Crushed potatoes

November 3, 2023 

   

This is it! The final recipe that I resolved to cook from Six Seasons. We love potatoes and cubed roasted potatoes are on regular rotation in our kitchen, usually teamed with carrots, broccoli, and Quorn schnitzels. These crushed potatoes looked better, but I was skeptical about the extra work they'd require. I'm pleased to report that they're excellent and something we're likely to make again.

I think the key here it cutting the potatoes down to the size of a new potato, to ensure that they're tender within 30 minutes of baking. Then they just need a gentle smush with a fork and they go into a cast-iron pan of olive oil for browning and crunch, with a little garlic tossed in at the end.

We ate these potatoes alongside sausage rolls and Moroccan carrot salad (without the yoghurt). Since they're quite rich, I think they'd be even better with brighter, fresher platemates than pastry - a lemony green salad, or some braised tofu perhaps. It'll be a pleasure to test out a few different configurations.

Crushed potatoes

(slightly adapted from Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden & Martha Holmberg)

500g medium-starch potatoes

olive oil

2 cloves garlic

salt and pepper

Preheat an oven to 200°C. Lightly oil a baking tray. 

If the potatoes are large, chop them down to the size of new potatoes (halves or thirds for mine). Place them on the baking tray, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake until tender, about 30 minutes.

Crush the potatoes with a fork so that they're closer to the shape of a thick patty. Pour about a 5mm depth of olive oil in a cast iron pan and heat it up. Add the potatoes one at a time - they should sizzle a bit. You may need to work in batches. When the potatoes are browned on the first side, flip them over. A minute before they're ready on the second side, crush some garlic into the pan and add more salt and pepper. Serve, hot and golden.

Broad bean & pistachio pesto pasta

October 23, 2023 

   

If I'm going to get through my Six Seasons to-cook list any time soon, I knew I needed to tackle the broad bean dish while they're in season. Pesto pasta is in regular rotation here, but it's usually a faster version that involves a jar. I had the day off so I didn't mind taking the extra time to pod peas and blanch greens, and Michael pitched in with shopping and pesto-blending.

This recipe has a couple of techniques that I wouldn't otherwise think to try: briefly blanching basil to hold onto its vibrant green, and blanching garlic to soften its flavour. I liked both of these ideas, and they seemed to work well. Our pesto of broad beans, pistachios, basil and parmesan tasted bright and fresh and was a little chunkier than the jarred stuff. Our fettuccine was just fine and I imagine some fresh pasta would take this to another level again. Everything stayed green and gorgeous for lunches of leftovers.

Pesto invites adaptation, and I can imagine many other combinations of legume, green herbs and a nut working well. I'm not sure how often we'll repeat this dish as is, but it'll be a fun one to riff on.

Broad bean & pistachio pesto pasta

(slightly adapted from Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden & Martha Holmberg)

900g broad beans in their pods

1 1/2 cups basil leaves

4 cloves garlic

1 cup parsley

1/2 cup pistachios

salt and pepper

3/4 cup olive oil

1/2 teaspoon dried chilli flakes

500g fettuccine

1 1/2 cups grated parmesan

1 tablespoon butter

1/4 cup mint leaves

Set a large pot of water on the stove to boil. While that's heating up, remove the beans from their pods. Remove the basil leaves from their stems, and peel the garlic. Prepare a bowl of ice water.

When the water is boiling, blanch the beans for 30 seconds and then remove them from the water. Drop the basil leaves into the boiling water, remove them immediately and plunge them into the ice water. Drop 2 of the garlic cloves into the boiling water, blanch them for 1 minute, and then transfer them into the ice water with the basil. Discard the hot water.

Pull the basil and garlic out of the ice water and blot them dry on a clean tea towel. Peel the broad beans. Fill the large pot up with fresh water and bring it to the boil.

In a large food processor bowl, drop in half of the broad beans, the basil, blanched garlic, parsley, pistachios and some salt. Blend to a coarse puree. With a processor running, slowly pour in 1/2 cup olive oil.

When the water is boiling, cook the pasta according to its directions and then drain it. Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in the empty pasta pot and add the remaining garlic (minced or chopped) and the chilli flakes. Add in the pasta and a 1/2 to 1 cup of water. Stir in the butter, pesto, remaining broad beans and the parmesan. Serve, garnished with mint leaves.

Cauliflower baked with currants, capers & pine nuts

October 5, 2023

   

I often have extra time to cook on Thursdays and I used this one to tick off another Six Seasons recipe. The original version involves soaking a cod for 12-24 hours and poaching it in milk, but I settled for a few capers sprinkled over the feature ingredient: cauliflower.

We have plenty of excellent baked cauliflower recipes already, but the cream/milk layer in this one is a bit different for us. We enjoyed the almost-cheesy flavour it added, but it seemed to interfere with getting the cauliflower properly tender and golden. Never mind! A topping of currants, capers, pine nuts and breadcrumbs added sweetness, nuttiness and extra crunch.

Since we weren't interested in the cod, I served the cauliflower alongside haloumi with roasted rhubarb and tomatoes. They made an excellent pair! I grilled the leftovers at home for subsequent lunches, but I would've been content also to eat them at room temperature if I'd been packing them for a work day.

   

Cauliflower baked with currants, capers & pine nuts

(adapted from a recipe in Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg)

1/4 cup currants

1 head cauliflower, cut into florets

200mL sour cream (or heavy cream or crème fraîche)

1/2 cup milk or water

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon lemon zest

small handful parsley, roughly chopped

salt and pepper

1/4 cup capers

1/4 cup pine nuts

1/2 cup breadcrumbs 

Place the currants in a bowl and cover them with water, allowing them to soak for 30 minutes. Drain them.

Preheat an oven to 220°C. Place the cauliflower florets into a large, high-walled baking tray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the sour cream and milk. Stir in the garlic, lemon zest and parsley, seasoning with salt and pepper. Pour the mixture across the cauliflower. Sprinkle over the currants, then the capers, then the pine nuts, then the breadcrumbs.

Bake until the cream is bubbling and the breadcrumbs have browned, 20-30 minutes.

New potato salad with soft-boiled eggs

September 17, 2023 

   

Due to the limited options near my workplace, I am rather fastidious about having food ready at home to pack for lunch. It was my motivation for shopping and preparing this salad on a Sunday morning, even though we had a big afternoon and dinner out planned.

It's a recipe from Six Seasons, a book that I'm strategically working through as the seasons permit. The new potatoes and sugar snap peas seemed right for spring, and the soft-boiled eggs promised the protein I'd need to call this a full meal. Otherwise I was pretty loose with the recipe and I suspect the lead author Josh McFadden was, too: his photograph showed cute little radish rounds that I couldn't see anywhere in the ingredients list. I liked the idea, though, and worked some sesame-soy pickled radishes into my version.

I took a lot of license with the other ingredients and proportions too: more potatoes, less lemon, no scallions, sardines, chilli flakes or mint (but a bit of leftover parsley). Perhaps it's barely the same recipe at all! At the very least, it preserves the trinity of potatoes, peas and eggs that I was originally attracted to.

McFadden recommends that soft-boiled eggs be eaten within 24 hours, so this four-serving size was just right for getting us through two meals before I moved onto other packed lunch plans.

New potato salad with soft-boiled eggs

(heavily adapted from a recipe in Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg)

1/2 - 1 batch sesame-soy pickled radishes

~500g small new potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled

2-3 handfuls sugar snap peas, strings pulled off

zest and juice of 1 lemon

3 tablespoons parsley, roughly chopped

4 eggs, at room temperature

salt and pepper

Start with the radishes, slicing them up and getting them into their sugar-salt pickle mix.

Next, go for the potatoes. The aim is for large bite-sized chunks, so halve or third any potatoes that need it. Fill a large saucepan with water, add a generous dose of salt and the potatoes, and bring it all to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender but not falling apart, about 15 minutes.

While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the sugar snap peas, chopping any extra-large ones so that they're all on the generous end of bite-sized. Place them in a large bowl. Add the lemon juice and zest, parsley, and the potatoes when they're ready, stirring everything together. Add salt and pepper, to taste.

Time to soft-boil some eggs! Refill the saucepan with water and bring it to the boil. Gently lower in the eggs with a spoon, and boil them for 8 minutes. Get a bowl of ice water ready, and transfer the eggs into it when their time is up.

Finish off the radishes by squeezing off their pickling liquid and getting them dressed.

When the eggs are cool enough to handle, peel one for each person that's eating on the spot (I saved two eggs in their shells for our lunch the next day).

Scoop the potato-pea mixture into shallow bowls, add radish pickles and scrunched-up egg, and season with more salt and pepper to taste.

Roasted fennel with apples, almonds & blue cheese

July 22, 2023

   

We're still slowly working our way through the recipes that Cindy bookmarked in Josh McFadden and Martha Homberg's Six Seasons, and we took advantage of fennel season to give this fennel bake a crack. It's almost a meal on its own, with sausage, apple, cheese and fennel all combined into a big hearty pile, but we added double-quantity of this Georgian kidney bean salad just to round things out. The fennel bake itself was a winner - we used V2 sausages and they worked nicely to add some salty protein to the dish. The breadcrumbs and almonds added lots of great crunch to the soft, sweet fennel and apple too, but the (quite expensive) cheese we daubed throughout got a bit lost in the final wash-up. The original recipe calls for taleggio, so maybe our creamy blue just didn't have the punch, but I honestly don't think you'd lose much if you skipped the cheese entirely. This definitely feels like a dish we'll make again if we somehow wind up with a bulb of fennel in the house - it's pretty tasty.

 

   

Roasted fennel with apples, almonds & blue cheese

(a slightly adapted recipe from Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg's Six Seasons)

olive oil

1 pack of veggie sausages (400g)

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes

1 big bulb of fennel (approx 600g)

1 large apple

1/2 cup toasted almonds

1 teaspoon dried thyme

150g creamy blue cheese (or taleggio), torn into little bits

salt and pepper

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon butter

Pre-heat the oven to 190°C.

Trim the green stalks and root end off the fennel and cut the bulb lengthwise into 8 pieces or so. Peel and thinly slice the apple. 

Break up the sausages into kind of bite-sized pieces and fry in a large frying pan with the olive oil and fennel seeds, for about 5 minutes until lightly browned (this is not an especially crucial step with veggie sausages I expect). Set aside. 

Add another tablespoon of olive oil to the pan along with the garlic and cook it very slowly, for 5 minutes or so until it just starts to brown up. Add the chill flakes and sliced fennel and stir together. Pour in about 1/2 cup of water and over the pan, simmering and steaming the fennel until it softens. Add more water as needed, it took us about 10 minutes to get things pretty soft. 

Stir through the sausage, apple, almonds, thyme and about half of your cheese and season with salt and pepper.

Pour the mix into a baking dish, top with the leftover cheese and the breadcrumbs and dot with the butter. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the breadcrumbs are nice and golden and everything is hot through. 

Leave to rest for 5 minutes and then serve. 

Corn & tomato salad with torn croutons

March 13, 2023

 

  

We wanted a side salad to go with our big ol' bolognese and Cindy had her eyes on this corn and tomato salad before the summer veggies started to disappear. It takes almost nothing to throw together - the only cooking we had to do was a quick dry fry of the bread to make our croutons - the rest is just chopping and stirring. It's crunchy and sharp and beautifully colourful - a super simple crowd pleaser.

Corn & tomato salad with torn croutons

(a recipe from Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg's Six Seasons)

kernels from 3 ears of corn

500g mixed tomatoes, cut into chunks

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

2 cups croutons

1/2 cup toasted nuts (the original recipe is pistachios, but we had almonds)

1 handful basil leaves

1 handful mint leaves

salt and pepper

olive oil

Combine the corn, tomatoes, vinegar, salt and pepper in a big bowl.

Add in the croutons, nuts, basil and mint and toss everything gently.

Add a splash of olive oil and check the seasonings. Serve!

Sautéed corn with chillies, radishes & pine nuts

November 27, 2022

   

Alongside the jalapeño poppers, I whipped up a serve of pretty basic nachos using this old BBQ beans recipe and Cindy suggested this simple corn side, from another cookbook she's been scanning through: Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg's Six Seasons. This is barely even worth a recipe: it's corn kernels fried in butter and then jazzed up with a few trimmings, but it's an excellent accompaniment to a Mexican-themed feast and has a very high reward to effort ratio.

Sautéed corn with chillies, radishes & pine nuts

(a recipe from Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg's Six Seasons)

1 tablespoon of butter

4 ears of corn, kernels cut off

1 large green chilli, seeded and sliced thinly

5 radishes, trimmed, scrubbed and cut into small chunks

1/2 cup toasted pine nuts

1 lime

salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a cast iron frying pan over high heat. Once it's all melted and stopped foaming, throw in the corn kernels and the green chilli with a pinch of salt and cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring the corn occasionally. You want the kernels to start caramelising a bit. 

Kill the heat and stir through the radishes and pine nuts, before squeezing a generous burst of lime juice over everything and adding a bit more salt. Serve.