Vegetables - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Vegetables

26
Jan
2014

Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Rice? (Daring Kitchen Arancini)

categories: Cheese, Daring Kitchen, Italy, Spinach, Tomatoes

Ever made food where just looking at it made you feel happy?

That’s how I felt with the December Daring Kitchen Challenge. Just looking at these golden balls of goodness made me smile.

Yes, I did just say golden balls of goodness, and yes, I did have a little smirk as I did.

Sigh.

I so have the mind of a 12-year-old boy. And you know what? This whole post is full of stuff like that.

So, you know, take a moment….watch this clip from a British tv show called, I kid you not, Golden Balls, which appears to be a game show version of the Prisoner’s dilemma. (Yay, I knew that Philosophy major would come in handy one day! Stay tuned, next week…Baking with Nietzsche…)

Anyway, marvel at the British nuttiness of it all and come back ready to talk about arancini….

Golden Balls

Ok, I’m ready. Arancini.

January’s Daring Cooks’ challenge was a ball! The lovely Manu from Manu’s Menu brought our taste buds to the streets of Sicily and taught us her family tradition of making arancine – filled and fried balls of risotto. Delizioso!

These were super delizioso but believe me, you’re not making them in any sort of hurry. These babies need some time and devotion to the cause.

First you’ve got to make:

The Risotto

I’ll put the full recipe at the end. but this is actually a great risotto recipe.

What you end up with is this. How gorgeous is this bright yellow?

This lovely sunshiney yellow is well on its way to becoming my favourite colour. And mmmmm…butter….

Then you lay it into a tray to cool and then you make…

Golden Balls o’ Sunshine…

And you know what? You could stop right here and crumb these babies and they would be all kinds of delicious. But in the daring kitchen, we’re turning that flavour experience up to 11. Yeah. EL-EV-EN.

Starting With:

The Bechamel

Wow. has there ever been a bigger moment of cognitive dissonance?

Did you all just fist pump the air Eye of the Tiger style and then do a double take?

Bechamel? WTF? BlecHHHHHamel more like. Isn’t that the creepy white sauce that tastes like glue?

Bear with me..this one’s good.

You need to make it quite thick.

And finally:

The Filling

I chose to do a spinach and mozzarella filling. The recipe has a meat ragu version and a cheese version.

I didn’t get a photo of the sauteed spinach.

But it looked like sauteed spinach.

Trust me.

You make a hole in the Risotto ball and add the filling ingredients – sauce, cheese, spinach.

And close.

Word to the wise. Do the sauce first. I’ll show you what happens in a moment if you try to do the sauce last…

One of these things does not quite belong…guess which one of these was the one where I put the sauce in last?

See what I mean about this being a labour of love?

It’s not all over yet folks, now you gotta egg them, crumb them and fry them up.

Bet you’re thinking you can sit down and have a quiet bottle of vino and some valium now aren’t you?

Not so fast, Speedy. These are fabulous and you could quite easily eat them as is. Look at that oozy goodness….

Yep, oozy goodness from my golden balls…don’t roll your eyes…you were warned.

But remember when i said we were taking this up to eleven?

For eleven you need my spicy tomato relish (recipe below)

The arancini have a delightful crunch, then the aromatic risotto and the creamy cheesey garlicy goodness of the filling. The relish brings some heat and some tanginess. And that my friends is the five food groups covered.

Plus it has spinach so it’s good for you.

Like I said. Eleven.

Arancini recipe:

HERE

And just because I love you all, here’s the classic Spinal Tap clip about….

Eleven

Have a fabulous week, And what ever you love doing – this week, take it to eleven!

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17
Dec
2013

Rolling, Rolling Rolling…Stuffed Cabbage Rolls (Daring Kitchen & Spice Peddler recipe)

categories: Big 5 Pepper Steak Rub, Cabbage, Daring Kitchen, Lamb, Spice Peddler

I’ve been doing some wicked multitasking over the last few weeks – moving house has taken up just about all the time, energy, patience and sanity I had left…which, particularly in the case of the last two was not a huge amount to begin with.

So, how to get through the move, life in general, and a couple of cooking challenges for the month? Multitasking is how. November’s Daring Cooks’ Challenge had us on a roll! Olga from http://www.effortnesslessly.blogspot.com/ challenged us to make stuffed cabbage rolls using her Ukrainian heritage to inspire us. Filled with meat, fish or vegetables, flexibility and creativity were the name of the game to get us rolling!

The Spice Peddlers this month sent their Big 5 Pepper Steak Rub which consists of black, green, white, pink, Szechuan and Tasmanian pepper plus cardamom, garlic salt, nutmeg and cloves. This is a delicious blend which should by no means be limited to Pepper Steaks…although, having said that, it would be pretty great used like that.

So, the basic recipe for the cabbage rolls can be found here along with a vegetarian and a fish version which I am just itching to try!

I made some changes to the original recipe. I’m not a huge fan of pork so I used lamb mince as my meat of choice. I also added a teaspoon of the Big 5 Pepper Steak rub into the lamb mixture.

When I made my rolls, I had a quite a bit of the meat mix left so I made up some meatballs and lightly fried them up before adding them to the pan with the rolls. As I was frying them up, I also sprinkled more of the Pepper Mix into the pan so the meatballs picked up the pepper mix and got a kind of crunchy peppery coating on them. Delish!!!

Then into the oven with tomato sauce, another light sprinkle of the Pepper Mix and some salt to finish and a lovely hearty meal was had by all.

Perfect timing too because, whilst Melbourne’s weather cannot compare with the Ukraine, it has been an unusually cold summer and the cabbage rolls and a glass of red were the perfect accompaniment to a chilly night where we had to put the fire on! The warming spices in the Big 5 Pepper Rub were a perfect blend for this hearty and warming dish.

Stufffed Cabbage Rolls — Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

This wasn’t the quickest of things to make as it has many moving parts – pre-cooking the cabbage, and the rice, making the filling and the tomato sauce, then the baking all takes time. However, no single part is difficult and it is delicious and was as good, if not better when re-heated for lunch the following day

Also, I used half the quantity in the given recipe and, as you can see, it made a huge amount….

Meantime, i was inspired by this recipe’s Ukrainian heritage to have a look at some of the great old posters produced in the Eastern bloc…

I think this is the one that insprisred the Franz Ferdinand cd cover:

Last month’s Bloody Mary was kind of a hit so I’m going to be spending the new few days thinking about how I can incorporate the Big 5 Pepper Steak Rub into a cocktail…stay tuned!

Have a great week!

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08
Dec
2013

Artichokes – Delicious Vegetable or WMD?

categories: 1970's food, Artichokes, Lamb, Salad, Walnuts

Artichokes didn’t feature on the menu when I was growing up. I’m also not overly fond of the ones you get in the deli which taste more of the vinegar they come in that anything else. So, I had actually never eaten a fresh artichoke until last year…I‘m not sure what prompted me to buy some because let’s face it, they’re not an attractive proposition.

I don’t mean the way they look, that’s awesome – the amazing colours, the gorgeous mix of purple and green and their sculptural shape…

They are almost like something that should be in should be in a bouquet rather than on your plate and, just to prove that point, here’s one I prepared earlier….

Gorgeous. And functional. If you get a little peckish…pull off a leaf and have a nibble. Win. Win.

So, when I say they are unattractive, what I really mean is that they are hard work.

Imagine trying to explain the artichoke to someone from another planet…

“Well you’ve got to trim off the leaf tops with scissors, then brush them with lemon so they don’t go brown”

Yeah but if you didn’t cut them, you wouldn’t have to…

“Never mind about that. Then you have to scrape out the choke…

Scrape out the what?

“The choke…it’s kind of a hairy bit at the bottom…”

It has a hairy bottom? And you EAT this?

Uh Huh.

Why’s it called a choke?

Not sure but if you don’t remove it all sometimes the fuzz can get caught in your throat and apparently it can be very painful.

Oh my God. This hairy bottom vegetable wants to kill you. You humans are bonkers. Anyone else would run a mile from this thing…There’s no way I”m eating that. Might come in handy as a weapon though…

Ok, so I”ll just dip these deliciious leaves in melted butter and eat them myself shall I?

What?

That’s a traditional way of eating them. You dip them in melted butter and then you drag ’em through your teeth…

Melted butter you say? Ok, I’m in.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/artichokes-parmesan-butter-sauce

Why aren’t more foods dipped in melted butter? As far as I can ascertain the only things that are regularly dipped in butter are artichokes and lobsters both which are pretty good anyway. Why aren’t we doing this with some of the revolting stuff (beetroot springs to mind) to make it taste better? I guarantee more people would like Brussels Sprouts if they came liberally doused in melted butter. Just saying.

Anyway I digress. You know what is also good? Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…but a few more of my favourite things are mayonnaise, lamb and capers.

And all of these delicious things can be found in the Nancy Spain recipe for Water Lily Lamb Salad. And this time, I really did prepare one earlier….

Apart from the cutest name ever, the Water Lily Lamb Salads are pretty damn good and would make a great starter for a springtime lunch. It’s such a lovely way to present the meal as well…albeit, I cooked my artichokes for the full 25 minutes as recommended by Nancy and they kind of fell apart, hence my slightly awry water lillies in the photos! Tasted great though. Still, I’ll cook them a lot less next time. You could sub in chicken for the lamb as an equally deliciious variant. Or an egg salad would be incredible…

And, if you needed any further incentive to eat artichokes, Marilyn Monroe was crowned the Artichoke Queen Of California in 1947. And look where it got her…

No, not dead of a barbiturate overdose at the tender age of 36…wow, you people are cynical…

Marilyn Monroe - Artichoke Queen — Marilyn Monroe – Artichoke Queen

I”m going to be spending my week hanging around greengrocers, waiting to be crowned queen of something.

Then again…why limit myself to produce when I can crown myself

It’s your week, may as well make it awesome.

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15
Nov
2013

Ole, Ole Ole, This Soup is Hot, Hot, Hot (Daring Kitchen)

categories: Asparagus, Daring Kitchen, Eggs, Soup, Spain

Hola and Olé friends…and that’s the extent of my Spanish done!

Let’s talk about soup, baby….ok…I’m stopping with the bad music puns.

Right here. Right now.

Or..Maybe not…

Green Asparagus SoupOur November Daring Cooks’ hostess was Begoña, who writes the beautiful blog, Las recetas de Marichu y las mías. Begoña is from Spain and didn’t want to go with the more common challenges of paella or gazpacho, she wanted to share with us another very popular recipe from Spain that we don’t see as often called Sopa Castellana which is a delicious bread soup!

I chose the Green Asparagus version as not only is it my second favourite vegetable ( behind the far less exotic green bean) but also, currently in season here in the Southern Hemisphere..

Just look at how gorgeous it is!

And the soup was pretty awesome too…I love the combination of egg and asparagus and I also love a poached egg in a soup…so, so good.

And saffron in anything just makes it awesome!

Try it, it may just get you dancing just like this!

Have a great week!

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08
Nov
2013

Fab Party Food, An Amazing Bloody Mary (and some spontaneous dancing round the kitchen)

categories: Cocktail, Eggs, Kale, Pie, Spice Peddler, Tomatoes, Vodka

A few weeks ago I, was chosen to be one of the brand ambassadors for The Spice Peddlers, a great shop in Sydney selling a fabulous range of herbs and spices!

Each month, they will send me a different spice or spice blend and I can play with it as much as I want.

Happy days people, happy, happy days.

I can’t tell you how excited this made me. Well, I can’t tell you…but I can can show you.

There may have been a bit of spontaneous dancing round the kitchen.

I may have done a little bit of this… Followed by a bit of this…

I drew the line here.

It seemed a little bit too Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks…

But I was right back into the groove with this…

That’s how excited I was.

Then I got my first blend and…the fear kicked in. What if it was terrible? What if I was totally uninspired? What if what I made turned out awful? What if the sky fell on my head? You know the usual nonsense panicky “I’m not worthy” that plagues the best of us at times….

Smoked Salmon Fritatta, Kale and Onion Pie, Best Bloody Mary Ever!

So first things first. Which for me was to open up the pack, lick my finger, dip it in and have a taste.

Yeah, I know…

I’m classy.

So much for the first unfounded fear. The team at the Spice Peddlers had sent me a container of their Middle Harbour Seasoning. This is a blend of sea salt, lime leaves, lime zest, Tasmanian Pepper, black pepper, green peppercorns, lemon myrtle, dill, chervil and green and white onion.

Otherwise known as delicious! It’s tangy from the lime, zingy from the pepper, punchy from the salt with a very slight herby, aniseedy undertone. So good. So, so good.

This would be perfect just spinkled on pita bread which is then toasted in the oven until crispy to have with dips and a lovely crisp cold glass of white wine on a hot summer day. And you know what? I’ll be doing that very soon.

Cooking With The Spice Peddler's Middle Harbour Seasoning — Cooking With The Spice Peddler’s Middle Harbour Seasoning

However, for the purpose of experimentation I wanted to get a bit more fancy.

We are heading into party season and I wanted to experiment with some new fingerfood dishes…have I ever mentioned how much I love fingerfood? There is something magical for me in a party pie, a mini burger, a bite-sized pizza, a canape….you get my drift.

I was once waxing lyrical to a friend about how if I owned a restaurant it would only serve small bits of food and wasn’t it crazy that no one had ever thought of that before?

She gave me a look. You know. That look. “They’re called tapas bars” she said in a voice that suggested she was speaking to the mentally incompetent.

Yeah but…

No but…

My idea is to have cocktails and fingerfood and it would only be open for the cocktail hour…

Ok…never mind…it’s a tapas bar.

Damn those Spanish and their eerily prescient good food ideas.

Let’s quickly move on and talk about some of my better ideas…like this:

Smoked Salmon and Herb Frittata

Makes 16 mini frittatas

8 eggs 400ml cream

500ml milk

4 spring onions

200g smoked salmon, chopped

2 tsp Middle Harbour Seasoning

1 tsp chopped tarragon

1 tsp chopped chervil

1 tsp chopped chives

1/4 cup grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 150º.

Whisk together the eggs, cream and milk.

Add the spring onions, salmon, spice mix and herbs and parmesan.

If not using the spice blend, season with salt & pepper and increase herbs to 1 tbsp each.

Pour into greased muffin trays and place in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until base and sides are set. Serve sprinkled with additional chives.

Next up, I made this Serious Eats recipe for

Kale and Onion Pie

Except again, I subbed in the Spice Peddler Middle Harbour Seasoning for half of the herbs and I also sprinkled a little bit of the mix on the top of the pastry before cooking.

The mixture for this is delicious. However, when I make this next time, instead of the “pastry” mix in the Serious Eats recipe I would use a really light crispy buttery shortcrust pastry or even a filo.

As soon as I tasted the Middle Harbour Mix I knew I wanted to make cocktail with it..and what else would go with a lemony, peppery zingy herb mix than a Bloody Mary?

Can i just digress for a moment to talk about how much I love a Bloody Mary? I love a Bloody Mary the way Don Draper loves a Manahattan. To me they are the height of sophistication. In my mind, enjoying a Bloody Mary is like enjoying oysters…when you can do it, you know you’re a grown up. Even more so if you can down one before noon!

I’m also a big fan of drinking my vitamins and all that tomato juice, has to be good for you!

This recipe is probably the best one I have tried. I think it’s the splash of sherry which adds a teeny bit of sweetness into the mix that does it – and I used the Spice Peddler Middle Harbour instead of the celery salt and also to rim the glass.

OMG, this was sooooo good, it set off another bout of dancing…

Bloody Mary

200ml tomato juice

1 tbsp Worchestershire sauce

1 tsp Spice Peddler Middle Harbour Seasoning or Celery Salt

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

6 drops Tabasco sauce

30ml Vodka

Splash of cream sherry

Stir ingredients in a mixing glass with ice, strain and serve!

I’m going to be spending my week perfecting my moves from my new favourite possession – the Barbie Allen Dance/Exercise Book.

She has an entire routine for Xanadu which I may share as a special Christmas Present for all of you…hell, if I get full enough of some Christmas spirit (we here at RFFMT are quite fond of a little bit o’ Hendricks for the holidays) I may even dance it for you!

Have a fabulous week whatever you do… Signature 1