Baked Fruit

From The Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver, Michael Joseph, 1999.

I don’t know what it is about fruit but, though I like it, I rarely get around to eating it. Even with fruit in the house, it seems to be overlooked. So I thought perhaps cooking some fruit may be the remedy. I found a simple recipe for baked fruit in one of Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks.

It was the easiest recipe. Firstly the fruit was cut in half (I used nectarines and peaches) and placed on the grill until it had brown grill stripes across the open cuts. It then went in the oven under the grill for a few minutes more until the fruit was cooked through. I sprinkled some caster sugar over the fruit and a few drops of brandy and gave it a little longer under the grill. I was not watching closely enough and managed to slightly burn the caster sugar.

The fruit, despite the slight apparent burn, didn’t taste burnt and was quite delicious. I must bake some more.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Salad of Chickpeas, Cucumbers and Preserved Lemon

From Salades, Damien Pignolet, Lantern, 2010.

This simple little salad was no more than putting together the ingredients: a can of chickpeas, some chopped cucumbers, a chopped garlic clove, some basil torn into pieces and some chopped spring onions. The extra ingredient that lifted all of this into another level was the addition of the rind of some preserved lemon chopped finely. All was now carefully mixed together in a bowl and seasoned.

For the dressing—and it isn’t a salad unless it has a dressing of some sort—a little red wine vinegar and some virgin olive oil was added. It was then served in a lettuce leaf.

This was a salad that I’m sure will see the dinner table at home again as it was so easy to prepare and was such a fresh, pleasant salad to eat.

I am enjoying working my way through Salades for I am finding many surprises that are pleasing to both make and eat.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Sun-Dried Tomato and Pesto Burger

From The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet, Joni Marie Newman, Fair Winds Press, 2011.

I’ve tried several burgers from this book and while they tend to be all right and interesting in their own right I have still to find one that might be classified as ‘the best veggie burger on the planet’. The best veggie burge I have found to suit my tastes was found in Plenty. This was a broad bean burger. But I still continued my search and tried a sun-dried tomato and pesto burger.

To begin I put on some rice to boil, sufficient to make 2 cups.

Next an onion and 250 grams of chopped mushrooms were fried until their quantity had reduced to about half.

While this was cooking I made a pesto. The recipe called for a quantity of their own pesto recipe to be made but I make pesto so often, and I like my own pesto so much, that I whizzed up my own. Half a cup was required for the burgers and more for the bread.   

This, as well as the other ingredients (one half a cup of sun-dried tomatoes chopped, 2 cups of cooked rice and half a cup of pesto, were placed in a food processor until mixed and broken down, though still somewhat chunky.

Rice flour was now added to make a good consistency for burgers. At this stage I found hands were the best implements for doing this. The mixture then went in the refrigerator to allow the flour time to meld well.

When it was time for cooking, the mixture was taken out and made into burgers. It made eight.

Buns were not used to accompany the burgers, but a baguette was sliced on an angle, given a light toasting and spread with pesto.

I enjoyed these burgers better than some others I have made from the book. The sun-dried tomatoes gave a pleasant tang as you bit into the burgers and the pesto highlighted the mushrooms well.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Sayur Lodeh (Vegetable Curry)

I had some red curry paste left over from making the spicy quick-fried beans. It was such a good curry paste that I didn’t want to waste it. So it was a pretty simple matter to use it to make a vegetable curry.

I fried some onions in olive oil, then added the curry paste for a few seconds. The vegetables were all then added to the wok. It was just a mix of what I had in the refrigerator: carrots, snow peas, green beans and some cabbage. A little water was added and the vegetables were stir fried for a few minutes.  I added some tofu puffs when the vegetables were cooked and stirred them in for a minute.

The curry was served with chopped coriander and some leftover rice and peas on the side.

That red curry paste is well worth making in a larger quantity; it’s one to add to the repertoire.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Rice with Peas

From Vegetarian Bible, Margaret Barca, Penguin Books, 2008.

Rice is a perfect accompaniment for many dishes but sometimes it is good to vary the accompaniment from that of plain boiled rice to one with a touch of spice. This boiled rice variation comes from a favourite little vegetarian cookery book.

Cloves, cardamom pods, peppercorns and a cinnamon stick are cooked for a few minutes in hot oil in a saucepan. When the spices start to smell strongly some chopped garlic is added and cooked just a little longer.

The rice—basmati in this case—is added to the pan with water. Once it is boiling the lid is placed on and it is left to cook for about 10 minutes. A cup of frozen peas is then added and stirred in. The lid is placed on again and the rice cooked for a further 5 minutes. By now the rice should be cooked and the water absorbed. The rice is taken off the heat and left with the lid on for a further few minutes.

When ready, taste it for seasoning and fluff it up with a fork.

The rice has a subtle flavour of Indian spices and the peas add colour and sweetness to the dish. I had it with Spicy Quick-Fried Beans.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Spicy Quick-Fried Beans

From Thai Vegetarian Cooking, Vatcharin Bhumichitr, Pavilion Books, 2003.

Before beginning this recipe I had to make a red curry paste. It was only a matter of pounding all of the ingredients in a mortar until they became a paste. The ingredients used were dried red chillies (7 in all), coriander seeds, chopped galangal root and lemon grass, some salt, and chopped kaffir lime peel, garlic and shallots. From the wonderful smells that rose at the pounding I could tell it was going to be a good curry paste.

 The remainder of the dish was an easy one.

Beancurd was cut into blocks and fried until brown.

From then it was only a matter of heating up a wok and frying chopped garlic for a few seconds and then adding the red curry paste. The rest of the ingredients were added in the order of beans cut into 3 cm lengths, light soy sauce, sugar, ground roast peanuts and chopped kaffir lime leaves. The last to go in was the fried beancurd.

This was served with rice with peas. What a tasty way to have beans. Next time I make a red curry paste I’ll save some to use with beans.

This was another successful recipe from Thai Vegetarian Cooking. It's good when you can find a recipe that manages to make a good vegetarian curry paste without having to use ingredients such as fish sauce.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Preserved Lemon and Tomato Salad with Capers

From Tagines & Couscous, Gillie Başan, Ryland Peters & Small, 2010.

If you have some flavoursome ripe tomatoes then there is nothing better than a tomato salad. This one I found in Tagines & Couscous is well worth trying. It is juicy and has a great tartness to it from the lemon and capers.

 The tomatoes need to be skinned and deseeded then sliced. A red onion also needs to be sliced and the rind of a preserved lemon sliced into thin strips. These are mixed in a bowl with some olive oil and lemon juice. It has some seasoning added and you can set it aside until you are ready to serve it.

At serving time add capers and chopped parsley, coriander and mint. If you like it sprinkle paprika over the top.

It’s so easy to put together and has such a wonderful mix of flavours.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔