned and crisped. A word of caution if you don’t plan to bake straight away let the vegetables cool down and put the crumble on just before you bake so that it doesn’t go soggy.
 

As I stated before, this can be made using whatever vegetables you have to hand. The filling can also include green lentils or beans for some added protein.