kitchendecanted

You know that mood when you can’t quite place what it is you fancy eating but you know the perfect snack is out there?  It usually means I end up opening and closing the fridge a dozen times as if the answer will suddenly appear, tucked forgotten in the corner wrapped in paper.  Inevitably I’ll end up grabbing something that doesn’t really hit the spot and grumble ‘that wasn’t what I wanted at all!’.  The other day though was one of those times when inspiration struck and the solution was perfect;

Mushrooms on toast.

It’s the perfect snack; cheap, simple and quick to make and utterly delicious.

The Means

1. Mushrooms – I usually go for the big flat field mushrooms for this. 
2. Bread – I like sourdough or something wholemeal with loads of seeds.
3. Extra virgin olive oil
4. Butter – just a little
5. Parsley
6. Garlic
7. Lemon – optional

The Method

1. Heat up the oven (about 200°C/ gas mark 6 will do it) and put the mushrooms on a baking tray.
2. Put a wee bit of butter in each mushroom with some garlic (either microplaned or finely chopped).  Drizzle some oil over.
3. Bung in the oven for about 10-15 minutes.  They go nice and dark the smell will be great!
4. Chop up the parsley and mix it with a squeeze of lemon juice.
5. Put your toast on just before the mushrooms are done.
6. Put the cooked mushrooms on the toast, spoon over a bit of parsley and lemon and then scoff the lot.

I know, I know, it’s hardly haute cuisine but it’s damn tasty and really easy.  They’re fantastic as a snack, a light dinner or a side for the barbecue.  They can also be done them as a starter but take it easy with the portions or their won’t be….mushroom for anything else…..no?.....ok, I’ll get my coat.

It’s a grey day in Sydney folks.  A chilly twenty degrees (as a man born and bred in Edinburgh I never thought I’d make that statement), lots of low cloud and the threat of rain.  Perfect.

Perfect?  Let me clarify; I left the UK to get away from the endless grey, but there must be something genetic in me that requires it every so often.  Growing up in Scotland instilled in me an almost panic like response to sunshine ‘Quick!  Sun!  Let’s get out there and use it’.  I brought this to Sydney with me where the frequency of the sunshine means it’s hard to take it easy sometimes.  So a grey day is the perfect excuse to do nothing.  Kick back, watch a movie and, of course, plan an evening meal.

The greyness of the day naturally steers my thoughts toward something hearty and warming for dinner.  This is a bit of a novelty after a long summer of salads, seafood and simple light dishes. 

Deciding is half the fun of course, so the cook books come out and the browsing begins.  Nothing is catching my eye though; don’t fancy Indian, don’t want a roast, can’t be bothered with Bolognese (although it’s a close call). 

Then I remember a recipe for Harira Soup in an old edition of Gourmet Traveller Wine magazine and its case closed; a big steaming bowl of spiced lamb with pulses and vegetables, scooped up onto warm chunks of Afghan bread and eaten with generous dollops of tzatziki ticks all the boxes.

It’s one of those dishes that’s a pleasure to spend some time making.  Lots of chopping and measuring and then a satisfying process of combining ingredients as the smell of spices and lamb mingleA.

I’ve altered a few things in the recipe below and it’s a dish that is fairly robust to tinkering.  This makes enough for six hungry people.

The Means

For the soup:

• 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 onions – finely chopped
• 2 celery stalks – de-stringed and finely chopped
• 2 carrots – peeled and finely chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic – can you guess?  That’s right, finely chopped
• 500g leg of lamb cut into 1-2cm chunks. 
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp ground turmeric
• 2 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 or 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp tomato paste
• 1 litre of chicken of veggie stock
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes or 4 or 5 chopped fresh tomatoes
• 1 tin of chickpeas
• 120g lentils – rinsed
• Flat leaf parsley, fresh coriander and a lemon to serve.

For the tzatziki:

• Natural yogurt
• A cucumber
• 1 clove of garlic
• Some salt flakes
• Optional lemon, dill, mint, parsley….anything else you think might work

It looks like a lot, but if you take out the spices it’s just a bit of lamb, some veggies and a tin of chick peas.  Recipes like this, and a dozen others I can think of off the top of my head, are one reason it’s worthwhile to invest in a decent spice cupboard.  Once you have the spices sorted the rest is easy.

The Method

• Heat the oil in a large pan.  Add the onions, celery and carrots and sauté for about 5 minutes until soft.
• Add the garlic and the lamb and sauté for a further 5 minutes until the lamb is browned.
• Add the cumin, turmeric, paprika, cinnamon, bay leaves and tomato paste and stir well, coating the lamb with the soice mixture.
• Add the stock, bring to the boil and then cover and simmer over a low heat.

Let it simmer for about an hour.  When the lamb is tender and cooked it’s done.

• Add the tomatoes, chickpeas and lentils and cook for a further 30 mins.  Add a bit mo re water if it’s getting too thick.

Add the seasoning when it’s done and serve it with chopped parsley and coriander and a lemon quarter.  It’s great with warm fat breads and cool, creamy tzatziki.

To make the tzatziki simply grate the garlic clove into the yogurt, add the chopped chunks of cucumber and some salt.  The other stuff is up to you. 

Wine:

We opened a 2007 House of Straw Shiraz from Piggs Peake in the Hunter Valley with this.  I have a soft spot for Piggs Peake as it was the first place that I ever got to do some barrel tasting.  Luckily they also make cracking wine. 

The House of Straw is a beautiful purple colour and has a nose of blackcurrant and brown sugar with a little bit of liquorice hiding at the back.  The blackcurrant follows through to the palate nicely and there is definitely a bit of stewed plum and rhubarb.  It’s a great bottle for $26.

                 

Click here to download:

Harira_Soup_tag_Recipe_Morocca.zip (5152 KB)

It’s strange that after years of complaining about the bleak, Scottish weather, now that we find ourselves in almost perpetual sunshine, it turns out that I miss the cold.  The clocks have gone back here in Sydney and, whereas back home this would mean markedly darker evenings and thoughts turning to casseroles, clementines and Christmas, on this side of the world it happens in April.  There’s no anticipation of the crunch of frost underfoot or the first flurry of snowflakes.  No digging out the winter woollies and adjusting the central heating timer.  It’s still warm enough to go to the beach but it might be a tad cold in the sea.  This Southern-Hemisphere living takes some getting used to…

To allay the sudden feelings of homesickness brought about by reading Nigel Slater’s excellent  ‘The Kitchen Diaries’, I decide to make a crumble.  The aroma of apples baking under a sweet blanket of sugar, butter and flour can do nothing but alleviate the symptoms and soothe the soul.

The last few times I have made crumble, the filling has been dense and sticky but a little lacking in juices for my liking.  This time I decide to mix in a large handful of the blueberries lying hitherto forgotten in the back of the freezer.  Their deep purple oozings mix rather prettily with the pale apple flesh. I am under strict instructions from Pete to make the crumble extra thick (it’s his favourite part), but you may feel you want more of a dusting than a drift.  Ordinarily I would serve this with a dollop of crème fraîche (a steal at only $15 a tub from David Jones food hall), but I settle for good vanilla ice-cream instead. 

5 Granny Smith apples (or any other apple you fancy)

Generous handful of berries, fresh or frozen (optional)

150g unsalted butter (cold)

1 tsp baking powder

170g plain flour

About 5 dessert spoons of caster sugar (if it’s vanilla sugar then all for the better)

1 dessert spoon brown or Demerara sugar for the top (optional)

Vanilla ice-cream or (wickedly) fresh whipped cream to serve

I peel, core and chop the apples before tossing them in a saucepan with about 40g of the butter, and sprinkle a generous 2 tablespoons of the caster sugar over the top.  I’m miffed that I no longer have a jar of vanilla sugar sitting on my counter; it’s so handy whenever vanilla essence is called for in a recipe.  Get one of those large glass jars with the rubber seal, fill it with caster sugar, fling in a slightly bruised vanilla pod or two and you’re away.  Just keep topping up the sugar as you use it – it only takes a couple of days to infuse.  Oh, and you’ll need to shake it from time to time.

Anyway, I cook down the apples in their buttery juices for about 7 minutes (I like them smooshy in crumble) and then fling in the blueberries and give a gentle stir until all is vibrant.  I tip this into an available deep pie dish and set about making the crumble.  The remaining butter is cubed and added to the flour and baking powder in a bowl and then rubbed lightly between thumb and forefingers to create ‘breadcrumbs’.  I vaguely recall doing this in a food processor and it working equally as well, but today it’s therapeutic to stand massaging the ingredients for a while.  Not to mention the fact that the food processor is still back in the UK.  Three scant tablespoons of caster sugar get mixed into the crumbs and then all gets scattered on top of the filling.  The brown sugar can be added to the top to give a final crust, but sometimes I find that it’s sweet enough already.  It’s all a matter of taste.  Bake in the oven at 190 C for about 35 minutes.  The result?  Comfort food extraordinaire! 

           

Click here to download:

Apple_Crumble_and_Thoughts_of_.zip (3494 KB)