Arame, rocket and eggs

Fine black strands of arame, less than perfect rocket and a yellow, mustardy, garlicky dressing. Two softly boiled eggs with golden yolks, squished on top.

Sometimes lunch experiments work out very nicely indeed, thank you very much.

Holy Goat: Salad For One

My father’s mother was a consummate gardener. A terrible cook, mind, but blessed with more than a mere thumb of green. Occasionally I catch sight of her in my own reflection when passing the windows, grey hair pulled back, cheeks flushed from weeding. It’s a likeness I’d not imagined before I let my hair ‘go’. Nana grew things in her Sydney garden that other gardeners could only dream about. The ‘drought’, ever-present at the edges of my adult life, seemingly only affected farmers in hers. Her sprinkler system, like many in my 1970’s suburban childhood, would often run all day.

It’s easy to forget, standing at the supermarket dairy cabinet, that farmers make extraordinary daily sacrifices to bring food to our tables. To do so organically, in a country of dry grass and almost non-existent rainfall is very nearly a miracle. Seldom do I mention a product by name – thanks, Naomi Klein - but some things demand attention. Holy Goat organic cheeses, hand-crafted from paddock to plate by Carla Meurs and Ann-Marie Monda in country Victoria, are divine. One episode of Love’s Harvest, a series of half-hour documentaries exploring the pleasures and perils of farming organically, followed their fortunes. Watching them struggle through drought, grain shortages, births and deaths, all the while lovingly tending their herd of charming, cheeky goats, added, for me, extra sparkle to their already stellar range. Organic food has always been more costly – the unpredictable nature of the act itself determines that – but I like to give a little back to the farmer making a red-hot go of it, whenever, financially, I can.

Lately, I’d sensed an air of exclusivity about Organics; the tiniest whiff of snobbery that seemed out of kilter with its grass roots, hands-in-the-dirt philosophy. Not the farmer, mind you, but the (usually chain) retailer. The fusty, earth-worshipping image, much like the vegetarian eating it encompassed, is slowly being replaced by slick styling and clever marketing. But I miss the fustiness; I like the earth-worshipping. Enter a trip, with a friend, to the Queen Vic Market. There, poking around stalls with spankingly fresh organic produce, I sensed the spirit of community that I had imagined gone. A fragment of fustiness, delivered with a sense of style and warmth. Faith, resolutely, restored.

Nana didn’t get to eat at my table, and I was too young to learn any real, concrete gardening skills during her lifetime. Her cooking was a rushed affair because for her, the garden itself held the key to happiness. A simple, honest salad such as this makes an ideal lunch for one. If that lettuce just happens to come fresh from your garden, well, all the better.

Organic leaves dressed with goat’s cheese – for one

The quality of your cheese lies at the heart of success or failure here – choose accordingly. The fromage frais is apparently low in fat. Imagine that? I couldn’t help myself and added some sour cream…

1 hard-boiled (hard-cooked) free-range egg
1 small, organic Cos (Romaine) lettuce
1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
½ teaspoon of sugar or honey
1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar
Small piece of garlic, peeled
Sea salt
1/3 cup (80ml) of Holy Goat fromage frais (or soft goat’s curd)
1 very heaped tablespoon of sour cream
Black pepper

Carefully separate the egg white from the yolk. Finely chop both separately. Wash the lettuce leaves well and dry meticulously. Tear as artfully (or not) as you like.

In a small bowl, whisk together the mustard, sugar and vinegar. Crush the scrap of garlic to a paste with a little salt using the flat of your knife. Whisk this paste into the bowl next, followed by the finely chopped egg yolk, the fromage frais and the cream. Thin with a little water, bearing in mind you’re aiming for a pourable/dollop-able consistency.

Arrange the leaves on a plate, in a bowl, whatever you like, pour over the dressing and top with the finely chopped egg white and a good grinding of pepper.

In the northern hemisphere warmer weather is taking a firm foothold but that doesn't stop southern cooks from salad-making. Holler requests your cheesy, salad-y best for this month’s edition of No Croutons Required, an event co-hosted with Lisa.

Entries close on the 20th of May.

The radish

Carved into roses or sliced into salads (when cleaning out the fridge drawer reveals a long-forgotten bag of them, lurking near the aging celery), the radish has a less than flamboyant reputation. Nutritionally it is no superstar – no fashionable ‘Superfood’ tag for this humble veg - but as a member of the cancer-fighting cruciferous family (think cabbage, broccoli) it has its uses. My dog-eared copy of Healing with Whole Foods lists the clearing of sinuses and soothing of sore throats among its (few) attributes. Pedestrian qualities perhaps, but admirable nonetheless. More importantly, radishes possess a crisp, peppery bite that’s perfect for raw nibbling. Pretty and pink, too.

Still, there’s that sulphurous smell unique to the cabbage family to contend with. Masking that pungency is the key. A quick and easy pickle of thin radish slices finished with a dressing of sesame oil and dark, complex tamari is my current solution.

The result? Crimped, frilly edges and a moreish balance of sweet, sour and salty. Make them part of a sushi platter, arranged next to your pink pickled ginger and obligatory swirl of wasabi. A small heap is a welcome digestive aid for a generous, Chinese-style banquet. Less conventional ways work marvellously, too – tossed with a few handfuls of salad leaves and similarly cut paper-thin rounds of carrot, the tamari and agave dressing will provide all the seasoning required. Carrots, I have discovered, themselves fridge drawer lurkers, stand up well to this method of pickling, as do small, sweet turnips. Look for perky green leaves still attached to your radishes as a sure sign of freshness - wash well and blanch briefly before chopping and using as you would any other gorgeous, health-giving green. Unthinkably easy, this recipe is also unexpectedly delicious.

Kylie Kwong’s pickled radishes

Though it is hardly a chore to slice six or eight radishes, a mandoline does make light work of the job, but only if you are confident that neither your knuckles nor your fingertips will end up on the other side of the blade. Mine is a cheap, plastic thing I’ve had for years and it’s perfect. Recipe adapted, slightly, from Simple Chinese Cooking.

6-8 red radishes, very thinly sliced
2 tablespoons of sugar
2 teaspoons of sea salt

Dressing:
1 tablespoon of tamari or shoyu
1 tablespoon of agave syrup or brown sugar
½ teaspoon of dark (toasted/roasted) sesame oil
A good pinch of chilli powder

Toss the radish slices with the sugar and salt and leave to marinate for 30 minutes.

Whisk the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl. Drain and gently squeeze the radishes, draining away the pickling mixture, then drizzle with the dressing.

How do you use radishes?

'O' is for Oyster Mushrooms

Busy? My word. You must be too. Won’t keep you long.

Mushrooms, the cultivated ‘normal’ variety, sweating quietly under their supermarket-friendly plastic wrap are not my cup of tea. Not for want of trying, mind you. A big field one smothered (and I do mean smothered) in garlicky parsley butter, baked until it oozes dark, earthy juices then quickly, drippingly, sandwiched into a mustard-smeared roll, Nigella-style, is a delicious, decadent meal for one. Chopped small and snuck undetectably into croquettes, mushies are just fine. But given a bundle of smarty-pants exotic mushrooms, things change dramatically. Not that oyster, shiitake or enoki mushrooms are very exotic nowadays – the variety of funghi that turn up at the market is truly surprising - it’s just that they, ahem, look a whole lot prettier.

There you have it. I am, in truth, shallower than you (may have) imagined.

Oyster mushrooms, pale, delicate fans, pretty as a picture, are by far my mushroom of choice. Clusters range in size, some as tiny and sweet as a pinky fingernail, others larger, just, than the soft fist of a newborn babe. Those with palates more refined than mine will tell you that oyster mushrooms taste, vaguely, of the bivalves they unwittingly imitate. Alas, I cannot tell. I love the way their gills and frilly edges crisp in the pan. I love the way they absorb flavour. And yes, I love, love, LOVE the way they look.

Until now I’ve been pan-frying them until golden and, at the last moment, melting in a generous knob of butter laced with lots of finely grated ginger. Simple, elegant. Then a comment left here caught my attention. Heather’s suggestions using sesame oil, the pale, buttery stuff, got me cooking and playing. I made this three times in as many days.

Thank you, Heather, very much indeed.

An Asian mushroom salad - for 2

Okay, so a lot of the ingredients here are, like my choice in mushrooms, smarty-pants ones. I went through a macrobiotic phase, you see, and some of those ingredients, umeboshi vinegar particularly, have stuck. The marinated mushrooms will keep for a few days, refrigerated, in a tightly lidded container. They are a very good addition to anything needing a ‘meaty’, umami hit.

For the mushrooms:

1 very large handful of oyster mushrooms (about 100g)
1 very large handful of fresh shiitake mushrooms (about 8)
1 tablespoon of pale sesame oil (not the dark stuff)
1 tablespoon of Chinese black vinegar
1 tablespoon of tamari (or a good soy sauce)
2-3 drops of dark, toasted sesame oil

Gently tear any large oyster mushrooms in two. Discard any stalks that look too tough. Destalk your shiitakes and slice the caps thickly.

Warm the pale sesame oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Toss in the mushrooms when the oil is hot and sauté them until golden in patches (5-7 minutes is ample).

Remove the mushrooms to a shallow dish or a large bowl and pour over the remaining ingredients. Toss well and leave to marinate for at least 1 hour. Cover and refrigerate if you’re keeping them for longer. Drain before serving.

For the dressing:

Whisk 1½ tablespoons of pale sesame oil with equal quantities of sweet white miso and rice vinegar in a small bowl. Add a large splash of umeboshi vinegar and ¼ teaspoon of hot English mustard (or prepared wasabi). Whisk again.

For the salad:

Take 2 heads of bok choy and separate. Wash and dry thoroughly (sticky sand always seems to accumulate at the base of bok choy leaves). Cut the stalks from the leaves and sliver the stalks lengthways. Keep any very small leaves intact and cut any large leaves in half. Toss them into a large salad bowl with 4-5 handfuls of salad leaves (I used baby spinach) and 1 golden shallot, very thinly sliced. Dress (see above) and toss over and over. Add the marinated mushrooms (see above) and toss again. Serve immediately.

freshest shiitake's I've ever seen...

Nepalese potato salad

Viewed from the kitchen table, the bright red flowers of the scarlet runner beans stand out against their climbing foliage. An impossibly cheerful shade of red, and a gorgeous thing to wake to. I have of late been consciously sitting myself right here looking out over the fledgling garden at breakfast. A book, my journal, a favourite pen and a pot of fragrant green tea my dining companions; a bowl of muesli with home-made rice milk and blueberries or a slice of these wonderful breakfast bars are regulars on the menu.

Breakfasting is something new, something of a work in progress. A slower, gentler beginning to the day. Still, my anxious nature, twitchy legs and fingers struggle to stay still for the full half hour. This solitary meal is good, I tell my legs, good for the soul. My organised parents (she a tidy virgo, he an earthy capricorn) set the breakfast table, properly, each night before they go to bed. For years this ritual has baffled me, their leonine, misfit daughter. Breakfast, mine, has always been scoffed hurriedly, flying out the door. Why someone who spends a large amount of time thinking about the importance of eating well would ignore a meal so intrinsic to well-being is quite baffling. So, I’m learning to give myself time to wake, think and organize the day over a little nourishing breakfast. And slowly, slowly, the early morning chatter in my head is beginning to quiet, just a little.

Reading books over breakfast (as opposed to reading emails) is becoming an integral part of the self-prescribed therapy that chatter requires. A neat pile of books now sits on a corner of the kitchen table, a version, I guess, of my parent’s table-setting ritual. Writing in her exquisite, enviable style, Marion Halligan’s memory of a warm weather Christmas lunch – a huge platter of fresh, glistening prawns eaten with thin slices of dense black bread, lemons and lashings of butter, washed down with cold, cold white wine - read over this morning’s breakfast got me thinking. Not of Christmas food, though there will be some of that in the weeks to come. Rather it’s made me aware of a need in December for things that, like a generous, elegant, festive platter of prawns, can be prepared with a minimum of fuss. ‘Do I really need another potato salad recipe?’, I hear you ask. I think so highly of this delicious Nepalese street food that you may feel, as I have discovered, that yes, you do.

A spoonful of leftovers, raided at the entirely inappropriate time of 7am one Saturday morning, confirmed Madhur Jaffrey’s instruction to make it well ahead of time. It’s good after two hours, but better after twelve and will keep for up to 3 days. It’s a brilliant, multi-seasonal, make-ahead potato salad. God, it’s good. I serve it with pan-fried fillets of silver-skinned garfish, dredged in rice flour, made by grinding black rice to a powder, a tablespoon at a time, in a spice grinder - a sensational combination.

Nepalese potato salad (Aloo Achaar) for 4

Adapted, slightly, from this book.

This quantity can be doubled, tripled, even quadrupled easily. Four chillies may seem like a lot (it is) but the heat mellows a little on standing. Feel free to use one small green capsicum (pepper) in their place. Lots of vitamin E from the sesame seeds and vitamin C from the chillies.

6 medium-sized waxy potatoes (Desiree or Nicola are good)
4 tablespoons of sesame seeds
Juice of 4 lemons
1 teaspoon of sea salt
2-4 green chillies (see above), finely minced
4 tablespoons of macadamia or sesame oil (NOT the dark, toasted stuff)
Pinch of asafoetida powder
10 fenugreek seeds
1 bunch of coriander (cilantro), chopped

Place the potatoes in a saucepan of cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 20-25 minutes, or until tender all the way through when speared with a skewer.

Meanwhile toast the sesame seeds in a small frying pan, tossing constantly, until they are golden. Watch them like a hawk – they burn in the blink of an eye. Cool on a plate then grind to a powder, either in a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder.

Combine the ground sesame seeds, lemon juice, salt and chillies in a large ceramic bowl. Slowly whisk in 3 tablespoons of the oil with a fork until creamy and well amalgamated.

If you have a gas stove, warm the remaining tablespoon of oil in a metal ladle directly over a low flame. If you don’t have gas, a small saucepan over a high heat works just as well, if not a little less dramatically. When the oil is hot (moments) tip in the asafoetida and fenugreek seeds and as soon as the fenugreek seeds darken, remove from the heat and whisk into the sesame seed emulsion. Add the chopped coriander, mix well and set aside.

When the potatoes are cooked, peel them while they are still hot, using a tea towel to protect your hand. Dice the potatoes into 2 cm (¾ inch) chunks. There’s no need to be too precise here. Toss, gently, in the sesame dressing while still hot. Cool, cover and refrigerate until serving. Best eaten at room temperature.

Can you believe that the year is almost over?

I don't know where it went...

Spring leeks

'No onions’ he told me, ‘Drought. Still.’

Obviously, a man of few words. That’s two months now. Instead, there are plenty of tightly coiled, crisp green leeks and a large pile of purple garlic, small bulbs of which are astronomically priced, but no less tempting for it. Despite that statement, there are some onions this week - fresh ones, pink-skinned with their green tops standing to attention. Sweet and wonderful, these are quite unlike the more familiar papery-skinned kitchen basic they will become later in the year. Alliums a-plenty to keep me happy. ‘I can wait’, I told him, ‘I’m in no hurry’, and trundled off with a small bag of that expensive, highly perfumed garlic, a bunch of young onions and an armload of perky leeks.

Spring in Melbourne is changeable. Rain soaks the garden one day (and boy, did it drink deeply this last weekend) and the next finds you waking to bright cerulean skies, the sun beckoning you to shed layers and drink in the light. Just when you think you’re ready for salad weather to descend, the wind sweeps through the yard, knocks over your lemon balm and, damn it, it’s cold enough to warrant scarves. Again.

Patience is a virtue. Salad days are coming.

Any recipe that suggests you, ‘serve with a green salad’ is greeted in this kitchen with an audible sigh of relief. Any side dish whose sole instruction involves me, almost unthinkingly, tearing up a lettuce or two, adding a few leaves of whatever herbs look healthy in the garden and tossing them, at the last possible moment, in a mustardy-garlicky dressing is a very fine thing. Elaborate side dishes are tedious and frankly undo-able mid-week.

Transitional weather requires a transitional recipe. A savoury crumble, one that uses at least some of those leeks. Softly cooked, they lie beneath a layer of fresh, chunky tomato sauce and a crispy, herby, sesame seed-crusted topping. The tomatoes cook down while you sweat the leeks; you rub the crumble ingredients through your fingertips with a lazy eye on both pans, assemble, then chuck it in the oven for 30 minutes. Only when your partner pops his head over your shoulder and says, ‘It’s a bit like a tart, but in reverse’ do you think, ah, yes, it will be good. It is.

Needless to say, all you need to do is serve, predictably, with a green salad.

Leek and tomato crumble – for 4
Based on a recipe in Leith’s Vegetarian Bible. A recent post by Callipygia revised my thinking after this was photographed. I offer both ways here – one is béchamel-based (that’s what you see) and the other is milk-free and uses more leeks. It’s just as good, if not better.

Tomato sauce:
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
10 ripe, juicy tomatoes, preferably roma (plum)
Salt and pepper

Warm the oil in a saucepan over a low-medium heat. Add the onions, pop the lid on and sweat, lifting the lid to stir occasionally, for 5 minutes. Roughly chop the tomatoes and add to the pan, along with a little salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, then cook at a steady pace, stirring often, until tomatoes have broken down and the sauce thickened some, about 20 minutes.

Leeks, version 1:
1 tablespoon of olive oil
3 leeks, trimmed, well washed and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of flour
1 cup of rice, almond or cows milk
1 tablespoon of tahini
Sea salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a saucepan. Add the leeks, turn the heat to low and cover. Sweat, lifting the lid to stir occasionally, for 5-8 minutes or until the leeks are soft. Add the butter to the leeks and when it melts stir in the flour, stirring constantly, scraping the base of the pan as you go, for a minute or so.

Take the saucepan off the heat, pour in the milk and mix well. Return to the heat and, stirring constantly, bring to the boil. Simmer for 2 minutes. Stir in the tahini, season to taste and set aside

OR

Leeks, version 2:
2 tablespoons of olive oil/butter or a mixture of both
5-6 leeks, trimmed, well washed and thinly sliced
1-2 tablespoons of tahini
Sea salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the leeks, turn the heat to low and cover. Sweat, lifting the lid to stir occasionally, for 5-8 minutes or until the leeks are soft. Remove from the heat, stir in the tahini, season to taste and set aside.

The rest:
1 scant cup of flour (wholemeal [whole-wheat] works well)
½ cup of rolled oats
2 tablespoons of fresh herbs, finely chopped
85g of cold butter, cubed
1 tablespoon of sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 200 C (400 F).

Mix the flour, oats and herbs together in a roomy bowl. Rub in the cubed butter with your fingertips until it resembles chunky breadcrumbs.

Spread the leeks in an ovenproof dish with the back of a spoon. Pour the tomato sauce on top, spreading it out to the edges, then top evenly with the crumble mixture. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds and bake in the preheated oven for 20-30 minutes or until golden.

Even better the next day. No matter what the weather holds.

Green mango salad

Waiting for a piece of fruit to ripen, for the exact moment that it will spill its glorious juices down your bare, sun-warmed arms must, surely, count as one of the greatest pleasures of late summer. Peaches, nectarines and mangoes, at that stage of near collapse, are best tackled bent over the sink, feet planted well back, fingers licked clean and the stone sucked dry before moving on to the next. Holiday fruit, perfect, just as they are.

Happily, there are other ways of approaching the mango. Ones well suited to a southern hemisphere August.

Tart, unripe green mangoes make a fabulous crunchy salad, one that is fresh, sharp and surprisingly moreish. A wake-up call to the palate, one that I cannot get enough of at this stage of the season. This is a bastardized recipe, reminiscent rather than authentic; an attempt to capture the flavour and fragrance associated with warmer, exotic, South East Asian climes. I made it up. It does feel authentic. Serve it on its own by all means, but it is particularly good with fish.

Spring arrived early late last week, seemingly a gift brought by my mum from Sydney, and though she wanted the fierce cold, I’d been dreaming of warmer days and limbs freed from their wintry confines. So thank you mum, for bringing the weather with you and for loving whatever concoctions were placed on the dinner table.

Patience is the key to success here – you need to carefully slice the green mango into very thin julienned strips with a frighteningly sharp blade and you really do need to pick the individual leaves from your bundles of herbs. Do this, and you’ll be rewarded handsomely.

Green mango salad - for 2-4, as an accompaniment
If fish sauce isn’t something you eat, you can use a combination of light soy sauce and umeboshi vinegar to create something admirably akin to its unique taste. A quick trip around your Asian grocer should give you everything you’ll need here.

Dressing:
Juice of 1 lime
1 tablespoon of grated palm sugar or dark brown sugar
1 small clove of garlic, crushed
Nam Pla (fish sauce - see above for a vegetarian alternative), to taste

Salad:
2 green mangoes
1 bunch of Rau Ram (Vietnamese mint)
1 large bunch of coriander
1 small bunch of mint
2 shallots or ½ small red onion, peeled and very thinly sliced
1 tablespoon of crispy, fried shallots

To make the dressing, mix the lime juice, palm sugar and crushed garlic together in a small bowl. Add the Nam Pla to taste, starting with a teaspoon and working up to a maximum of 1 tablespoon. Set aside.

To make the salad, peel the mangoes - an ordinary potato peeler works well. Slice off both ‘cheeks’ as close to the seed as possible and slice into long, very, very thin julienned strips. Cut away anything else you can get similarly long strips from and slice in the same way. Place in a salad bowl.

Wash the herbs and dry them well. Pick the leaves carefully and patiently from the stalks, discarding any that aren’t perfect. Add the picked herbs to the mangoes and toss in the sliced shallots and pour over the dressing. Turn over and over to distribute the flavours and serve in little piles, garnished with the crispy fried shallots for a bit of crunch.

Watercress

Watercress for a salad with slivered witlof, the leaves painstakingly picked from their tough stalks. I love the odd mindless prep job.

Dressed with something thick and mustardy.

The perfect peppery foil for an ever-so-slightly sweet tea-rose coloured risotto of wine and muscat-poached pears and a deeply savoury, stinky, but very delicious blue cheese.

Kohlrabi

A cold and crisp but clear, bright morning. After weeks of rich and hearty fare, suddenly something lighter is calling. A salad for this deep and rather damp mid-winter.

First time I tasted kohlrabi it was part of a tray of roasted veggies. It was, to say the least, wrong. Enough to put you off for life. But with a good nutritional profile, a card-carrying membership to the cabbage family and the potential for some much needed winter crunch I’m not prepared to give up, at least not that easily. Turns out it’s a vegetable best tackled raw or at most, cooked hastily. That way the texture, closely aligned with the crunch of water chestnuts and fresh, crisp Granny Smith apples, has room to stretch out and shine.

Traditionally remoulade is made with celeriac, that other swollen stemmed vegetable, mustard and mayonnaise. Kohlrabi it seems loves mustard as much as both celeriac and I. And so this layered plate, better for a light weekend lunch than a winter dinner, is just right. Untraditional avocado and sweet chilli sauce act as a foil to all that richness; a kick to get your tastebuds jumping. Though tomatoes are out of season, their acid red is much needed to cut through both the richness of the mayonnaise and the dull winter light. Besides, organic cherry ones seem to be everywhere at the moment.

Having just bought a small bottle of the freshest hazelnut oil I’ve tasted, home-made mayo was the way to go. Use a good commercial brand by all means but, to my great surprise, the vegan mayo (recipe below) works exceptionally well here.

Kohlrabi remoulade – a salad for winter
For 2-3, depending on your appetite. Adapted from a recipe by Nadine Abensur.

These knobbly veggies come in two colours, purple and apple green. Both taste exactly the same. It's awfully good. The kohlrabi is crisp, mustardy and excellent on its own; the avocado and tomato are buttery and sweet-hot. A gorgeous combination.

For the remoulade:
2 small-ish, kohlrabi, thickly peeled
2 heaped tablespoons of good quality mayonnaise (see below)
3 fat green olives, pitted and finely chopped
1 small clove of garlic, crushed
Small palmful of hazelnuts, roasted, cooled and chopped
2 teaspoons of grain mustard
Sea salt and pepper

For the salsa:
3 small tomatoes (or a good handful of cherry ones)
1 ½ tablespoons of sweet chilli sauce
1 ripe but firm large Hass avocado
1 ½ tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (optional)
1 tablespoon of parsley, very finely chopped (optional)
Handful of leaves (rocket, spinach, whatever you like)

For the remoulade: Grate the kohlrabi coarsely (nothing fancy, just your normal cheese grater). Place the kohlrabi in a bowl and add the mayonnaise, chopped olives, garlic, hazelnuts and grain mustard. Season with a little salt and pepper and mix well. Set aside.

For the salsa: Chop the tomatoes small, place in a bowl with their juices and stir through the sweet chilli sauce. Peel and cut the avocado into 2.5 cm (1 inch) dice. Add to the tomato mixture, taste for seasoning (adding a little more sweet chill if need be) and stir gently to just combine. Set aside.

Mix the extra virgin olive oil and parsley together – this is really is just gilding the lily; leave it out if you can’t be bothered.

Divide the leaves between two or three plates (depending, of course, on how many you are). Place a mound of the salsa on top. Carefully place a mound of the remoulade on top of this. Drizzle a little of the parsley oil if you’re using it around the plate and serve at once.

Hazelnut mayonnaise:
Based on Stephanie Alexander’s proportions in the Cook’s Companion. Slowly, slowly is the key to success with mayonnaise. Makes about 1 cup.

2 really fresh, organic, free-range egg yolks
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
Pinch of sea salt
150ml of light olive oil (this is important – a heavy extra virgin oil will taste all wrong)
50ml of extra virgin or hazelnut oil

By hand: (and best if you have a friend to pour…)
Time to get out the balloon whisk. Sit a damp cloth on the bench top. Place a roomy bowl on top and start by whisking the egg yolks with the mustard and salt. When they are well combined, start adding the oils very, very slowly, drop, by drop, whisking like a person possessed constantly. After one third of the oil has been added, you can start to add the oil in a very thin stream, still whisking. Adjust seasoning to taste and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.

OR

By machine:
In a blender, a food processor or cake mixer to which you have attached the whisking device. The latter is by far the easiest way and gives the best results, but all require the same method as above. The blender and processor will give you a thinner mayonnaise; the cake mixer method ends up thick and unctuous, just like a real hand-made mayonnaise should be. It’s just that your wrist won’t end up disowning you.

OR

A vegan mayonnaise:
This is lovely, and just as good as any egg mayo, though not quite as rich. The ratio of oils can be changed to suit your recipe, and the amount of mustard reduced. It’s way easier too. Makes about 1 cup.

200g of silken tofu, blotted dry with kitchen paper (a little more or less won’t matter)
50ml of light olive oil
30ml of hazelnut oil
1 heaped tablespoon of Dijon mustard
1 clove of garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons of lemon juice
Sea salt and pepper

Place the tofu and oils in a food processor or blender and whiz until smooth. Scrape down the sides and add the remaining ingredients. Whiz again, taste for seasoning and keep in the fridge until you need it. Keeps for about 1 week.

So kohlrabi and I are gettin’ just a little cosier. Sure, the unique flavour may be lost in and amongst those other stronger ones, but truthfully, that suits me just fine.

Mache

Mache, Lambs Lettuce, Corn Salad, call it what you will.

Dressed with fresh mandarin juice and a drop or two of pine nut oil.

Never seen it before. Delicate and rather pretty.

Best served on a wide, flat plate.

Lunch

Feeling lazy.

Quick vegetable lunch, to use up the last of the goats cheese.

Avocado chunks for creaminess; citrus-laced coriander to cut through.

Surprisingly good.

'Fish' and 'Chips': Potato pizza

February has been a month of mostly meals on my own. The Artist has been on numerous overseas trips, working in New Zealand and, as of this afternoon, Prague, so it’s just me. Not a bad thing at all. Indeed, I get to cook and eat whatever I please when I’m on my own. But I was starting to miss cooking for all of us.

Because the Artist’s been here so irregularly it was decided that the Actor, 16, and the Musician, 13, would spend last Friday night with us, eager eaters that they both have become. There was a time when the Musician wouldn’t have contemplated eating a meal based on fish and potatoes – he is the only child I have EVER met who claims to loathe roasted potatoes (madness, I know). Fish would rarely knowingly pass his lips. He’s a Bolognaise boy from way back. But something (was it his bah mitzvah last year?) has changed both him and his eating habits. He is now more adventurous than I’d ever dared to hope. Both boys, it would seem, love good food.

The peppery nasturtium plants in the back yard have finally begun to trail over the side of the wine barrel, a sure sign that they are ready to be picked and made into a salad, one with avocado and smoked salmon. Pizza, packed with potatoes, was the perfect choice for dinner.

The fish: Take 4 handfuls of washed and dried baby spinach leaves and toss into a bowl. Next add 2 handfuls of freshly picked nasturtium leaves. Drizzle with walnut oil, about 2 tablespoons worth and about 1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar and a pinch of sea salt. Toss until the leaves are well coated and glossy. Seed, peel and slice 1 avocado and add this to the bowl, tossing very gently. Transfer to a shallow serving plate. Toast a small handful of walnuts in a dry pan until fragrant (about 5 minutes) and break with your fingers over the top of the salad. Tear some strips of smoked salmon and drape over the whole lot. Pick a few nasturtium flowers and set on top as a finishing touch.

This worked really well, though the salmon wasn’t necessary, and it didn’t add anything special to the meal – I’ll leave it out next time. If you haven’t got nasturtium leaves, either omit them or use well picked watercress leaves – both are peppery and from the same botanical family.

The potatoes: Homemade pizza is something special. Something that never, ever fails to impress. A potato-topped pizza is one step better.

Pizza - makes 4 pizzas

120g of wholemeal flour

450g of plain flour

1 teaspoon of sea salt

2 x sachets of dried yeast

2 tablespoons of milk

4 tablespoons of olive oil

For the base, mix the flours together in a bowl. Add the salt, yeast, milk, olive oil and 250ml of warm water. Using you hands, bring the ingredients together until a dough starts to form. Place the dough on a lightly floured bench top and knead for 8-10 minutes (therapeutic work this bread making) then shape the dough into a ball. Place it in a lightly oiled bowl and rub the dough around to lightly coat it (this prevents a skin forming on the surface, one that would otherwise stop it rising properly). Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place for 30 minutes to rise.

For the potato topping

3 medium-large sized potatoes, washed and thinly sliced

5 onions, peeled and very thinly sliced

6 tablespoons of olive oil, plus extra for drizzling

Small handful of fresh thyme leaves

1 large globe of buffalo mozzarella, torn with your fingers (quite satisfying!)

Plain yoghurt

Shavings of parmesan

Bring the potatoes to the boil in salted water, reduce the heat and simmer for five minutes. Drain thoroughly and gently place in a very clean tea towel to absorb all the water – the potatoes need to be super-dry to work here. Set aside.

Fry the onion slowly in the oil until soft and golden (about 25 minutes).

Preheat the oven to 220 C.

Divide the risen dough into 4. Roll each piece out to a round of roughly 23cm (the more ‘rustic’ the shapes, the more charming the pizzas, so don’t be precious). Leave to rise on a baking tray in a warm place for about ten minutes. Evenly spread the onions over each base, followed by the potatoes, thyme, cheese and dot with yoghurt. Drizzle with oil, top with parmesan shavings and bake in the oven for twenty minutes or so, until the bases are crisp.

The photo doesn't really do the pizza justice - but I'd had a couple of glasses of wine by then...

Somethin' for nothin'

The Artist and I spent Australia Day at home, me weeding, him painting. We have only been living here for a few months and when we arrived, the huge ‘garden’ had been decimated and nuked by the owners who are obviously not the gardening type. At all. It was a sad state of affairs. So, since September we’ve been slowly letting the older plants find their way back (the wisteria is coming along particularly well) and we’ve added some of our own pots here and there.

While weeding I found, much to my delight, that purslane is spreading across the pavers in the front garden. I’ve been reading all sorts of good things about this little weed and am pleased to say these plants of ours are crisp, lush and juicy. There are health claims made that purslane is a rare plant source of the rather elusive omega-3 fatty acids, as well as being endowed with other attributes (vitamins C and E and beta-carotene to name but a few), but I love that this is a weed and it tastes good. Lemony and crisp all at once. In the Middle East and Greece it is treated as a vegetable of note – here you’re just as likely to pull it up and heave it out.

Now, I love something for free. And I mean actually free, not free as in ‘buy one get one free’ or ‘free gift with every purchase’ (an oxymoron if ever there was one – aren’t gifts always free? Regardless of purchase? Mmm...). What to do with such a bounty?

I tossed a handful into a salad of cherry tomatoes with an olive oil-rich dressing. Quite nice and a good use for all the yellow pear-shaped fruit I cannot keep up with, but better still was the salad with boiled new potatoes. Now we’re getting somewhere!

Firstly, make sure that it has not been doused with any sort of chemical – so no picking by the side of the road or in the park, okay? To prepare purslane, snip off lengths about the size of your hand. If the stems are thin and delicate, by all means use these too, but if yours is as mature as mine the stalks will no doubt be too tough, so just use the leaves you pull off. Beware - purslane waits for no one, so get on with your recipe before it goes slimy…now there’s a horrid thought!

Purslane and potato salad – serves 4
If you haven’t got purslane, watercress is a good substitute.

500g of new potatoes
3 tablespoons of mayonnaise (look, it’s well worth making your own here)
A large handful of well-washed purslane leaves
1 stick of celery, finely sliced
2 tablespoons of capers, drained and rinsed
Lemon juice to taste
½ teaspoon of sumac
A tablespoon or so of hulled pistachios, peeled and roughly chopped

Place the potatoes in a saucepan covered with cold water. Bring to the boil, then cook in simmering water until tender. Drain and set aside to cool.

Gently, using a large spoon, mix the potatoes with the mayonnaise, purslane, celery and capers. Taste for seasoning (salt and pepper are necessary here, but the quantity is left entirely up to you) before squeezing over some lemon juice. Mix once more, even more gently this time, and serve showered with the sumac and pistachios.

Salad for two

I am not a natural salad maker. Never have been. Don’t get me wrong, I love a salad, well-dressed, tossed at the last possible minute and arranged with love, and will happily eat a whole bowl completely on my own. It’s just that often a salad in itself doesn’t quite seem to be enough and I find myself opting to make something a little more complex, as though a salad just isn’t enough work.

But something has changed. Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s attempting to eat as many vegetables as possible every day. Whatever it is, salads are appearing on our table as complete meals on their own, much to my surprise and delight.

I bought some beautiful organic blueberries from the market on Saturday morning and found a rather sad-looking bulb of fennel lurking about at the back of the fridge on our return. This salad (doesn't it look spunky?) was what we ate in the afternoon.

Look, this salad goes against one of my old principles – that fruit and vegetables should not play together – combining the incredibly unlikely combination of oranges, blueberries (rich in antioxidants) and wafer-thin slices of fennel (a source of gentle, crisp bitterness in our overly-sweet Western diet). What can I say? It’s luscious. It comes, with a little adaptation by me, from Nadine Abensur’s ‘Crank’s Bible’. And it looks so beautiful.

Salad of fennel, avocado and blueberries

Serves 2 for lunch, or a light dinner

For the dressing:
Juice of ½ an orange
1 small clove of garlic VERY finely chopped
A small handful of fresh coriander, finely chopped
½ tablespoon of good olive oil
2-3 drops of balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons of tamari (or soy sauce)

Mix all of this together and set aside.

For the salad:
1 small bulb of fennel, sliced wafer-thin
2 oranges, peeled, seeded and segmented
1 ripe and gorgeous avocado, peeled, stoned and sliced
A small handful of fresh blueberries
1 tablespoon of walnuts, broken up with your fingers

Combine all of the ingredients in a shallow salad dish and toss very gently with the dressing (maybe not all of it, especially if your oranges were as juicy as mine) and serve immediately with extra coriander sprigs if you can be bothered.