Mozzarella, Peach and Frisée Salad

From Kitchen Seasons, Ross Dobson, Hardie Grant Books, 2007.

Just looking at the photograph of this in Kitchen Seasons made me want to get to and make it. And it was so easy to make—and also looked so appetising.

A couple of handfuls of frisée went into a bowl. Two peaches were sliced into segments and carefully mixed with the frisée. A dressing of olive oil, white wine vinegar and freshly ground black pepper was made and poured over. The mixture then went onto serving plates and torn buffalo mozzarella added. The salad was ready.

Bitter frisée against sweet peaches and creamy mozzarella—an excellent mix.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔✔

Pickled Spring Vegetables and Marinated Tofu Salad

From Kitchen Seasons, Ross Dobson, Hardie Grant Books, 2007.

To make this salad I took a block of firm tofu and placed it into a bowl. I poured on some light soy sauce that had ¼ teaspoon five-spice powder stirred into it. I left the tofu in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to marinate.

After the tofu had marinated for an hour I prepared the vegetables. I took a handful of sugar snap peas, a few snow peas, and a bundle of asparagus. The snap peas I topped and tailed, the snow peas and the asparagus I cut in half. These were all dropped into a pot of boiling salted water for a minute then drained and plunged into cold water.

I now placed two tablespoons sugar and a little less than 100ml rice vinegar into a saucepan and brought them to the boil. They were left to simmer for 5 minutes then let cool.

I took ½ a daikon and cut it into batons. These were placed in a bowl with the blanched vegetables and the cooled liquid poured over. This lot was left for about half an hour.

The tofu was now drained, cut into slices, dipped in flour and fried in a little oil until crisp. It was now cut into batons for the salad. Some slices were kept whole to go alongside the salad.

Two spring onions were sliced finely. Some coriander leaves were picked. Three tablespoons light soy sauce was mixed with a few drops of sesame oil.

Now the salad could be put together. The vegetables were drained and placed in a bowl with the spring onions and coriander. The tofu batons were added and the soy sauce mix poured over. The salad was gently tossed.

This was a refreshingly different salad. The vegetables had some crunch left in them while being sweet/sour from the pickling. The tofu was soft and creamy. Well worth the time spent on it.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Blackberry Crumble

From Kitchen Seasons, Ross Dobson, Hardie Grant Books, 2007.

Blackberries were going cheap at the markets so I grabbed a couple of punnets and then had to decide what to do with them. This easy recipe presented itself in Kitchen Seasons.

The blackberries had a tablespoon of caster sugar added to them together with a teaspoon of cornflour. They were then placed in a buttered casserole dish and left for half an hour while the remainder of the recipe was prepared.

I used 120g plain flour and rubbed into it 60g butter. Brown sugar (50g) was now stirred in. This mixture was poured over the blackberries and it went into a 180C oven for ¾ hour. It had then turned golden and was ready.

We had it with ice cream—cream would perhaps have been better because the crumble tended to be too dry for the berries and cream would have made it all a little more moist. Nevertheless it was enjoyed but a thinner crumble would have been much better. The illustration in the book appeared to have a much thinner one.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔