hidden fruit and fibre

A major preoccupation in our kitchen of late has been to think of foods that our bub will eat more than a mouthful of. Now that he is so much more interested in scooting around the place than eating, mealtimes have become a little more trying and we’ve been grasping for ideas to ensure that there are as many good calories and nutrients as possible in every morsel.

So this week we tried pikelets: small enough for little hands, soft enough to chew with just a few teeth, and sneakily filled with fruit and wholemeal flour. As an added advantage, I rather liked them myself as a quick snack. I made some for morning tea with friends and their little ones, and while I should report that my own son didn’t express much enthusiasm for the pikelets, a couple of the other babies did, which was encouraging.

In the meantime, I think I’ll continue to enjoy these pikelets, and I am happy to say they revived quite well as grown up afternoon tea leftovers, pictured below, especially with a scraping of butter on top.

Wholemeal banana and apple pikelets

2 eggs
3 tbsp sugar
1 cup each of white and wholemeal self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 3/4 cups milk
1 very ripe banana, mashed
1 red apple, peeled and grated

In a food processor, beat together the eggs and sugar till well mixed. Then add all the other ingredients, except the fruit, and process well.

Stir the fruit into the batter to incorporate.

Fry in a non-stick pan with a little butter, and keep warm in the oven till you are ready to eat. Good as is or served with extra butter.

Yield: about 28 8cm-sized rounds

 

try these bombs

The next thing of note from the past few weeks’ cooking experiments is in fact a milestone: my first happy encounter with reshaped tofu (which - however much I love tofu itself - is usually not my scene).

When I first read Cindy’s post on soy bombs, I was intrigued, but suspicious. The idea of fried ‘bombs’ reminded me of some dubious-looking potato and chicken bombs we used to get at a corner chicken shop, made of - you guessed it - mashed potato and bits of barbequed chicken, moulded into a tennis-sized ball, rolled in breadcrumbs and deep fried. This fashioning of potato and chicken into a bomb was, I’m sure, a tactic to disguise some culinary shortcoming or other in crumbed, deep-fried goodness.

Despite this memory, I started to think how good it would be to have soy bombs in my life, as a snack, burger filling, alongside salad, and made with the virtuousness of tofu: so one day we just gave these a go. Hooray - these needn’t be doubted at all, as they are tasty, relatively straightforward and totally versatile.

I won’t repeat the recipe here, as I pretty much followed the directions in Cindy’s post (as Cindy helpfully points out, it looks like the original recipe itself has a bit of lineage: for all this I am a grateful beneficiary and claim no credit). However, as my mixture still turned out a bit crumbly, I was fearful that the delicate bombs might not hold up to any frying action (let alone being rolled in flour). So, I added an egg, omitted the flour, and sprayed them with a bit of cooking spray and baked them in a hot oven for about 20-25 minutes, turning just once. And they came out great. We enjoyed them first with some sweet chilli sauce and salad in a wrap. Yum, and the leftovers were just as tasty. Worth a try, you sceptics!

 

Dhal and some trimmings

Unfortunately, my post-markets exuberance from a few weeks back didn’t really translate into the wealth of bloggable recipes that I’d hoped, mainly because I feel like we’ve been a bit snowed in, so to speak, with winter maladies and discomforts and other boring distractions. But now, revived by a break away from our everyday, I feel like I can share some of the highlights of the past few weeks’ eating and cooking.

First, this recipe which a friend pointed me to, that ingeniously adds baby spinach to a tomato-based red lentil dhal. Tasty, colourful and super healthy.

Less healthy, and probably as inauthentically Indian as stirring in spinach leaves into a dhal, is the notion of marinating haloumi to have on the side. But cast aside your scorn and scepticism: it’s great. It would probably work with the more authentic paneer if you have access to the top-notch fresh variety (or have made some yourself), but if you’re tossing up between supermarket paneer or supermarket haloumi, I say go for the latter, as the dense saltiness really works here.

Spinach and tomato dhal with spiced haloumi
Adapted from Delicious

1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
4cm piece fresh ginger, grated
1 tsp ground turmeric
200g red lentils, rinsed and drained
400g tin of chopped tomatoes
2 cups light vegetable stock or water
1 tbsp garam masala
150g baby spinach, washed
1 packet of haloumi
1 tsp curry powder

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 3-4 mnutes until softened. Stir in the garlic and 3/4 of the grated ginger and cook for another minute until fragrant. Add turmeric and lentils, tomatoes and 300mL of the stock or water. Bring to the boil, and simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the remaining stock or water, and simmer on low heat until the lentils are tender.

Meanwhile, cut the haloumi into 5mm thick strips, and place into a bowl with the remaining grated ginger and the curry powder. Stir well to coat the haloumi in the paste.

When ready to serve, add the garam masala, baby spinach and a pinch of salt to the dhal. Stir well, take off the heat and leave covered for 2 minutes to wilt the spinach. While the spinach is wilting, dry fry the haloumi strips in a hot non-stick frying pan until brown on all sides.

Serve the dhal with some basmati rice and the haloumi strips on top.

Yield: serves 4

 

a vegetable for dessert

I was disorganised for yesterday’s visit to the local weekend produce markets, going with nary a recipe in mind. All I had was random enthusiasm for fruit and vegies. I’m happy to report that this haphazard approach worked just fine, soI think I may need to just relax about the list-based market shopping and go with what is there and looks good.

My friend and I found lots of wonderfully inspiring fruit and veg (which I hope to post about in coming days), enjoyed the gentle morning market buzz, and warmed ourselves with a coffee and freshly made stroopwafel. We each came home with a bunch of gorgeous rhubarb which, apart from having the most gorgeous stalks in the plant world, uniquely gives the opportunity to eat vegetables for dessert!

I couldn’t wait to eat our market rhubarb, so the very same night we poached it with cardamom and mandarin.

It may sound a bit fancy, but rhubarb and mandarins are both in season right now so are good and abundant. This poaching method is great, too, as it softens the rhubarb just enough to eat, but allows the stalks to retain their shape rather than turning into a fibrous mess. I loved the warm flavours of this recipe, and next time I think I’ll throw in a cinnamon stick as well.

Cardamom and mandarin poached rhubarb
Adapted from Australian Gourmet Traveller

1 bunch rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 5cm lengths
1 cup caster sugar
1 mandarin
4 cardamom pods, crushed with the blade of a knife
1 vanilla bean

First prepare the poaching syrup. Cut the mandarin in half and juice it. Place the juice in a medium saucepan. Scrape out the pith and pulp from the mandarin halves and discard, and place the skins in the saucepan. Add the sugar, vanilla, cardamom and 1 1/2 cups water to the saucepan, and bring gently to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Simmer on low heat for 10 minutes.

Remove the cardamom pods and mandarin skins and any pith or pulp. Tip in the rhubarb pieces and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Take off the heat and allow to sit for about 15-20 minutes to soften before serving.

Serve with custard or ice cream.

Yield: serves 4

 

not photogenic

I guess it was probably too much to ask for a dish whose principal qualities are saltiness and blackness to come out nicely in a photo. Despite this, I hope you’ll believe me when I say we were pleasantly surprised by how this stir-fry worked out. For a dish that is usually made with pork spare ribs, I wasn’t entirely sure how this combination of robust vegetables - flat beans and japanese eggplant - coupled with fried tofu, would match the intense earthy saltiness of fermented black beans; but I can recommend it.

This is a dry stir-fry; the sauce is just sticky enough to coat the vegetables but not liquid enough to moisten your rice. Adjust the amount of black beans to your taste: we found 2 tablespoons a bit too much, so I’ll probably halve it next time. Also, I used 2 small red chillies with the seeds removed - next time I’ll keep the seeds in one of them to take the heat up a notch. Hope you enjoy this!

Flat beans and eggplant with salty black beans
Adapted from Delicious

200g fried tofu, cut into squares
250g green flat beans, cut into 5cm pieces
250g japanese eggplant, cut into 1cm thick rounds
1-2 tbsp salted black beans, rinsed well in cold water
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp Chinese rice wine (shaoshing)
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1-2 small red chillies, seeded or not to taste
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp each sesame oil and vegetable oil
1 tbsp light soy sauce

Place the black beans into a bowl and roughly mash them a little with a fork. Add in the sugar, rice wine, chilli, ginger, garlic and oyster sauce. Stir to combine.

Heat the oils on medium-high heat in a wok. Add the eggplant, and stir fry till softening and just browned - this will take a few minutes. Add the beans and stir fry for a further couple of minutes. When the beans are almost cooked, add the tofu and the soy sauce. Stir fry again for a minute. Then, stirring continuously, add the black bean mixture and cook for a further 2 minutes, until everything is well coated and the vegetables are just cooked through.

Serve immediately with steamed rice.

Yield: serves 3-4

 

under the weather

Well, for a couple of weeks now we’ve all been a bit under the weather with an assortment of maladies. ‘Tis the season for it, I guess. In case anyone else might be feeling the same way, I can recommend a bit of honey, lemon and ginger tea. It probably would be more nutritious if you squeezed the lemon and sliced the ginger freshly for each drink, but if you are at home with the snuffles and all you want to do is stay on the couch in a blanket, I think this syrup is a better investment of your effort, and you will be rewarded with a virtually instant tonic for a couple of days.

Honey, lemon and ginger tea

Juice of 2 lemons
Peelings of 1 lemon
4cm piece of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup raw sugar

Place all ingredients into a small saucepan, stir to dissolve the sugar and gently simmer for about 10 minutes. If you have time, take off the heat and allow to steep for an hour or so. Strain the syrup into a container. Keep covered in the fridge.

To make the tea: place 2 tbsp syrup into a mug and top up with about 200-250mL boiling water. To transform into a warming toddy, add a shot of rum.

Yield: about 1 cup syrup, which makes about 6 mugs of tea.

 

perilous cheese, part II

The last time we had fondue in its original context - that is, in a northern-hemisphere, in winter, in a German family home, amist the general festiveness of Christmastime - we were warned about an unusual danger accompanying this dish. Don’t drink water while you’re eating the meal, they said, or you’ll get a cheese baby. While grotesquely evocative of the sensation of all that molten cheese sitting heavily in one’s belly, we were unsure about whether the warning had any sound basis in science or experience, or whether it was simply an exhortation to drink a more appropriate beverage with the meal, such as wine or schnapps!

And so it was with that warning in our minds that we, cautiously but with anticipation, decided it was high time we attempted to recreate the fondue night in the south. One friend brought the cheeses and her gorgeous orange fondue pot and cuisenaire-coloured forks, others brought the breads and accompaniments. We set the pot on our trusty camping stove, and also made a steaming pot of glühwein (mulled wine) to try to capture some of that wintry christmas-markets kind of cosiness. It was a fun, hands-on meal and everone pitched in.

We haven’t been brave enough to properly test whether the perils of a cheese baby are true. In Germany, we drank wine with the meal out of respect for the wisdom of our northern hosts, and back home, we simply drank glühwein for fun. Cautiously, we had some tepid water after the meal, and I think we all survived. Let me know how you go.

Traditional Cheese Fondue
From Delicious

1 large garlic clove, halved
400mL dry white wine
400g gruyere and Emmental cheeses, coarsely grated
2 tbsp cornflour
1/4 cup kirsch
Your choice of accompaniments

Rub the garlic clove around the inside of the fondue pot (if using), or if not the insude of a heavy based saucepan. Discard the garlic and set aside the fondue pot.

Add wine to a heavy-based saucepan and bring to boil over a high heat. Reduce heat to medium, then add cheese in handfuls, stirring constantly until all the cheese is in and has melted. Don’t worry if at this stage the mixture looks like it has separated. The important thing is to keep stirring so it doesn’t stick, and that the cheese melts evenly.

In a small bowl, mix the kirsch and cornflour until smooth. When all the cheese has melted in the pan, tip in the kirsch mixture and stir through. Take off the heat and keep stirring: the mixture should thicken and become uniformly viscous. Season well with salt and pepper. Pour into the fondue pot (or simply use the same saucepan), and pop on a low heat on your fondue burner on the table.

Here are some suggestions for accompaniments: we had a green salad, a plate of cold cuts, pieces of cucumber and cherry tomato, and diced crusty bread (some sourdough and some baguette). Blanched vegies such as broccoli and cauliflower could be good, as could some steamed potatoes and pickles. Please let me know if you have other good ideas for the accompaniments.

Yield: serves 6 (or less, depending on hunger)

Traditional Glühwein
[It's a bit hard to make out in the photo above, but you might be able to spy one of the little chinese tea cups we served this in as we didn't have the customary small mugs.]

2L dry red wine (we used cask)
1 3/4 cup raw sugar (this is plenty - you could reduce to 1 1/4 cup or to taste)
juice and peelings of 3 lemons
6 cardamom pods
12 cloves
6 bay leaves
6 small cinnamon sticks

Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan and slowly bring up to a gentle simmer. Stir well to dissolve the sugar. Reduce the heat until the wine’s surface is barely moving, and leave on this low heat setting for about an hour. (If you have time, then turn the heat off and leave it to sit for a while - a couple of hours would be good.) If needed, gently return the wine to a warm drinking temperature, and serve out into small cups or mugs.

Yield: serves 6 (or less, depending on what kind of a night you have in mind)

 

perilous cheese, part I

When I saw Cindy’s post on these cheese and rosemary bites, I knew that there was a high likelihood I’d be too weak to withstand their just-one-more allure.

Too right: while clearly not a health food given their melting and crumbly butteriness, they are highly addictive little bites indeed. I can only echo Cindy’s warning - these are dangerous to leave lying around in large numbers. Bake at your own peril! (These are pretty straightforward to make, and I have largely used the original recipe incorporating Cindy’s suggestion to double the sour cream to bind the dough.)

Cheese and rosemary bites
Adapted from Morsels and Musings, via where’s the beef?

1 cup plain flour
100g butter, chopped
60g cheddar cheese, grated (about 1/2 cup)
60g parmesan cheese, grated (about 1/2 cup)
3 tsp each fresh rosemary and chives, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp light sour cream

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line 2 trays with baking paper.

Rub the butter into the flour with your fingers. With a knife, stir through the cheeses, herbs, salt and pepper. Add in the sour cream and work the dough with your hands until it comes together. Shape into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 10-15 minutes.

Roll teaspoonfuls into balls, placing 5cm apart on the trays. Flatten each ball slightly with a fork. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden.

Yield: about 30 small biscuits

 

not a recipe

What to do with half a cauliflower, and an odd amount of left-over dukkah? Inspired by Lucy’s post and recipe for manchurian-style roasted cauliflower, I had a bit of a go at my own cauliflower roast. This, as you’ll see, is not really a recipe, but it was yummy and I heartily recommend it!

Dukkah-roasted cauliflower

Take half a cauliflower cut it into roughly similar-sized florets. Coat in a good splash of olive oil, and about 1/4 cup dukkah. Roast at 200C for 30-40 minutes, turning once, until the cauliflower is cooked and golden brown. Depending on your dukkah, you might need some extra salt to taste. Good on its own, or perhaps as part of a tapas-style spread.

 

comfort from friends

Like many good recipes, this one came to me through friends, and yet for no good reason lay half-forgotten in my still-to-try pile for too long. More’s the pity, since this is a tasty, grown-up’s version of baked beans that goes well with cheese on toast (as we had it here), and fills the house with wonderfully warming, comforting slow-food aromas.

Danny, the recipe’s author, suggests that you could omit the chilli according to taste (I included it and do recommend it), add some mustard powder and a tablespoon of molasses for something closer to boston beans, or even add some bacon or chorizo with the onion and garlic for a meaty version. I also imagine it might partner well with some hearty sausages. But here’s the vege version as we had it, pretty much as I received it way back when.

Danny’s Baked Beans

300g dried Great Northern Beans (or similar dried white bean) (about 2 cups, soaked overnight in cold water, or for 8 hours in boiled water)
450g tin chopped tomatoes
1 onion, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 generous glass red wine
Splash of balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
Good handful fresh rosemary leaves
1 chopped hot chilli

Drain the beans and discard the soaking water. Boil the beans in fresh water until tender (can take up to an hour depending on the beans).

You can do the next steps in a flame-proof casserole dish or in a saucepan and then transfer it into a covered oven-proof dish.

Saute the onions, garlic, rosemary and chilli in the olive oil until onions are translucent. Add the tomatoes, wine and balsamic vinegar. Bring to a simmer. Add the cooked beans, and season well with salt and pepper.

If needed, transfer to an oven-proof dish. Add extra water to ensure that the beans are just covered with liquid. Cover the dish, and bake at 180C for about an hour, or until the beans are very soft and the liquid slightly thickened.

Great with grilled cheese on toast.

Yield: serves 4