Modern Times Archives - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Modern Times

13
Oct
2024

Girl Dinner

categories: Cooking The Books, Eating Alone, Modern Times

Hello Friends and welcome to Cooking The Books! Each year I try to think of something new to do here to keep both you and me interested! The pandemic brought the idea to cook my way through all the novels of Agatha Christie, my ever-expanding magazine collection brought us my 20 Years Ago Today Posts. My obsession with both old and new cookbooks has now spawned Cooking the Books. This might be a review of something new and exciting in my collection. Or something old and exciting in my collection. Basically, it’s an opportunity for me to cook from some books that otherwise would be languishing on my bookshelves. And that’s no way to treat a cookbook!

Girl Dinner: The Book

Girl Dinner is a new addition to my collection and it is a super fun book! For those of you not familiar with the concept of Girl Dinner, author Jamison Diaz-Imlah explains the concept as follows:

“Girl dinner is a simple meal made by arranging ingredients that are readily available in the store or kitchen pantry. It started on TikTok when a user named Olivia Maher responded to a video mocking medieval peasants who had to eat bread and cheese for dinner. Olivia’s response was simple – “But that’s my dinner!”- and the girl dinner was born”

Friday night has long been my Girl Dinner night – it is ususally something snacky, nearly always includes cheese and is just fun quick food!

Above all for me, this book was fun! The recipes aren’t going to win any awards for ingenuity. This is not Heston inspired food. But it is simple food, beautifully presented and let’s face it, we’re probably far more likely to cook from this book rather than a modernist creation on a busy weeknight! Recipes include a Smoked salmon bagel, a croque madame and a Boursin and potato omelette. But, they are given fun and witty names – Holey Art Thou, Broke Madame and Sometimes You Get The Bear respectively. These really tickled by love of puns! My favourite name was “All I care about is pasta and like three people”. Swap out pasta for cheese and that is me in ten words!

Girl Dinner also contains some great ideas for eating for one. I feel this is an area where people may tend to skimp on presentation or care for ingredients. This book acts as a little form of self love in showing that food for one can look beautiful as well as being quick to prepare and mostly healthy!

I would say, for me, the only drawback to Girl Dinner is that some people may not be able to access some of the exact things that the authors suggest you use as your hack ingredients. For example, are Greek meatballs and caulilfower gnocchi available everywhere? I don’t know, I’ve never bought a ready made meatball and I don’t like gnocchi. Having sald that, I’m sure some type of meatball or gnocchi will be available if not specifically Greek and cauliflower. Or you could make your own. Or skip that recipe. Theres a lot to choose from!

Girl Dinner: The Look

One word: Gorgeous!

But here’s a few more: Beautiful Food, presented and photographed beautifully. Here are a few examples:

Can you believe this spectacular salad takes only 10 minutes to make?

Here is a Turkey and Brie Melt AKA Living for Leftovers

These Greek Meatballs (Sunday Kind of Love in Girl Dinner language) are high on my list of things to make:

Girl Dinner is fun and vibrant – the authors talk about combining simplicity with style and this is exactly what you get!

Girl Dinner – The Cook

I’ve made three things from Girl Dinner thus far. Above you can see Holey Art Thou and Sometimes You Get The Bear. The third thing I made was a Whipped Feta which is called Everyone’s Doing It.

I made the most amazing girl dinner, using the Whipped Feta in two different ways. The first was as a base for a Greek inspired salad (pictured above).

I simply spread some of the whipped feta on a plate, and added chopped tomatoes, cucumber, kalamata olives and red onion. I usually have dill on my Greek Salad but I didn’t have any so I added some mint from the garden instead. This was delicious. So fresh and so easy to do! This with some bread would be a perfect lunch for me! I could also eat Greek Salad everry day. I absolultey love it and this was an interesting play on a classic.

As I was having this for dinner, I wanted something a bit more substantial. So I also added my take on Prawn Saganaki. Again, I used the whipped feta as a base, swirled in some tomato paste, some roasted and roughtly ground fennel seeds, some prawns, chilli flakes and some chopped tomato and red onion. Ten to fifteen minutes in the oven and voila!

This was so good. I loved the little kick of pickle brine in there! It was also great both hot and cold! Here’s the recipe:

All in all, for me? Girl Dinner = Girl Winner!!!!

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Girl Dinner from the publishers (Thank you so much). Regardless of this, the thoughts and opinions above are entirely my own.

Have a great week!

07
Aug
2022

Fish with with Mulligatawny Flavours

categories: Curry, Daily News, Fish, Modern Times, Sri Lanka

The Daily News Cookery Book is a stalwart of Sri Lankan Cooking, first published in 1929. My mum was given a copy as a wedding present which we still have and I have a copy of the 2013 edition which seems to be a paperback copy of the 1964 edition without the vintage ads but with all the quirkiness. This quirkiness oftentimes means it is not the easiest book to cook from. The methods of cooking can seem outdated, the measurements can be odd. So, I often use it more as an inspiration rather than something to follow exactly. This is how my dish of Fish with Mulligatawny Flavours came about. It was so tasty and delicious that I wanted to share it – and after all, it is truly revamping a retro dish for modern times!

So, I hear you ask, why not just make this as a mulligatawny? I had some really nice roti and I wanted to dip that bread into something thicker than a soup. A curry gravy seemed like the perfect thing. So, why not just call it a fish curry? I wanted to recognise the OG recipe which was for a fish mulligatawny. There are also some very non-traditional ingredients here – for instance, you would never see Thai Basil in a traditional Sri Lankan curry. However, I love its flavour, particularly with fish! Roti is also not a traditional accompaniment for Sri Lankan food – we do have a coconut roti but this is not the flaky type of bread I am referring to here.

Fish With Mulligatawny Flavours – The Recipes

And now here is the OG recipe. You can, of course, choose to make this version if you wish. Please let me know how it turns out if you do! If not keep reading for my version!

Fish with with Mulligatawny Flavours

Print Recipe

A modern take on a vintage recipe for Fish Mulligatawny

Author: Taryn Nicole

Ingredients

Scale

4 red onions, 2 sliced, 2 chopped finely
1 sprig of curry leaves (about 20 leaves)
2 tbsp ghee or coconut oil, split
*450g-600g fish fillets (I used Rockling) but any white fish would work.
1 270ml can of coconut milk
200g vegetable stock
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp fenugreek powder
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tsp ginger, grated
2cm stick of cinnamon
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 10cm stick of celery cut in 4 pieces
150g of green beans, chopped (optional)
Salt

To Serve:

Lime cheeks
Thai basil or Coriander
Roti or Rice

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Heat half the ghee or coconut oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.
Add the sliced onions, half the curry leaves and a pinch of salt.
Drop the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally until the onions are a deep brown. Take your time with this, it took me 20 minutes to get the onions as dark as I wanted them. Remove these from the pan and set aside.

Wipe the pan and add the rest of the coconut oil / ghee.
Once this is melted turn down the heat and add the chopped onions, the rest of the curry leaves, the coriander, cumin, turmeric, fenugreek, cinnamon, garlic, ginger and celery.
Cook stirring often until the spices are fragrant and the onions are softened.
Add the stock and coconut milk. Cook this mixture down until the gravy reaches the consistency of thickened cream.
Add the beans, if you are using them, to the pan.
Sprinkle your fish fillets with salt and add to the pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of your fish. When you turn the fish over, add the chopped tomatoes.
Check for taste – add more salt and or a squeeze of lime to balance out the flavours.
Remove the cinnamon stick and the pieces of celery.**

To Serve

Place a fillet of fish on each place, spoon over the gravy and top each piece of fish with the reserved onion and curry leaf mix.
Garnish with coriander, Thai basil and lime wedges
Serve with rice and/or flaky roti to soak up that lovely gravy.

Enjoy!

Notes

*I had 450g of fish which was three fillets however there was a lot of gravy so you could easily add another fillet in for this same quantity.

** I do not like the texture of cooked celery so I like to remove it before serving. If you are happy to eat it, chop the celery into smaller slices, as you would when making a soup and leave it in.

This is a lovely gently spiced delicate dish – the perfect response to anyone who thinks that all Sri Lankan food is blow your head off hot!

I also found myself eating the leftover gravy with more of that roti the following day and it was also delicious!

I hope you have enjoyed my updating of this old recipe!

Have a great week!

14
Mar
2022

Vegeree

categories: Books, Film, Modern Times, Podcasts, Rice, Vegetarian

Hello friends and welcome to the best of February! The nicest thing I made this month was a vegetarian kedgeree (vegeree geddit) from Jamie Oliver. This recipe is from his Everyday Superfoods book and it is a belter! Kedgeree is a dish of spiced rice, usually made with smoked fish which grew to prominence in Colonial India. Traditionally, Kedgeree is a breakfast dish but I had mine for dinner. And as much as I love a bit of smoked fish, this was so delicious I am not sure if I will even bother to try the classic version after eating this one!

This is a dish to eat with your eyes before shovelling it down. It is so pretty and bright. I can see why it became popular for breakfast – those bright reds and greens and yellows would put a smile even on my totally-not-a-morning-person face. I used normal basmati rice, not brown and beans not peas for my vegeree.

Vegeree – The Recipe

I apologise for the state of this page. It is more than somewhat food splattered!!! (but the sign of a good recipe I always think).

Other Favourites of The Month

Reading

The Best book I read this month was Fuzz: When Nature Breaks The Law by Mary Roach. I loved learning about the different interactions between humans and animals. Not as fun but also fascinating is the book I am partway through – Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists. As someone who mostly reads fiction, it was good to have two non-fiction recommendations this week!

Cookbook

Our theme for our Tasty Reads Cookbook Club this month is Charity Shop book and we spent a lovely Saturday morning having brunch and then shopping for our books. I bought three books during our shopping which was quite the haul. The one I am cooking from is a massive tome called Australia’s Favourite Recipes. From the photography in the book, I initially thought it was from the 1970s or 80s but I later found out it was published in 2010! Unfortunately, I am somewhat regretting my choice – not because of the dated photos but the book is so tall that it does not fit into any of my bookshelves!

I was intrigued to find within its pages a recipe for a chicken dish called Shakuti. This is possibly a recipe for the Chicken Xacuti mentioned in the Tim Key episode of the Off-Menu Podcast. I had never heard of this curry before. And now I have a recipe! The Baader-Meinhof effect at work!

Watching

We saw Death on The Nile which I LOVED. The scenery was spectacular and made me want to go to Egypt to see the sights myself. The Dining with the Dame for this will be later this year.

Listening

I’ve started listening to the Twin Flames podcast and am very much enjoying the current series of Rabbits. The Rabbits novel is also great! I’m devastated that the shipping for Path Cards outside the US is so expensive. I would buy a pack for sure if it was anywhere near reasonable!

Moving

Along with my beloved Zumba classes, I am now doing Sh’bam classes at the local gym and LOVING them! I love an exercise class where it feels more like fun than hard work and this certainly fits the bill! Looking forward to shifting some of those covid kilos through dance!

Tomorrow is a public holiday here to celebrate Labour Day. I will be celebrating the introduction of the 8-hour workday with a sleep in, a trip to the gym and some baking which hopefully will feature here shortly!

Have a wonderful week!

26
Jan
2021

LMNOP Salad

categories: Modern Times, Salad

Hello Friends! After the disaster which was the Pink Dawn Salad, today I am sharing a recipe for my LMNOP salad. This is not only one of my favourite summer dinners but it is also a mnemonic which will help you to make a huge variety of other great salads!

Ever stood at the supermarket wondering if you had picked up everything you needed for your salad? Or come home to realise you had forgotten a key ingredient? ‘Well, with this LMNOP salad you will never forget a single ingredient because the keys to building a great salad are as easy as ABC!

Let’s start at the very beginning – it is, after all, a very good place to start.

L is for Lettuce

In this instance, I have used cos (romaine for my American friends) but this works as well with mesclun, watercress, rocket…whatever salad green you favour!

M is for Mozzarella

Mmmmmm…I am currently OBSESSED with buffalo mozzarella and am eating it a couple of times a week! Burrata is also divine with this. But for our memory device, you can sub in any cheese you wish.

N is for Nectarines

But feel free to swap in your favourite stone fruit fo the Peaches or apricots will work here and see below as to some other fruit suggestions…

O is for Olive Oil…

And in this instance a little bit of red wine vinegar. In our mnemonic, the O equals the dressing we are going to place on our salad.

P is for Proscuitto

In this salad but for our wider application it can also stand for Protein.

Applications of the LMNOP formula

Okay, so you have seen how to make the OG version of the LMNOP salad – here are some ideas of how you can apply the formula to mix things up!

Rocket (Arugula) + Blue Cheese + Pears + Walnut Oil Vinaigrette+ Bresaola
Mixed leaves + Haloumi + Cherries + Lemon and Olive Oil + Turkey
Watercress + Vintage Cheddar + Apples + Vinagrette with mint + left over roast lamb
Cos Lettuce + Feta + Strawberries + Lemon + olive oil + Salmon
Cos + Parmesan +Apples + a creamy dressing + bacon will give you a kind of Ceasar Salad
Kale and goat’s cheese and apricots and olive oil and vinegar + chicken

Of course you can add more veggies or fruit if you wish. The photo below is the turkey and halloumi salad mentioned above with some grilled snap peas added.

The brilliance of this recipe is that it is so versatile that you could serve it you your friends or family every day for a week and no one will ever know that you are using a formula. Tasty, healthy, easy and you will never forget an ingredient again!

Enjoy and please let me know what creations you come up with using the LMNOP formula!

Have a great week!

21
Jan
2019

Lebanese Lamb Pizza

categories: Lamb, Lebanon, Modern Times, Pizza

My modern take on Lebanese food consists of what is probably my favourite fast food – pizza! The name for these pizzas in Lebanese is “lahembajin” which means “meat on dough”. Hmmm… what was I saying just last week about the wonderful poetic names for food in the Middle East? Never mind the pragmatic name though, this Lebanese Lamb pizza is delicious!

This Lebanese Lamb Pizza has some differences to the traditional Italian pizza.

First, the base is either pita or, to be more authentic Lebanese flatbread. There is also no cheese although you can top it with a dollop of labne just before serving.

The meat to base ratio is much higher than your typical Italian pizza, making the Lebanese Lamb Pizza more like a Meatzza!

The topping is minced lamb cooked with pomegranate molasses, onions and spices like cinnamon and allspice. Once cooked, the pizza is topped with toasted pine nuts, labne, herbs, chilli and another hit of pomegranate molasses. My recipe was a slight variation in the one below from the book Arabesque by Greg and Lucy Malouf.

My variations to their Lebanese Lamb were:

To use pita bread as my pizza base
I topped my pizza with labne (made by straining a dollop of yoghurt for about an hour)
I garnished my pizza with fresh coriander and chilli and another drizzle of pomegranate molasses

Now, please excuse me, I have more eating to do!

Have a wonderful week!