Heat and Ice

She, the dog, was useless on Friday. Utterly useless. By 4.30, the air had warmed up and the sun was beating on our backs. The park was practically empty, ours to wander, blissfully, without interruption. She panted in the heat, tongue lolling, seeking the shade of every, single, tree. I know how she feels. We are not alone in our dread of the impending Australian summer. It’s going to be a long hot one.

Saturday morning: armed with bags of soil, he filled the long wooden troughs, ‘rubbish’ rescued under cover of dark, each one stencilled, enigmatically, with the number 920. These wooden, movable garden beds are perfect for renters, keen to learn but lacking permanent roots; allowing us to discover just how much sun each plant can take. They’ll get precious little water, these babies. They’ll need to be tough. This garden is a jumble of pots, empty olive oil tins and found objects; a travelling garden of familiar, favourite bits. A little chaotic, but perfect for practice. Gardening, practical, getting-your-hands-and-knees-dirty gardening, teaches you things that books and even the odd interstate phone call to a gardener-father, cannot.

I watched on, sorting through packets of seeds ordered, on a whim, months ago. Crookneck squash, Bull’s Blood beetroot, French Breakfast radishes, silverbeet “Vulcan Red”. More rocket, so successful has it been. Basil, two kinds, and another pot of borage, though I’ve no idea what one does with the stuff. He lugged earth; I got my fingernails dirty. We were toasting thick slices of Challah and brewing a pot of ginger-spiked tea in less than an hour.

Clouds rolled in at noon, bringing heavy, delicious drops of rain that fell, briefly, satisfyingly, on the newly planted. As it passed, trailing fresher, cleaner air, the windows and doors were flung wide open. The temperature drop is immediate and reviving. Right now, before it’s hot enough to stagger the uninitiated and stupefy even the well-versed; before January’s bushfires hang, threateningly, in the air, hot days are something special. It’s like standing, toes tightly gripped, on the edge of summer. One hand grasping the last of the asparagus, in disbelief that spring – amazingly – has been and gone, the other reaching, longingly, toward the bounty of the months and, with some luck, our garden ahead.

Dessert is often an afterthought around here. The main event holds more interest to my way of thinking. But with hot days and nights snaking in, earlier than expected, and a gift in the shape of an ice cream churn to master (she’s a good sort, my mum), I’ve been thinking about the last course a lot more of late. Not something cloyingly sweet – too hot for that. Lemons, the very last of them, for a cool ending to Friday night and, as it turned out, Saturday night too.

Lemon Yoghurt Ice – for 4

My notes read, ‘Three to four lemons. All you’ll need.’ The tree in the front garden had exactly four fruit left worth eating. What are the chances? You’ll need both a food processor and an ice cream churn for this, but more people seem to have these pieces of hardware than I used to think. You can make it with all yoghurt too – 1 cup of vanilla swapped for the pure cream would lower the fat content considerably. Or so I like to think.

3-4 lemons, unwaxed and organic if possible
2/3 cup of caster sugar
1 cup of pure (single) cream
1 cup of thick, tangy natural yoghurt

Zest the lemons and whiz together for 1 minute with the sugar in a food processor. Squeeze the lemons, strain (you’ll need 6 tablespoons of juice) and add to the sugar and zest and whiz again – the sugar should start to dissolve.

Add the cream and yoghurt and pulse, quickly, 3-4 times, just to combine. Chill for 30 minutes before freezing, according to the manufacturers instructions, in an ice cream churn. Best eaten on the day it’s made, but for the next couple of days it will be good too – just make sure that you place the container in the fridge for 20-30 minutes before you serve to soften, just a little.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging #110 hosted this week by Truffle from What's on My Plate for Kalyn Denny, creator of this weekly event.

Tiny potatoes

Baby Kipflers. Small and very sweet.

Tea towel, possibly the nicest gift ever, by Camilla Engman.

Summer

The rocket has gone mad,
the cricketers have taken over the park
and the chick, whose nest we've been watching, has upped and left.

Summer's here and the tomatoes are di-vine.

Braised with green beans, red onion and a truckload of garlic.

Favourite summer lunch.

Moroccan Pumpkin - A Vegan Venture

‘My hearse will be followed not by mourning coaches but by herds of oxen, sheep, swine, flocks of poultry and a small travelling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarves in honour of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow creatures.’

George Bernard Shaw, free-thinker, playwright and vegetarian, who died in 1950 at the ripe old age of ninety-four.

His longevity, Mr Shaw declared, could be explained simply by his choice of food. I imagine his tee-totaling lifestyle contributed a great deal to that too; still, it won’t stop me raising a glass to that sort of revolutionary thinking. Had he lived now, when the ethics of vegetarianism have been nudged further to the left, there’s little doubt in my mind that he would have adopted veganism with the same aplomb. Given, however, his particular passion for cream-laden cake, large wedges of which he would greet guests at the gate with, I’m not entirely certain Mr Shaw would have embraced tofu quite as readily as many modern vegetarians have. Tofu (the ‘T’ word) is, you see, one of the cornerstones of vegan cooking.

Much of what comes out of this kitchen is vegan or almost. The shores of Mediterranean Europe are brimming with ideas from which the greedy magpie cook can thieve. The flavours of India, the Middle East and North Africa offer a goldmine of vegan-friendly treasures, and all without the need for tofu. Tempeh, I love; its nuttiness and crispy, golden, pan-fried edges make it a toothsome addition to South East Asian dishes. Tofu, served in the elegant, Japanese way is high on my list of culinary loves (once, in Auckland, I ate an entire plate of Agedashi Tofu, then poked and prodded my chopsticks deftly around everyone else’s tofu too – a greedy girl, always). But tofu, Mediterranean-style, seems to this palate, wrong.

No tofu today. I’ve something better to share.

Occasionally it is necessary to suspend your disbelief when recipe reading. Skeptics (read me) may scoff at a suggestion (read Edward) that you serve your guests a platter of saffron-tinted couscous, topped with slowly braised golden shallots and sticky prunes, finished with quarter moons of spicy, fragrant orange pumpkin. But they’d be mistaken. Nadine Abensur, who transports you to her childhood home in Morocco in one breath then seduces you with her unique approach to vegetables, is just my sort of cook. Had the recipe not been hers, I probably would probably have turned the page.

The festive season is, amazingly, just around the corner. We were having a little festivity of our own in the backyard last weekend and this stunning, suitably festive meal was perfect. Can I suggest you try at least one all vegan celebratory meal this year? Serves six normal people. Or one normal(ish) person, her greedy partner and a teenage step son who’d been asking for it for months.

Moroccan pumpkin with a shallot and prune confit – for 6

There are three layers here. Start with the pumpkin, move onto the confit and prepare the couscous at the last possible moment. Nadine Abensur’s Cranks Bible was the inspiration for this – the confit is entirely hers with only slight changes by me because you live and learn. It is incredibly rich, really it is, so follow or serve with a simple green salad and some oven-warmed bread.

The pumpkin:
1 small jap (kent) pumpkin (about 1.5 kilos or 3 lbs)
1 tablespoon of coriander seeds
1 tablespoon of cumin seeds
2 teaspoons of chilli flakes
1 heaped teaspoon of ground cinnamon or ras el hanout
1 tablespoon of pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of tamari (or soy sauce)

Cut the pumpkin into at least 18 wedges. Scoop out and discard the seeds.

Toast the coriander, cumin and chilli flakes in a dry pan, tossing constantly, for 2 minutes, or until fragrant. Cool on a plate. Grind to a rough powder with either a mortar and pestle or a clean coffee/spice grinder. In a large bowl, mix the ground spices with the cinnamon or ras el hanout, the maple syrup, oil and tamari.

Toss the pumpkin wedges in the spice and oil mixture, arrange in a large baking dish and as best you can. Baste with any remaining spice and oil mixture and bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, turning each wedge at least twice, until completely tender, but still holding their shape.

The shallot and prune confit:
500g (1 lb) of shallots (eshallots)
2 large handfuls of raw almonds
300g (10 oz) prunes with their pits
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Sea salt
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and left whole

Bring a medium-sized saucepan of water to the boil. Throw in the shallots and simmer at a vigorous pace for 1 minute. Scoop them out, reserving the water, and drain. Top, tail and peel the shallots and set them aside.

Reheat the water and toss the almonds in for 2 minutes to blanch. Scoop them out, reserving the water, and drain before slipping them from their skins. Spread the almonds out on a baking sheet and toast for 8 minutes in the oven. Remove to a plate and cool.

Pit the prunes. Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based frying pan and fry the shallots until deeply golden all over, shaking the pan rather than stirring them around. Add a good pinch of salt, the garlic and the pitted prunes. Toss to coat in the oil then add a ladleful of the reserved water. Bubble at quite a rapid pace, adding more water as it is absorbed, shaking the pan as above until the shallots are golden, tender but still holding their shape, and coated in a little sauce. Some of the prunes will have broken down – highly desirable. This will take anywhere between 30-45 minutes. Stir through the toasted almonds 5 minutes before serving.

The couscous:
1 ½ cups of couscous
1 very large pinch of saffron threads
1 ¾ cups of boiling water
1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
1 bunch of coriander and/or mint, well washed and roughly chopped

Mix the couscous with the saffron threads in a heat proof bowl. Pour over the boiling water and the tablespoon of olive oil and cover the bowl with a plate. Rest, covered, for 5 minutes before tossing over and over with two forks.

Arrange the couscous in a mound on a large platter or in the base of a tagine. Spoon over the shallot and prune confit and arrange the pumpkin wedges on top. Sprinkle generously with the coriander or mint, or both and serve immediately.

I’m submitting this as my entry to Suganya of Tasty Palattes who is hosting Vegan Ventures, a one-off vegan-friendly event for the month of November.

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.

Spoon

The bright southern light becomes easier to read as the days lengthen.

Shadows in the kitchen are more defined.

Somehow, right again.

Irritated

Yes. The internet has no ‘gatekeepers’. Yes. The internet is ‘un-edited’. I don’t doubt that yes, somewhere, out there, the internet is littered with a tonne of rubbish.

But really, do we have to be belittled by people just as opinionated as us?

John Lethlean’s words in The Age this week resulted in more verbiage from a growing community of budding and not-so-budding Australian writers on Ed’s blog, Tomato; all of it thought-provoking, all of it relevant, much of it consoling.

Still, I am irritated.

Much of my reading time is taken up by books rather than opinion pieces, so I often have neither the time nor inclination to read them. The politics of food are high on my agenda, but as a subject, rarely make it onto these pages. But when I stumbled across Mr Lethlean’s comment, a small, off-handed one, no doubt intended to be taken on face value rather than as a deeper dig, I felt a little shiver of irritation.

It’s been playing on my mind.

I do not think that I write badly and most certainly do not think badly of anyone else’s words. On the contrary, most people whose work (and let’s face it, it is work) I read take great pride in it and that, surely, is to be applauded. We are a literate and often amusing bunch. I'm happy to read what appeals to these eyes and switch off to the words that do not resonate.

It’s as simple as that.

New York, Spain and what I'd do again

Travelling makes you hungry. Hungry for life, hungry for new experiences, hungry to learn as much as possible before you return to the ins and outs of daily life. Mostly though, it just makes you hungry for more travel. Language washes over you, seducing you with its unfamiliarity and teasing you with its similarities. Eating in a foreign country, however ‘safe’ your choice of cuisine, is one of the most seductive elements of travelling. And for the cook, travel, surely, is the most useful ingredient of all.

I wanted to get it out now, all in one blurt so to speak, because it’s not the end of the year quite yet. Holidays cannot go on forever, though the days here are warm and sunny enough to encourage that kind of thinking. It’s still spring, people. The Racing Carnival has begun and summer, well, she’s just around the corner. How did it get to be the end of October so quickly? There are things to be done, important things, and they’ll be needing my attention. Relaxed and refreshed, I’m ready for it.

Kathryn, I love you. Invaluable, crackingly good advice, I tell you. Planning a big trip? Please, check out these tips before you do. They made me far more companionable than the last time we went overseas...

It’s been a challenge to write about travel when, as a subject, it’s a little alien. I spent the weekend perusing the pages of The Age and still couldn’t come up with the right formula. So highlights it shall be. It’s a long post, and for that I apologise in advance. You can just scroll on down to the bottom of the page, where there is, I promise, a travel-inspired recipe worth waiting for.

Some highlights. Yes. These are the things I'd do again.

New York: Huge.

The apartment. Upper West Side. Near Central Park. The view from the roof was great; the view from the top of the stairs was vertigo-inducing.

Crying (quietly) in the Jewish Museum over an engraved camp spoon from Auschwitz and being confronted by an actual yellow star. Cheering up enormously over the silver Hanukah lamp adorned with emus and kangaroos.

Stumbling toward lunch on that first day, at Lumi, on the corner of Lexington and 70^th. Halibut on a bed of fennel and tomato, braised until sweet. Topped with shavings of fresh, crispy fennel.

More Rembrandt’s and Vermeer’s than you can poke a stick at in The Met. Meeting a friend on the steps, in the flesh, for the first time. Knowing instantly that this blogging thing has changed my life and added things that are more valuable, more satisfying, than I ever suspected it would. A great Indian lunch, spiced just the way I like it. Thank you, Susan.

Realizing just how confusing it is to navigate The Subway, late, on the way home from a fun dinner on the Lower East Side. Schiller’s three wines come by the bottle and are labeled thus; Cheap, Decent and Good. Honest, eh?

MoMA. UN-believable. Nothing else to say. Just go.

The American Museum of Natural History. A labyrinth of goodies. Oh, my. Dinosaur bones; taxidermed animals hung in a strangely beguiling way; beautiful birds, owls I wanted to revive and take home; American Indian costumes, headdresses, weaponry, all so exquisite; Aztec and Mayan treasures beyond priceless.

The Empire State building at night. A long way up. A Very Long Way Down.

Wandering, barefoot, in the grass in Central Park on our last morning. Eating lunch at the Boathouse beneath the slowly turning fans.

Madrid: Hot, but cool. Very cool.

Flying in while the sun rose; thinking just how hot and dry the place is and how like home the searing sun made me feel.

Narrow, cobbled streets. You don’t realize just how small the old section of the city is until you’ve traversed it, from hotel to Palace, in 30 minutes. Like a slightly smaller Rome, but with a very distinctive flavour of its own.

The plazas, surrounded by bars and restaurants, are empty until about 12.30, when the tourists, unfamiliar with the distinctive Spanish eating hours, head out to (sometimes unsuccessfully) find lunch.

A Paula Rego retrospective at the Reina Sofia (how lucky were we?). Didn’t see Guernica, but then how many times to you need to see that harrowing image? Brilliant.

Walking, albeit briefly, around the exquisite El parque del Retiro.

In our hotel one morning, the waiter pressed a business card into my hand for El Rincon de Esteban (about halfway down the page), an ‘authentic’ Spanish restaurant. Joyful, satisfying and hospitable. Best meal of the holiday. Esteban, a man larger than life and rotund enough to suggest he eats Very Well, kissed me goodbye on both cheeks, embraced me and then gave me flowers as we left. Apparently coming from Melbourne made us popular with both the waiters and the chef. Go figure.

9am: on the doorstep of the Prado for a quick run through. Fast and furious – better without all the tourists that flood in later. Velazquez (egotistical; magnificent); enough Goya’s to make your hair curl. Welling up with tears seeing his final, eerie works.

San Sebastian: A politically active fishing town, overrun by tourists in summer.

Hotel was beautiful, elegant and quiet. The haven we were seeking.

Climbing Monte Urgull, a fort, now crumbling romantically, offering the best view of the city and the shell-shaped beach it rests upon, La Concha. Green and lush vegetation grows wildly, making it seem even more romantic and mysterious. The huge statue of Christ that presides over the town stands at the summit looking down, concerned. Unsurprising given the Basque capital is often referred to as a 'party town'.

his work just gets better and better

Sun on winter-white skin, a local beer in hand and tomato, lettuce and sweet onion bocadillos (sandwiches, Spanish-style) eaten in a sunny plaza – followed by a siesta.

The deliciously sweet, pale-fleshed, dark green-skinned melons served at breakfast. Between broken Spanish, Basque and English, I still can’t figure out what it was…

Reading (Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie - stunning; Vegetable Pleasures by Colin Spencer, and the sadly less-than-thrilling Chez Panisse Vegetables), writing lots (giving a project some space to grow; nutting out some worries, both general and specific; wholefoods and food politics; just getting words on paper) and drawing were what we wanted. San Sebastian, then, is the perfect, laid-back place in which to get it all.

Swimming. The surf beach, to the left of La Concha, was more like the beaches we’re used to – real waves that toss you about and leave you gasping for air – and became a favourite for people watching. The deeply-tanned man who strode confidently up and down the beach wearing nothing but a pair of dark designer sunglasses caught our attention on a number of occasions. Who was he?

The older Basque men in their berets, ambling along like the thick-waisted older Picasso; the middle-aged women in their tight leopard-, tiger- and zebra-printed clothes. Often all at once.

Eating? Neither the artist or I are big drinkers (any more), so late nights in the pintxos (tapas, pronounced ‘pinchos’ in Basque) bars were increasingly less interesting. The Japanese we ate twice was a magnificent contrast to the heavy, oily Basque food. We ordered a couple of magnificent Roija’s while we were there (all great, Deb). I desperately wanted a Spanish rice dish (to no avail) and would have given my right arm (and my left too) for a dish of vegetables, just once. Spain ain’t the place for a vegetarian. My advice is to eat the fish which is outstanding, and try to make up for it when you get home. Otherwise, you WILL starve.

Complaining? Not me. But here’s something I would have liked to eat. It’s a re-working of something from last year, simplified, improved, adapted and all vegetarian. God, how I missed vegetables. Being away I realized how infrequently our meals contain wheat flour – we are the wholegrain freaks.

Millet paella with saffron, tomatoes and asparagus - for 4

Toasting the millet before rinsing it is a trick gleaned from Rebecca Wood’s The Splendid Grain. It makes the millet wonderful, taking away the hint of bitterness that tends to accompany this incredibly healthful grain. The Spanish smoked paprika is non-negotiable. It is one of the most intensely flavoured spices and is especially useful in vegetarian cookery because of its ability to simulate some of the smoky qualities associated with bacon and ham.

1 cup of hulled millet
1 ½ tablespoons of olive oil
1 onion, peeled and finely sliced
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
1 large pinch of saffron
2 teaspoons of smoked paprika
1x 400g tin of tomatoes
Sea salt
1 teaspoon of tamari (or soy sauce)
2½ cups of boiling water
12 juicy black olives
¼ preserved lemon
1 bundle of asparagus, woody ends snapped off
A handful of sugar snap peas
Chopped parsley, to serve

Place the millet in a large frying pan and toss constantly over a medium heat until it pops and starts to smell nutty. Rinse well and drain.

Heat 1½ tablespoons of olive oil in a very large lidded frying pan and fry the onion and garlic over a medium heat for about 5 minutes.

Reduce the heat and add the millet, saffron, paprika and tomatoes, breaking them up with a wooden spoon. Stir, then add a pinch of salt, the tamari and the boiling water. Cover with a lid and cook until the liquid is absorbed and the millet is cooked, about 35 minutes. If the millet still tastes a little raw, add another ¼ cup of boiling water and cook until it’s absorbed.

Pit the olives and roughly chop them. Thinly slice the preserved lemon. Slice the asparagus into thirds and, with the whole sugar snap peas, simmer for 3 minutes in a pan of salted water. Drain well.

Lift the lid and arrange the olives, lemon and vegetables on top of the millet. Replace the lid and cook for a further 3-5 minutes, just to warm the vegetables through.

Sprinkle with parsley and eat. Gratefully.

And you know what? I even missed blogging.

Confession

Oh, the shame!

After all this time; after all the effort to cook and eat responsibly.

Wasted on 'fresh' chantarelles and beautiful, but aptly named, trompette de la morte. From France.

The food miles. The hideous expense.

I am deeply, deeply ashamed...

Spring herb tart

Away from the kitchen for more than a couple of weeks and these fingers start to itch, this brain begins ticking, whirring slowly into gear and then, oh dear, food itself becomes the very topic of dreams. Eating out every night in Spain, every day, too, had its charms (no washing up for starters) but the subconscious was not-so-subtly letting me know what it was craving. In lieu of actual cooking, dreaming about cooking took me by surprise.

Being surrounded by delicious salt cod and tuna dishes, inventive and awash with the most beautiful, grassy olive oil, anchovies both white and pink so succulent as to silence us on more than one occasion, snaffled up, alternating one pink, one white until the plate was empty was both wonderful and inspiring, yet each night, drifting off to sleep, vegetables, herbs and wholegrains took hold of my thoughts. Perhaps there’s something Freudian in that.

Notes from my journal this year are dotted with references searching for the perfect recipe for an all wholemeal (wholewheat) pastry. So often the dough is leaden, shrinks to nothing and tastes of cardboard. Holiday reading has happily fixed that. The idea of a tart, with a crumbly, buttery fibre-rich crust, filled with spring herbs, was sown.

Chervil is a pretty, wispy, girly sort of herb with a pale green, fern-like head of hair similar to, but finer still than, the feathery tops of baby carrots. It’s a spring tonic; a subtler version of parsley with the just the vaguest hint of anise. The classic use for it, then, is fines herbes a combination of equal quantities of finely chopped chervil, parsley, tarragon and chives. Sprinkled over a dish of perfectly cooked spring vegetables lightly drizzled with olive oil or topped, still-warm, with a spoonful of unsalted butter is reason enough to grow your own. I, however, am the chervil-killer, having tried to grow it unsuccessfully a record five pathetic times now. And it goes to seed as soon as you turn your back, before you can even utter the words, ‘I hope I don’t manage to kill this one before the holiday’s begun…’ Needless to say Prahran Market was able to oblige.

Holidays are marvelous, and there’s much more to tell, but it’s nice to be home.

Spring herb tart for 6-8
This is a Tarte aux fines herbes in essence, but as I can’t stand buying a bunch of herbs and using only a measly tablespoon or two (and watching the remainder wither away on the bench) it’s very herby and a little rougher around the edges than the classic-sounding name suggests. Spring herb tart it is then, and just the way home-cooked should be.

1 prepared tart shell (see below)
1 large bunch of spring onions
3 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon of olive oil
4 large sprigs of tarragon
1 handful of chervil leaves
1 handful of parsley leaves
1 handful of chives
4 eggs, free range (you know the drill)
250ml of double cream, preferably organic
Pepper
1 large handful of grated cheese (Cheddar, Gruyere, Manchego, whatever)

Slice the spring onions thinly, greens and all, and crush the garlic. Heat the oil in a frying pan over low-medium and add the spring onions and garlic. Cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Strip the tarragon leaves, discard the stalks, and chop them finely. Chop the chervil and parsley finely, snip the chives into short lengths and add all of the herbs to the cooked spring onions and garlic, stirring well. Cool.

Beat the eggs lightly with the cream and plenty of pepper. Add three-quarters of the cheese and mix well.

Spread the spring onion-herb mixture evenly over the base of the cooked pastry shell. Gently pour in the egg mixture and top with the remaining cheese.

Bake for 20-30 minutes at 180 C (375 F) until golden on top. Rest for at least 5 minutes before slicing and serving. Good hot, cold or somewhere in between, with a salad.

Wholemeal (wholewheat) tart shell
From an idea in Colin Spencer’s Vegetable Pleasures. Don’t feel that you need to use this particular pastry – by all means use your own shortcrust – it’s just that I had a eureka moment and thought you might be interested. It will crack and misbehave and you’ll end up with a patch-worked tart shell, but it’s worth the effort. The secret is the lemon juice (which helps to develop the gluten) instead of water (which is why pastry shrinks). Bear with me.

150g (6oz) of unsalted butter
300g (a fraction less than 12oz) of wholemeal (wholewheat) flour
Pinch of sea salt
1 lemon

Measure your butter and then wrap in foil and freeze for 30 minutes or longer.

Sift the flour into a bowl and tip any bran left in the sieve into the bowl. Add the salt and mix. Using a box grater, coarsely grate the ice-cold butter into the pastry and, working quickly and lightly, crumble the mixture between your fingers, or use a pastry cutter if you happen to have one, until it resembles breadcrumbs. (This takes more effort than with white flour, but be patient).

Squeeze the lemon and add all of the juice to the bowl. Using your knuckles, pummel the mixture into a crumbly paste and form into two balls. Again, be patient – it will be crumbly, but this is desirable. Wrap in greaseproof paper and pop in the fridge for 30 minutes – 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 200 C (400 F).

Remove both balls of pastry from the fridge. Roll out, one at a time, as thinly as you can (about ½ cm is the thinnest I got to) and yes, it will shatter and break. No matter. Place as many whole pieces as possible on the base of a tart tin with a removable base. Fill the holes and cracks in between with enough pastry to completely cover the base and sides. Any leftover pastry should be kept – this is important.

Cover the base generously with a sheet of baking paper and fill with dried beans or ceramic baking beads, whatever you have. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove the beans and paper and return the shell to the oven for a further 10 minutes.

When the shell comes out, the base will reveal cracks and even holes. Fill these, as you would a cracked wall, while the case is still warm, with the leftover pastry bits and cool completely before filling and continuing with the recipe.

This is my entry for the 105^th week (can you believe?), of Weekend Herb Blogging, and event created by Kalyn Denny and hosted this week by my friend Susan, the Well Seasoned Cook.

Leaving

So the bags are packed and we’re off. For the next three weeks I’ll be trying not to empty the entire contents of my wallet at Kitchen Arts and Letters, eating my way around New York, Madrid and the Basque region and meandering through various art galleries full of treasures the likes of which we rarely see here at home. Cy Twombly here I come. In London, at the Tate Modern, I cried in front of his Quattro Stagioni. It started slowly, but soon there was audible sniffling followed by loud nose blowing. Let alone what happened when I turned the corner on the top floor of the Musee d’Orsay and found, to my astonishment, a room full of Redon’s.

Let’s hope I can maintain a little more composure this time around. At least I have packed tissues. I can’t promise not to embarrass you Susan. But I will try.

Though I usually order the vegetarian meal on a flight, I’ve ordered the vegan option this time thanks to Kathryn’s invaluable advice. In an effort to use what’s in the pantry and the last of the oranges I can comfortably reach on the neighbour's tree, I’ll be bringing along a few of these little sugar-free, fibre-rich treats. If, that is, I can get Edward (elder of the two step-sons) to stop eating them.

Date and nut balls – makes 12-15
Based on a recipe from Aine McAteer’s very modern take on macrobiotic cooking, Nurture. Vegan, sugar-free, dairy-free, egg-free, gluten-free. Not exactly pretty. Delicious nonetheless.

Zest of ½ and juice of 1 large orange
Good pinch of cinnamon
½ cup of chopped, pitted dates
½ cup of mixed seeds (pepitas, flax, and sunflower seeds)
¼ cup of almond meal

Place the orange juice, cinnamon and dates in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Give it a stir, lower the heat right down, cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile toast the seeds in a non-stick frying pan until they start to pop, tossing constantly. Remove to a plate and cool.

When cool, grind the seeds to a fine powder in either a clean coffee (or spice) grinder or with a mortar and pestle.

Give the dates a good beating with a spoon. Add the zest, ground seeds and almond meal and mix well. Using a teaspoon and wet hands form the mixture into balls. Rest for a few minutes before eating.

And this photo? Well, it’s just for me. I won’t see this little expectant face at the top of the stairs for a bit and might want to check in from time to time.

A chutney

A few weeks ago I wrote about an abiding passion for the lemons that grace our garden. Heaving with fruit, the tree, if I was to savour its bounty, needed some serious harvesting and some serious preserving. North African preserved lemons were quickly followed by pickled lemon slices that sit prettily in their large jar, layers interspersed with sprinklings of paprika, topped to the brim with golden olive oil. Recipe courtesy of Claudia Roden. (I think I love this woman. No, seriously). Putting them away felt wrong, so there they sit on the bench for me to admire daily. When the sun hits them, briefly in the morning, nothing seems more cheerful.

Still, the tree heaved. Next, a large batch of bitter-sweet Meyer lemon and vanilla bean marmalade, something I finally cracked with help from Tamasin Day-Lewis. For the uninitiated Tamasin seems bossy, her methods and tone demanding. But it’s for your own good, people. It was worth every second of my devotion. Soft-set, golden and wobbly. I can’t stop eating it, straight from the jar with, it has to be said, a large spoon.

Of all the things one can cook with, make magic in the kitchen with, spices are the most intriguing. There’s a world of opportunity in a spice rack. Time for a chutney. A hot, spicy Indian one.

Last year when I first made this, I didn’t know what to expect. It comes from Julie Sahni’s excellent ‘Classic Indian Vegetarian Cookery’, a book without pictures; a book full of authentic and aromatic food. My favourite kind. The spices seemed bold and the method unlike any other. In her introduction she states, ‘Anglo-Indians have their chutneys, too, and here is one. It’s easy to make, as are most Anglo-Indian foods…’. Easy? Well, I don’t know about you, but I love seeing that particular word in any ‘preserving’ section.

In a word, it’s sensational. But be warned. This is not a chutney as many people would know it, not something you’d be spreading thickly on a cheddar and tomato sandwich (though, come to think of it, thinly spread isn’t a bad idea); rather it is a balance of all the flavours that makes the foods of the sub-continent so irresistibly unique. Hot, sour, salty, bitter, sweet. It livens up anything even vaguely Indian –anything using paneer cheese or silky eggplant. Pulses and grains welcome its hot sweetness too. Once made, put it away and leave it alone for a full month to mature. In two weeks it will just be ready, but you’ll thank me if you can be patient for another two.

And I especially like the Indian name for it, Nimboo Chatni. Much cooler.

Anglo-Indian Lemon Chutney – makes about 1 litre, maybe a little less
Adapted from Classic Indian Vegetarian Cookery by Julie Sahni.

I’ve cut the amount of chilli considerably, mostly because I’m a chilli wimp. If you like things to be searingly hot, by all means up the chilli. But you’ve been warned, okay? This will take three days, but it’s ridiculously easy.

The spices:
7 green cardamom pods
1 tablespoon of peppercorns
1 tablespoon of coriander seeds
1 tablespoon of brown mustard seeds
1 teaspoon of red chilli (pepper) flakes

The rest:
12 small lemons (preferably thin-skinned)
1 onion, peeled and quartered
2 small hot red chillies, roughly chopped
Knob of ginger, about 2.5cm, grated
125g of seedless raisins or sultanas
350ml of cider vinegar
3 tablespoons of coarse sea salt
500g of brown sugar

Day one:
Gently crack the cardamom pods and release the seeds. Discard the green pods. Place a heavy-based frying pan over a medium heat and when hot, add the spices. Shake and toss the pan constantly until they start to smell enticing – a matter of about 3 minutes all up. Remove to a plate and cool completely before grinding to a powder in either a clean coffee grinder or with a mortar and pestle.

Halve and juice the lemons. Strain the juice and set aside.

Discard 6 of the lemon shells, leaving you with 18 halves. Add these to the bowl of a food processor along with the onion, chillies, ginger and raisins. Whiz until finely minced. Tip into a large bowl and stir in the ground spices, reserved juice and the cider vinegar. Mix to combine, cover and leave at room temperature for 2 days.

Day two:
It will look like a pile of slush. Revolting, but desirable. Trust me.

Day three:
Uncover and transfer to a non-metallic pan. Add the sea salt and sugar and gently bring to the boil over a low heat, stirring often. Cook, uncovered, gently bubbling, for 30 minutes. Stir from time to time, but stand back – it has a tendency to spit and burble, like a small volcano towards the end of the cooking time.

Sterilise 3 or 4 jars while it’s bubbling. There are lots of guidelines out there, so follow your preferred method.

While hot, ladle into the jars, seal tightly and invert until cool (this creates a vacuum). Store right way up, for at least 2 weeks before eating, preferably 4 weeks or longer, and refrigerate when opened.

Easy and very good. It will be ready just as we get home from our travels.

Just in time.

Sunday afternoon

Lemon chutney.

Day one.

Small pleasures

Huge crates of asparagus are appearing at the market, beautifully boxed, heads held high, their necks gracefully, delicately, bowed. Asparagus is the star of spring. Undeniably. Love the stuff. But I’ve been waiting for an older, ancient crop, one a little less regal. One of the oldest domesticated plants. One with a suitably rich and varied history.

Broad beans or fava beans, tend to evoke bad responses from many (mostly English) people. My father takes great exception to them (though he's not English, so there goes that theory). I have a sneaky recipe up my sleeve for just such a person, a salad, one that uses broad beans, double-peeled and generously dressed with lemon, garlic, olive oil, smoked paprika and cumin. A tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed is tossed in along with massive amounts of fresh coriander and parsley. I’ve not met a soul who didn’t fall for it – there’s hope for the unconvinced yet. Once peeled you can roughly pestle them to make a chunky sort of pesto mixed with some fresh mint, chives and goats cheese. Great piled high on garlicky toast. Another winner.

Split the pods and you’ll find them softly swaddled, like precious, sleeping babies. Peel away those skins and they emerge naked, a bright lime green. Delicious. In Greece broad beans are served raw, the whole pods dropped in a loose tangle in the centre of the table, a bottle of ouzo placed on the side. I can’t help myself when podding – raw they possess a crunch and green-ness unmatched by the more pedestrian pea. One for the pot, one for me. You don’t even need the ouzo, really.

A tough, grey, water-logged bean is a waste of both your time and energy. Blanch the podded beans in rapidly boiling water for sixty seconds, refresh them in ice-cold water and drain thoroughly before slipping off each bean’s little pale overcoat. An easy enough task, yes, but I sometimes prefer patiently peeling them, unblanched, with a sturdy thumbnail. Releasing each bean, dropping it into a bowl and hearing it plink against the surface offers a gentle, rhythmical sound, one that nearly manages to cancel out the screeching and honking of peak hour traffic filtering into the garden. Nearly.

I’m writing this now because I want to make use of the Australian spring before we disappear for a few weeks. Make hay while the sun shines as the saying goes. Spring here is short-lived; the transition from gentle warm days to fierce summer heat happens in the blink of an eye in this drought-ravaged country. And the Artist and myself are leaving on the first of October for a much needed holiday. New York, Madrid and a blissful week roaming the beaches of San Sebastian, sketchbooks and notebooks in hand. And wouldn’t you know it? Right smack bang in the middle of our spring.

Spring vegetable ragoût – generously serves 4

The ravioli or gnocchi is an addition, a good one, that will make this meal more substantial. Get them cooking while you chop the vegetables, that way they’ll be ready to slip in when the time is right. And don’t for even a second think that I would suggest you make your own here. Not even I am a martyr to that cause.

2 big handfuls of broad beans in the pod
750g (about 1 ½ lbs) of asparagus
1 bunch of baby carrots
1 large handful of snow peas
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of butter
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
Small palmful of thyme leaves
½ cup of dry white wine
1 cup of water
Sea salt
Large handful of baby spinach or sorrel leaves, washed
2 handfuls of spinach & ricotta ravioli or gnocchi, cooked
100g (about 3oz) of soft goat’s cheese (optional)
Small handful of parsley, finely chopped
Extra virgin olive oil or butter, to serve
1 lemon, sliced into wedges

Pod the broad beans. Peel the pale green layer from any beans that are larger than your thumbnail. Set aside.

Snap off and discard the woody ends of the asparagus by taking the spear between both hands and bending it. Where it seems to want to snap naturally is exactly where you should do so. Slice the spears diagonally into three. Set aside.

Remove the feathery tops from the carrots, leaving about 1-2 cm’s of stalk attached to each one. Any carrots thicker than your index finger should be halved lengthways.

Thinly slice the snow peas on the diagonal. Set aside with the broad beans.

Warm the butter and oil together in a large, lidded frying pan or a wide, heat-proof casserole over a medium heat. Add the onion, thyme and carrots and fry, stirring often, for 5 minutes or until lightly coloured. Pour in the wine and let it bubble away to almost nothing. Add the water, followed by the asparagus and a good pinch of salt. Place the lid on, lower the heat and cook for 6 minutes or until the vegetables are tender at knife point.

Lift the lid, give it all a gentle stir and drop in the broad beans, snow peas and spinach leaves. Replace the lid and continue to cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Turn off the heat, lift the lid and drop in the cooked ravioli or gnocchi. Gently stir. Crumble over the goat’s cheese. Sprinkle with the chopped parsley and drizzle with a spoonful (or more) of extra virgin olive oil (or butter). Replace the lid and rest for a moment or two.

Serve in wide soup plates with the wedges of lemon.