February 19, 2009: Heaven-sent haloumi and the eat-anywhere quinoa salad

I'm not quite sure why, every Sunday without fail, I pick up and flick through The Age's Life magazine. Newspapers' glossy, coloured Sunday lift-outs are invariably trashy and superficial, I know, but there's something about this choice of title that really riles me. If vacuous interviews, pop statistics devoid of analysis, fashion spreads full of analysis and expensive techno-gadgets are truly the Stuff Of Life then kill me now. Maybe I persist in looking because it gets the blood pumping, and raging self-righteousness passion is actually the stuff of (my) life. Or it could just be the off-chance that Karen Martini has contributed an enticing vegetarian recipe.

And if you don't think that haloumi pictured up there looks enticing, then I'm not sure what I can do for you. (Just trying clicking that "next blog" button up top and put us both out of our misery.) You barely even need a recipe to make it, you just need some bright spark to put two already-awesome ingredients into one sentence for you. Haloumi, and pomegranate syrup. Kaboom! Sweet, sour, salty and fried. How could dinner get any better? Well, Karen also thought to sprinkle over chilli flakes, za'atar and thyme and they're certainly worth the effort, but it's the pomegranate syrup that still has me shaking my head in wonder.

Haloumi and pomegranate syrup could well be the Stuff Of Life, but they're probably not the Stuff Of A Well-Rounded Dinner. So I made this salad. It's based on a Middle Eastern couscous salad that Michael and I used to make all the time, back before we had a food blog or a life in Melbourne. From Kurma Dasa's Vegetarian World Food, it's filled with fresh herbs and vegetables, dried fruit and nuts, and has a dreamy tahini-lemon dressing. (It's also why this post, in spite of the featured slabs of cheese, earns a vegan-friendly tag.) It lasts for days in the fridge, tastes lovely at room temperature and is great for transporting to a picnic to share, or just for an ordinary workday lunch.

It's also pretty forgiving of alterations, and I made a lot of them:

• quinoa is the new couscous, at least in this house.
• I don't buy this whole "1/4 cup finely chopped red capsicum, 1/4 cup finely chopped green capsicum, 1/2 cup finely chopped tomato" guff. I'm chopping one WHOLE red capsicum and an entire tomato, 'cause we can't abide leftover veges, and as many beans as Michael brought home.
• almonds > peanuts, even if the peanuts are roasted.
• currants are always, always > sultanas.

But, you know, do what you want. It'll probably still taste good and travel well.



Heaven-sent haloumi
(Based on Karen Martini's pan-fried haloumi with chilli, za'atar and pomegranate molasses, from the Age's Sunday Life magazine)

olive oil, for frying
300g haloumi, cut into 1cm thick pieces
3 sprigs thyme, leaves picked
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
2 tablespoons za'atar
2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses

Drizzle some olive oil into a frypan and bring to high heat. Fry the haloumi slices until golden brown on each side, then transfer them to absorbent paper.

Arrange the haloumi on the serving plate(s); sprinkle over the thyme, chilli and za'atar. Drizzle over the pomegranate molasses and serve immediately.

Eat-anywhere quinoa salad
(inspired by Kurma Dasa's couscous salad, published in his book Vegetarian World Food)

1 cup quinoa
2 1/2 cups water
4 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons sugar
3 tablespoons tahini
4 tablespoons fresh mint leaves, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
1 tomato, diced finely
1 red capsicum, diced finely
a handful of green beans, cut into small lengths
1 x 400g can chickpeas
1 small Lebanese cucumber, diced finely
1/2 cup currants
1/4 cup green olives, chopped (I bought chilli-garlic marinated ones)
1/4 cup almonds, chopped roughly

Stir together the quinoa and water in a saucepan; bring them to the boil, then turn down the heat and cook them through on medium-low heat until the water is absorbed (about 15 minutes). While it's cooking, do all the vegetable chopping listed above.

In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil, sugar, tahini, mint, salt, pepper and parsley.

In a large bowl, combine the cooked quinoa and the remaining ingredients. Stir through the tahini dressing and serve at your leisure.

May 25, 2008: Mandarin maple pudding

This pudding and I have had a rocky relationship. It wasn't love at first sight, though there was undeniably an attraction there when I first spied the recipe in a weekend newspaper. The first date, only a few weeks later, was definitely a success; I even presented him to my Dad and brother after dinner.

Then the seasons shifted, time passed, and I moved to a new city. When winter arrived I tried to dress my recipe up in more sophisticated ramekins, which was a complete disaster. (You know what they say about men and baking recipes - don't try to change them.) Dishes were thrown, things were said - we clearly needed another break from each other.

With winter returning again I wanted to find out if this pudding and I could become 'just good friends'. I set about recreating the comfortable environment of our first meeting. Grind, grate, beat, fold: everything seemed to be running smoothly and I started to relax. Then I'd just put the pudding into the oven when I realised I'd forgotten to add the baking powder. Crap. So it was a hasty trip back out again for a highly unconventional stirring of the powder into the batter, while trying my best not to disturb the underlayer of maple syrup.

You know what? Everything turned out fine. Crisp top (all cratered from the belated baking powder), moist and slightly coarse interior with hints of mandarin and almond, and a sweet and sticky maple base. We've been meeting cheerfully over cups of tea for a full week!

Mandarin maple pudding
(credited to Matthew Evans, and most likely taken from the Good Living section of the SMH in 2005 or 2006)

200g butter, softened
150g castor sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup
3 eggs
1 tablespoon mandarin zest
150g self-raising flour, sifted
50g almond meal
125mL maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Use an electric mixer to cream together the butter, sugar and golden syrup. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until well mixed. Fold in the zest, flour and almond meal.

Grease a 2L casserole or pudding dish, then spread the pudding batter evenly over it. Pour the maple syrup over the batter as evenly as you can. Cover the dish with foil.

Fill a baking tray with hot water, 2cm deep. Place the pudding dish into it, then put the lot in the oven to bake for an hour.

Take off the foil, turn the oven down to 180 degrees C and bake for 20-30 more minutes - until the top is golden and firm, and a skewer comes out cleanly.

Serve warm with cream.

May 15-16, 2008: Chocolate beetroot brownies

Orange, coffee, mint, fruit and nuts: these are the flavours I'm accustomed to pairing with chocolate. But what about beetroot? It seemed like a match made in purgatory when I first heard it. Yet I was impressed by the agreeable earthy flavour once I sunk my teeth into that dark, moist chocolate and beetroot cake about 12 years ago. I was in high school and it had been baked by my friend's older sister - the cake probably contributed some way to my image of her as cool, alternative, and galaxies away from my closeted life.

Not being much of a cook at the time, I wasn't curious to try my own hand at it. It's only since I've been blogging that I've started collecting recipes that pair chocolate with beetroot. And here's my first trial of the odd couple at home, a recipe for brownies that recently appeared in Karen Martini's section of the Age's Sunday Life magazine. I baked them for the occasion of another guest speaker at work, and I was a little anxious as to how they'd be received. Consequently I went a little overboard with the chocolate "drizzle" over the top (it was more of a downpour).

I thought these brownies were fantastic. Chocoholic as I am, I was actually quite happy for my favourite food to take a step back from centre stage and share the limelight with almond meal, nutmeg and beetroot. They combine to form an organic, complex flavour and moist, slightly chewy texture. I'd even skip the chocolate drizzle altogether next time, though it probably did ease the way for a couple of skeptics in the group. My new-old mixmaster made the beating stages effortless, though I didn't spend quite long enough incorporating the eggs (make sure you do!). Deciding to make one and a half times the original quantity to share around (these are the measurements given below), I finally found something to fill up a convincing half of the mixer's gigantic bowl. The only nuisance was grating the beetroot, but that certainly won't stop me from making these again.


Chocolate beetroot brownies

150g butter, softened
150g brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
165g plain flour
6 eggs
135g dark chocolate, melted
150g ground almonds
170g raw beetroot, finely grated
75g extra chocolate, melted

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line a baking dish with paper and grease it well.

Cream together the butter and sugar. Mix in the vanilla, nutmeg and flour. Beat in the eggs one at a time until well combined (I failed to do this!).

Once the melted chocolate is at room temperature, add it to the batter. Fold in the ground almonds and beetroot.

Spread the brownie mixture in the baking dish and bake it for 25-30 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.

Once the brownie has cooled, drizzle over the melted chocolate before slicing and serving.

March 11, 2008: Satay sauce

The soy bombs are back. This time we ate them with salad and satay sauce. Since the tofu balls are quite rich, I elected to toss the salad lightly with the sauce and leave the balls dry.

We took this sauce recipe from the weekend Australian magazine quite a few years ago (the date has since disappeared from the cutting). In our first year as vegetarians we frequently teamed it with stir-fried veges, diced faux-chicken from the Asian supermarket, and rice. I think it later fell out of favour after one particularly watery and bland rendition. But as long as you keep the water levels in check (veges often contribute moisture if they cook in the sauce), it's actually quite tasty. Perhaps a few trials are in order to adjust the flavour balance to your personal taste, but all the important ingredients should be there.

Satay Sauce

2 tablespoons vege oil
half an onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
1-2 red chillies, finely chopped
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
juice of 1 lime
2 tablespoons soy sauce
water
salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a saucepan, then add the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli. Cook until the onion softens, about 5 minutes. Stir in the sugar, peanut butter, lime juice, soy sauce and 2-3 tablespoons of water. Simmer for 5 minutes and add more water, if needed. Season to taste.

January 6, 2008: Lazy day peach and apple pie

Naturally I was in charge of dessert for our picnic, and I took my inspiration from the Age newspaper that was delivered to our flat that very morning. Inside the vacuous Sunday Life magazine was Karen Martini's free-form apple and peach tart. I was keen on enjoying some stone fruits and the weather was mercifully cool enough to crank up the oven in the early afternoon. But I didn't want the temptation of a pie in our fridge all week so I decided to halve the recipe.

This decision caused a minor problem that I didn't anticipate but enjoyed modelling mathematically later. The problem is that volume (the quantity of pastry dough) and area (the size of the rolled-out pastry circle) change at different rates. A half-quantity of pastry, if rolled out to the same thickness as the original, doesn't have half the diameter of the original, it has 70% the diameter of the original. Therefore you don't necessarily want to halve the quantity of fruit. As it happens I bought a bit of extra fruit, had extra left over after the pie construction, and thoroughly enjoyed eating it while the main event was baking.

The pie is delicious - all golden juicy fruit up against a buttery crust - but a bit heavy for hot weather. I suppose it's well-suited to Melbourne's summer, where the peaches are plentiful but there's the occasional 20 to 25 degree day. And right on cue, the breeze whipped up and the sky darkened a little just as it was time to eat out in the little park. The crust was plenty firm enough to support the filling as we ate with our hands and got everything sweetly sticky. If served more genteelly at home, it would be an absolute treat with a dollop of cream on top. I'm keen to try replacing the nutmeg with some grated fresh ginger in a future pie, too.


Lazy day peach and apple pie

150g butter
75g icing sugar
1 egg
300g plain flour
1 large granny smith apple
2 peaches
75g raw sugar
1/4 nutmeg, grated
grated zest of 1/2 a lemon

Use a food processor to combine the butter, icing sugar and eggs. Add the flour and process until the dough just comes together in a ball. On a large sheet of baking paper, roll out the dough until it's about 3 cm thick. Wrap it up and refrigerate it for 30 minutes.

While the dough's in the fridge, peel and core the apple, slicing it into wedges. Cut the peaches into 8 wedges each. In a bowl, gently toss together the fruit with the raw sugar, nutmeg and lemon zest. Set the fruit aside for the flavours to develop.

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. Once the pastry's ready, roll into out in a rough circle to about 1 cm. (Martini reckons 2 cm but she's crazy. Even a 1 cm crust makes a hefty pie.) Pile up the fruit in the centre of the pastry, leaving a good 4cm or so crust around the edge. There'll probably be some juice settled in the bottom of the bowl - don't plonk it in the pie, but do save it for later. And don't use all the fruit if you think it's too much! Gently pull the pastry sides over the fruit on the edge - begin by levering up the pastry with the baking paper, then use your hands to gently mould the pastry together.

Lift the entire baking sheet onto a tray and bake for 30-45 minutes, until the pastry is golden. If there are any juices in the pie or reserved, brush them onto the pastry while the pie's still warm.

January 1, 2008: Zucchini #2

Zucchini #2 was transformed into Ceviz's lemon zucchini in olive oil, a good side for spanakopita (which included most of the eggs received with the zucchinis). It's a bugger using the oven in this weather but the large batches do well at room temperature, stretched over a few days.

September 1, 2007: Fennel, pumpkin and eggplant tagine

Friday, a week after my wisdom tooth removal, gave the first signs that I should pursue a more toothsome diet. I slowly and carefully ate dinner at the Fitz Curry Cafe, concentrating on the rice and sauce and trying not to look too longingly at the pappadums and naan. Soulfood's French toast was enjoyed with more gusto on Saturday, though I set the stinging acidic pineapple to the side of my plate and happily tolerated a bit of jaw soreness afterwards. For dinner I was keen to get back into the kitchen and create something a bit gentler, but also something with substance.

So I pulled out this recipe for a Middle Eastern tagine, taken from a 2006 copy of the Weekend Australian magazine and written by Nadine Abensur. We made it once before, in Brisbane, to try out our friend Camielle's exotic new tagine. In the absence of a tagine, this recipe is just a easily created with a large saucepan or casserole dish but the result isn't nearly as pretty as the magazine photograph. There, discernible chunks of caramelised eggplant and pumpkin nestle alongside each other, decorated by a fresh sprinkle of parsley. Ours is more of a homogeneous mush, but I think I know why - I skimped on the oil. The veges certainly didn't caramelise in the recommended time and when I gave them longer in the oven, they just released a lot of water and turned to the aforementioned mush. Tasty mush, sure, but nothing like that aspirational picture next to the recipe. A corollary to that incident was that I didn't need nearly as much stock as suggested, but the leftovers proved an ideal liquid for hydrating some couscous. So I suppose I'm suggesting that you try the full amount of oil and the original baking time, but that's a lot of oil, people. We still had issues with oil separating from the rest of the vege sauce in the saucepan.

Despite these deviations from the planned meal, the pulpy result was perfect for my own purposes. My dessert, however, proved far more deviant! I pulled out another once-successful recipe, for mandarine and maple syrup pudding, and adventurously tucked it into 6 little ramekins instead of the recommended (and previously successful) large pudding basin. I lowered my little darlings into their water bath, and only then noticed that we were out of foil. Ah, well, who needs foil anyway? These babies were going in hatless. The result was batter overflow into the water, cooked and too-brown tops, and completely uncooked underlayers. I guess that's why real cooks have been using tedious methods such as water baths and foil tops all these years! A lesson in baking humility for me.

Fennel, pumpkin and eggplant tagine
(by Nadine Abensur and published in the Weekend Australian Magazine of January 28-29, 2006)

1.2 kg pumpkin, cut into bite-size chunks
3 small fennel bulbs, cut into eighths
2 medium eggplants, cut into bite-size chunks
160 mL olive oil
a dash of Tabasco sauce
8 shallots, sliced into 5cm pieces
8 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon saffron, diluted in
700 mL hot vegetable stock
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons sweet paprika
1/2 long red chilli, finely chopped
salt and pepper
small handfuls of parsley and coriander

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Put the pumpkin, fennel and eggplant in a roasting dish and coat them in some of the olive oil. Season with the Tabasco sauce, salt and pepper and roast for about 20 minutes until well caramelised. (As I explained above, I baked mine for more like 40-50 minutes - the veges were too mushy and not caramelised properly. More oil might help!)

Heat the rest of the oil in a large saucepan and brown the shallots, cooking and stirring occasionally for about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and a bit of stock to prevent them from burning. Keep stirring, adding the spices and chilli and forming a paste. Add the stock a bit at a time to create a thick sauce (I used only about 300 mL of it here).

If you have a tagine, transfer the sauce into it at this time; otherwise you can make do with your largest saucepan. With the sauce on low heat, gently transfer in the fennel, pumpkin and eggplant then add another cup of stock. Cover and cook for 10-15 minutes, adding more stock if the mixture becomes too dry. Season to taste and sprinkle over the parsley and coriander just before serving.

June 23, 2007: Mushroom paprikash, potato pancakes and pickled baby beets

With Emma and Simon coming over to enjoy our hospitality, I decided to make use of my European inspiration and crank out a Hungarian inspired meal. Having had at least three shots at the potato pancake and mushroom paprikash at Vegetarium, I figured I was experienced enough to have a crack at my own version. Luckily, Cindy had already tracked down a mushroom paprikash recipe, and the weekend papers had a nice-looking potato pancake with pickled beetroot recipe that sounded like the perfect accompaniment. Unfortunately, I think I threw the recipe away by mistake, so the following will be the product of my fading memory.

The paprikash was a lot spicier using hot, Hungarian paprika (an interesting spice - not one that leaves a burning on your lips, but one that gets you in the back of the throat), and I think I preferred it without the seitan. The pancakes were a divine accompaniment (as I suspected following my Budapest experiences) and the beets (which I was sceptical about) were probably the highlight - soft, sweet and with a tang from the vinegar. Superb.

Mushroom paprikash
Follow this recipe, with the following changes:
Skip the dumplings.
Drop the seitan.
Add in 1/2 a cup of dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in about a cup of water.
Use genuine imported Hungarian paprika.

Potato roesti
3 desiree potatoes
2 tbsp flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
oil for frying

Boil the potatoes (whole and unpeeled) for about 30 minutes - until they're soft without being completely mushy. But don't be too conservative - I was sure mine were too mushy, but they grated perfectly.

Peel and then coarsely grate the spuds.

Stir through the flour, salt and pepper.

Form the mixture into roughly tennis-ball sized lumps, flatten them slightly and then fry on both sides in a small amount of oil.

Pickled baby beetroot
2 bunches baby beetroot
1/2 cup olive oil
1 cup red wine vinegar

Trim the beetroot and boil them in 3 cups of water and half the vinegar until soft (about 35-40 minutes).

Peel (you'll look like you've stabbed someone by the time you've peeled 12 baby beets).

Dress the peeled beetroot in the rest of the vinegar and the olive oil and let them soak for a while.

Serve up the pancakes, scoop a few ladles of mushroom paprikash on top and set some baby beets gently to one side. They're very photogenic.

October 16, 2006: Fried rice

This is my adaptation of Healthy Fried Rice, a recipe from delicious magazine. I think I bought a copy in an airport a couple of years ago. Unusually this recipe uses brown rice, which makes it a more nutritious and satisfying meal on its own.

Fried Rice
(adapted from delicious magazine)
serves 4

2 cups brown rice
2 eggs
a splash of milk
2+ tablespoons sesame oil
4 shallots, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped into matchsticks
1 capsicum, chopped into strips
2 cups bok choy, chopped
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 cup cashews

Cook the brown rice and cool it. If you get the chance, put it in the fridge for a couple of hours before using it, even cook it the night before if you're well prepared.

Beat the eggs and milk in a bowl. Heat a bit of the sesame oil in a wok. (If you haven't tried sesame oil before, give it a go, it adds fantastic flavour to Asian dishes.) Pour in the egg mix and swish the pan around to make a large thin disc of egg. When the pan side is cooked, flip it over. Don't worry if it doesn't flip wholy and neatly, maybe chop it into a couple of more managable bits. Once it's all cooked, take the egg out of the wok and slice it into strips.

Put the rest of the oil into the wok. Stir-fry the shallots, carrot, capsicum and bok choy for a minute or two. Add the rice and cook for another couple of minutes. Pour over the soy sauce and keep stirring.

Serve it up in bowls, sprinkled with the cashews. They'll keep their crunch if they're not stirred through.

Categories:

• Cooking
• Recipes
• Savoury

September 30, 2006: Spanakopita, Ratatouille and Relatives

This weekend my Dad and his wife Anne have flown down from Brisbane, and on Saturday they came over to check out our flat for the first time and have some lunch. Michael and I have hit upon a winning combination in spanakopita and ratatouille. They're easy to prepare, although it takes a while, and they're guaranteed to generate lots of leftovers that are equally enjoyable reheated or at room temperature, teamed up again or served separately with other things.

Michael chopped and stirred for a couple of hours on Friday night, making a half-batch of this ratatouille recipe. I like to keep cooking this until the veges are disintegrating into each other, but I think they're meant to be a bit separate and discernable, really. Makes a pretty good side for meat pies, and would also be well matched with buttered crusty bread or couscous.

I got the spanakopita recipe from the only women's magazine I've ever respected in the morning, Bust. It has a great section in which some hip young femme shares a favourite recipe handed down from her mother, grandmother, or other fine-cooking female ancestor.

I'm going to go off on another tangent now and remark upon the fine eggs I bought at the Vic Markets. Huge and speckled, looking farm fresh. Super-yellow yolks that you have to stab with a fork to break. Organic and free range. Definitely the way eggs should be!

OK, OK, here's the recipe:

Spanakopita

Mix 500g chopped spinach, 250g crumbled feta cheese, 1 teaspoon parsley, 1 tablespoon dill, 1 large grated onion, a bunch of scallions (chopped fine), 4 eggs, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 60g butter. Unfortunately I didn't buy the best feta in the world, it was a bit rubbery and didn't crumble well. Fortunately this dish forgave me.

Next you need a 375g box of filo pastry sheets. My box of filo dough proudly proclaims that it's cholestrol free. That's because it looks and tastes like paper, and whatever recipe you use is going to tell you to butter it up good. This recipe doesn't specify how much butter to use, and it's probably a matter of personal taste how much you want. I think I used about another 60g, but I'd recommend just melting a little bit at a time until you're done assembling. The other thing about filo dough is that it dries out easily, so lay it out on a damp tea towel and cover it with another one while you're working.

Now layer a 1/3 of it into the bottom of a large baking dish, brushing melted butter between the layers. Don't slather it too much, just dab it around and feel artistic. Spoon half of the spinach filling on top and make it reasonably level. Repeat with the next 1/3 of the pastry and the remaining spinach filling. Top with the rest of the pastry. Make sure you seal the edges so that the juices don't seep out and don't be too neat and perfectly aligned with your pastry layers: random and crumpled looks cool. Actually, I gave this recipe to Carlo a while ago and he criss-crossed strips of pastry on the top in a grid. It looked way cool. (Apologies to Nadiah if it was you who did the decorating, I just want to give someone credit for that idea.) At this stage, you might think this looks like a tray of your most hated vegetable from childhood, messily wrapped up in greasy butcher's paper. I promise you, the oven has magical transforming powers. Set it to 200 degrees, pop in your tray, and remind yourself to visit it in about 40 minutes.

Here's the interlude where our guests arrived, bringing wine and cheese from the tour of the Yarra Valley they did yesterday. Served with crackers and the cherry chutney I didn't bake into cupcakes.

Check up on the oven. Is the pastry looking good yet? The recipe recommends baking for an hour, or until the pastry is brown. I reckon I took it out after 45 minutes. Transformation complete!

Michael gave the ratatouille a reheat and we were ready to go.

Categories:

• Cooking
• Recipes
• Savoury

September 10, 2006: Pizza night

On Sunday night we entertained some fellow Queensland transplants with homemade pizza. Mike and Marissa were fellow maths/ecology students at UQ, also now at the University of Melbourne. Mike’s girlfriend, Jo-Lyn, contributed beer, red wine, sharp conversation and steered us away from too much geek-talk.

I started making the pizza bases a few hours before their arrival. My favourite recipe uses dry yeast and requires an hour or two of resting, so you really need an afternoon at home to flit between dough-making and other activities. On weeknights we usually go for wholemeal pita bread instead unless I’m ‘working from home’. This recipe is adapted from one that appeared in the Australian Magazine last year. The base is quite thin and crisp, but using wholemeal flour gives a bit of substance as well as nutritional value.

Pizza Dough
makes 2 pizzas

Ingredients:
1 packet (7g) dry yeast
1 cup warm water
3 cups bread flour
salt
¼ cup olive oil
extra flour

Combine the yeast and water in a large bowl, add half the flour and mix well. Add the oil, salt and remaining flour. Introduce the rest of the flour gradually in case you don’t need all of it. Lightly flour a bench and knead the dough for about 5 minutes, until it becomes smooth and elastic. Wash, dry and lightly oil the bowl, put the dough in and cover with a tea towel. Let the dough rest for an hour, or until it has roughly doubled in volume. Divide the dough into two balls back on the bench, cover them with a tea towel, and let them rest for a further 20 minutes. Roll them out on the bench, sprinkling around extra flour as needed, into circles about half a centimetre thick.

Add toppings of your choice and bake at 180-200 deg. On this night, we had:

1. Michael’s homemade pesto and parmesan:

2. Mediterranean-inspired: tomato paste mixed with chopped roast garlic, dried oregano and parsley; sliced mushrooms, capsicum and tomato; canned artichokes, olives and sundried tomatoes; a bit of mozzarella and crumbled feta:

3. Mexican-inspired: tomato paste mixed with a bit of abodo sauce, borlotti beans and fresh corn kernels; sliced mushrooms, capsicum, and mozzarella; served with avocado slices, white corn chips, and chipotles.

When I offered around tea and coffee afterwards, I was thinking more about the fresh tray of butter pecan turtle bars, and a gourmet chunk of Max Brenner chocolate with hazelnuts that Marissa brought along. Yum!

I suppose this blog is a record of the less spontaneous things we enjoy, because as soon as we’re sharing good food and talk with others we forget to pick up the camera. (It’s not out of respect for their privacy that the faces of Krusty and Jason, Mike, Jo-Lyn and Marissa don’t appear, oh no.) I also forgot to prepare the salad or use some roast veges on the pizzas. Better a rolling evening than a rigid, well-recorded one, eh? The blurry dregs were largely dealt with by the dishwasher, and we’ve got a fridge full of leftover pizza, toasted sandwich and salad ingredients and sugary treats. What a great, late start to the week!

Categories:

• Cooking
• Savoury
• Recipes

August 24, 2006: Catering for Carol

We arranged to have Carol over for dinner on this night, to thank her for her generosity during our first couple of weeks in Melbourne. During our time in her house, we noticed her smallish appetite and addiction to avocado and crackers before dinner. Thus we decided to prepare a few rounds of nibbly food instead of an elaborate main meal. During the day Michael made pesto and dukkah in his prized mortar and pestle. (Dukkah is a Middle Eastern spice mix, best mopped up using toasted Turkish bread dipped in olive oil.)

(The recipes are included at the end of the post.) Carol arrived with the un-yuppie contributions of Cheezels and Snack chocolate, and I demolished about two thirds of the Cheezels before I even looked at Michael’s earthy gourmet creations. (Despite the overall tone of this blog, I’m not much of a food snob. My most craved food is probably chips.)

Our after-thought of a main course was an encore performance of the marinated tofu, this time with ginger in the marinade, with some carrots, bok choy and a wedge of lemon on the side.

The original dessert plan was to visit Koko Black, but it was a dreary cold evening and we picked up some treats from Brunetti before Carol arrived instead.

I carefully cut the cherry almond tart and sticky date pudding into thirds, unsure of how to deal with the chocolate cannoli. The sticky data pudding was unusually encased in shortcrust pastry, with a dense date-and-walnut centre and sticky sweet caramel topping. The cherry tart had more shortcrust pastry, an almond meal filling that tasted distinctly of amaretto, a layer of custard, and a few sour cherries and flaked almonds on the top. At this point the dilemma of how to neatly divide the cannoli was superseded by the dilemma of how to fit them into our full stomaches. The solution was to wrap up one cannoli and send it home with Carol, while stashing the other one in the fridge.

Pesto
(we adapted this from Diana’s kitchen. Her recipe has more garlic and uses a food processor instead of a mortar and pestle.)

Ingredients:
2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons pine nuts
2 garlic cloves, finely minced

Pummel the basil in the mortar until it’s mushy. Add about a 1/3 of the pine nuts and a clove of garlic and pummel some more. Add about a 1/3 of the parmesan cheese, pummel, and drizzle in some of the olive oil. Repeat with the remaining ingredients, and don’t use all of the oil if you’re happy with the consistency. (Extra oil probably helps preserve the pesto if you’re not going to use it all straight away.) Reduce the garlic further if you want to interact with anyone else for the next 24 hours.

Diana says, “Basil pesto keeps in refrigerator one week, or freeze for a few months.”

Dukkah
(This recipe is copied directly from the Australian magazine, January 28-29 2006)

Ingredients:

65g sesame seeds
30g coriander seeds
15g hazelnuts
2 teaspoons ground cumin
sea salt, to taste

Roast the seeds, nuts and cumin separately in a small dry frying pan over a low heat until fragrant. Don’t let them become too dark. Pound everything together in a mortar and pestle until finely crushed but not pulverised. Mixture should be dry rather than a paste. Season to taste with salt then store in an airtight container until required. Serve with warm fried tortillas or warm pita bread.

Tip: dukkah is also lovely on roasted or grilled vegetables or warm wilted spinach.