All this talk about pantry-lovin' has got me thinking as the wind whips wildly around the house.
Stir-fry of smoked tofu, greens, spring onion and shiitakes.
All in my new favourite bowl.
The beetroot greenery, blanched and squeezed, carried the Ketjap Manis (how I love it) best. The pink water left behind was rather good, sipped, while waiting.
Seedlings of flat-leaf parsley, planted at the tail end of summer, have, halfway through winter, become forests. Which is a stroke of luck, really. It’s the one thing that I seem to be able to grow rather well. Other things – the pennywort I wanted so badly; the stubby bushes of rosemary that will not even try – are moving at the proverbial snail's pace, but the parsley, it is unstoppable. Lush forests of greenery that sit close to the back door so that I can slip out, feet un-shod, to grab a handful or two as needed. It’s enough to make a trainee kitchen gardener feel inordinately proud.
A mountain of parsley went into this soup, a wise attempt to harvest just a little of this year’s prolific crop. Incredibly delicious it is, though the sum of its parts may not initially suggest much. Ladled into shallow soup plates, this becomes quite sophisticated. Understatedly elegant and deeply herbal, in a deeply nourishing sort of way. Honest, restorative, iron-rich. Frugal winter food.
A soup to make you feel like a gardener, even if you’re not.
Parsley soup – feeds 2
To use anything less than a forest of parsley is to miss the point. This must be vital, green and herbal. You’ll need a whopping 300g, a generous ½ lb or so, to suffice two. Adapted from The Cranks Bible.
2 very large bunches of flat-leaf parsley
1 small onion, roughly chopped
6 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons of butter (or olive oil)
2 small potatoes
½ teaspoon of good veg stock powder (optional)
Sea salt and pepper
Best olive oil, for drizzling
1 heaped tablespoon of smoked almonds, chopped (optional)
Cut the parsley leaves from their stalks. Place the stalks in a large saucepan and cover, quite generously, with cold water. Throw in the onion and half of the garlic. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes.
Roughly chop the parsley leaves. Scrub the potatoes and chop them into chunks.
Stew the potatoes and garlic in the butter gently, stirring from time to time, for 15 minutes. Add the parsley leaves and stir slowly through the garlicky potatoes for a minute, maybe two. You want it to collapse a little. Measure out 3½ cups of parsley stock and pour it in next. Stir, then add the stock powder. Simmer, covered, until the potatoes crush easily against the side of the pot – 10 - 15 minutes should do it. Season to taste. Cool a little before blending until velvet-smooth. Serve with a thread of good, spicy olive oil and the almonds, if you’re using them.
Holler is hosting this month’s herbal edition of No Croutons Required and this bowl of green is my submission.
In other news, I’ve been watching Posh Nosh over here and laughing very loudly. Required viewing for anyone who claims to love cooking, I reckon. Richard E. Grant at his absolute best.
Thanks, Grocer.
Sometimes lunch experiments work out very nicely indeed, thank you very much.
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 Ginkgo Biloba is a tree with an ancient lineage. It’s a living fossil, like a crocodile or the remarkable Wollemi Pine. 270 million years old it is, and that people, commands respect. Reputed to improve the memory, the green fruit, or nut, of the female tree is highly prized by both Chinese and Japanese cuisines. Julie told me that she has watched families in New York gather the stinking fruit from the pavement. Having smelt it walking around The Gardens during her stay, it’s not a task that excites me very much, I have to say. Lazy, I know, but there you go. Better by far is finding a net of gingko nuts, as I finally did, in the fridge of an excellent Asian grocery.
Shell-bound, the ginkgo is shaped much like an almond; one end rounded, the other tapered to a point. Paler and thinner-skinned, with a strong, pungent smell. Once freed, the fruit itself is a little rubbery. Not quite what I was expecting, but interesting, nonetheless. The recipe that follows uses just three and this is, I think, ideal for an untrained Western palate to begin with.
Served in tiny Japanese tea cups, these barely-set custards shudder in a very luscious way. Not sure about you, but I have days when little bowls of this sort of restorative thing are very, very welcome. Wholesome, but light. Smoked tofu adds depth and complexity to the girly-ness of it all, but originally, I made this with about 60g (2oz) of salmon belly cut into small cubes, just as Holly Davis did. It made an extraordinarily good custard, gentler and even more delicate. The earthier grounding of smoked tofu however, feels somehow right for autumn. Play as you like. Best of all, it’s quick and simple. It is surprising just how much liquid two eggs will, tremulously, set. I didn’t expect this to work at all. Lovely stuff.
Steamed ginkgo and mushroom custards – makes 6
Adapted from a Holly Davis recipe. I’ve looked, longingly, at this recipe for years, but never found the nuts. If they elude you, this, I promise, will not suffer their omission in the slightest. I wish I’d made them sooner.
8 dried shiitake mushrooms, destalked
A thin slice of smoked tofu
3 ginkgo nuts, shelled OR 6 almonds, blanched and slivered
2 free-range eggs (best you can afford/find)
½ cup of mirin
1 ½ tablespoons of shoyu, tamari or soy sauce
4 spring onions, white and an inch or so of greens, sliced
A little of green tops of the spring onion, finely chopped
You will also need:
A bamboo (or similar) steamer
A wok
6 Japanese/Chinese teacups, each of about 80ml (1/3 cup) capacity
Soak the shiitakes in freshly boiled water for 1 hour. Soak the tofu separately in cool water to cover at the same time. Drain the tofu, pat dry and cut into tiny dice.
Drain the mushrooms, reserving 1 cup (250 ml) of the liquid. Place the mushrooms in a small saucepan, cover with water and simmer until tender. Scoop out and squeeze gently when ready. Slice caps very thinly. Rub the skin from each ginkgo nut and boil in the same saucepan for 10 minutes. Drain well and slice each into 6 pieces.
Whisk eggs, mushroom liquor, mirin and shoyu together in a bowl until well combined. Divide evenly between 6 teacups and gently arrange the mushrooms, nuts, tofu (or salmon) and spring onions in each cup.
Carefully place the cups in a bamboo steamer. Pour a little water into the base of the wok, bring to a simmer and balance the steamer on top. Place the lid on and steam for 10-12 minutes. Remove and cool for 10 minutes, then serve garnished with spring onion greenery.
The gorgeous, inventive Laurie of Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska is this week’s host of Kalyn Denny’s Weekend Herb Blogging.
Sturdy enough to withstand transit, wholesome and filling enough to help you through the afternoon, you might imagine a salad based on hearty, earthy wholegrains, would make perfect sense in your lunchbox. Ideal. Invincible, even. Sadly, to use a much-abused cliché, not all are created equal. Freshly cooked and quickly dressed? Delicious. Plump grains, bearing even the faintest trace of warmth, tossed in grass-green oil and something sharp, something fragrant, are far more forgiving dressed now than later, stone cold. But that very same salad fridge-cold two days later? Awful. Or so I thought.
Lunch, or more to the point, the question of what to pack for lunch, has always puzzled me. Bringing your own is clearly the clever person’s cash and time-saving solution, but exactly what to bring becomes less obvious once you move beyond soggy sandwiches and leftovers. But leftovers, however obvious they seem, are a very good place to begin.
Toss leftover rice, pilaf or otherwise, with generous spoonfuls of thick plain yoghurt, a squeeze of lemon, salt, crushed garlic and lots of dill. Halve a cucumber lengthways, scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon and slice it thinly crossways. Toss these quarter moons in next. In a separate container, pack some sturdy lettuce leaves, washed and carefully dried, to wrap around spoonfuls of creamy, herby rice. This, I find, stops you eating in front of the computer screen – while not impossible, it is rather difficult to check emails when both hands are actively, pleasurably, engaged.
I now happily roast extra vegetables just so they can be doused in this unbelievably good dressing. Tumbled with handfuls of roughly chopped parsley and/or coriander it’s easy and very, very do-able before you head out. Whip up a double batch over a morning coffee, pour into a clean jar and take it with you for the week. Carrot and celery sticks, those dreaded dieting staples, are lovely dipped or drizzled this way. Tinned dolmades (drained and splashed with both olive oil and balsamic vinegar) and pre-made falafels are good to have on hand. Serve with a tub of hummus or the roughly forked flesh of a ripe avocado. Tinned staples in fact make great salads: Sophie has a wealth of ideas and Stephanie’s own take on one of my earlier suggestions is grand – peruse the comments section while you’re there for a bunch of possibilities well worth exploring.
And then there are these two beautiful wholegrain salads. They’ll need to be made ahead, a quiet Sunday afternoon immediately springs to this mind, but both travel well and last beyond the single lunch. Not wanting to sound like a bore, I think it worth a reminder here to remove your lunch from the fridge about thirty minutes before you plan to eat – fridge-cold anything does neither the digestive system nor tastebuds any particular favours.
Karen Martini’s brown rice salad – 3-4 lunch-sized servings
Karen Martini’s fabulous, nutty salad in her latest offering Cooking at Home is so good it’s worth doubling. I’ve adapted the recipe to suit my needs, but the beautiful flavours are essentially hers. It just seems to improve with age. Frankly, we can’t stop eating it around here...
¾ cup of brown rice (stubby Japanese grains, for preference)
1½ cups of water
½ cup of currants
½ cup of red wine vinegar
½ cup of pine nuts
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
3 onions, sliced into thin half moons
Generous pinch each of sea salt, cinnamon and allspice
1 bunch of parsley leaves, roughly chopped
½ bunch of mint leaves
1 red chilli, deseeded and chopped
Juice of 2 lemons
Get the rice on first. Bring the rice and water to a boil in a small, heavy-based saucepan. Lower the heat right down, clamp the lid on tightly and leave, untouched, for 45 minutes. Remove from the heat, lid still on, and rest while you get on with the recipe.
In another small saucepan, bring the currants and vinegar to a boil. Simmer for 3-5 minutes, until the fruit is plump and there is just a little liquid left at the bottom of the saucepan.
Toast the pine nuts until golden in a dry frying pan. Remove to a plate to cool, place the frying pan back on the heat and pour in the oil. Add the onions, salt and spices and cook over a low heat for 20-30 minutes, stirring from time to time. You want golden threads.
Toss everything together over and over while the rice and onions are still warm. Keeps for up to three days.
Beetroot and quinoa salad – 3-4 lunch-sized servings
Ah, the Wonder Grain. High in protein and easily digestible, quinoa is also rich in minerals. While most wholegrains will take an hour, often longer, to reach tender, toothsome perfection, quinoa is a speedy twenty-minute affair. Think tabbouleh and you’re halfway to understanding both its texture and functionality. Adapted from Rebecca Wood’s Splendid Grain, this is very a pretty shade of pink.
2 cups (500ml) of stock (cube, especially Marigold, is fine)
1 small beetroot, peeled and very finely diced
1 cup of quinoa
1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
Juice and zest of 1 small lemon
Sea salt
1 bunch of chives, snipped with scissors
1 bunch of parsley leaves, chopped
Large handful of black olives, pitted and chopped
A few anchovies (optional), chopped
Thick, plain yoghurt or sour cream
Large soft lettuce leaves, washed and carefully dried (optional)
Bring the stock to a boil, drop in the beetroot, quinoa, oil and half a teaspoon of salt, followed by the zest and juice. Bring back to the boil, lower the heat right down, clamp the lid on tightly and leave, untouched, for 15 minutes. Stand, still covered, for a further 3 minutes.
Lift the lid and fork through half of the herbs, the olives and anchovies (if using). Cool completely, and add the rest of the herbs. Pack the yoghurt and lettuce in two separate containers. To serve, wrap spoonfuls of the quinoa in the leaves, dolloped with a little yoghurt or cream as you go. Just as good without the lettuce, but I quite like this ritual. Keeps for up to two days.
How do you ‘do’ lunch?
