Lemongrass, ginger and coconut

Sun steams through the windows at the back of the house and, with it, sharp wintry shadows fall dramatically across the desk. Only a small corner of sun and warmth this, so the resident animals settle themselves snuggly around my feet, snoozing. Wild winds – dramatic and exciting – blew through the house this week, through every door and window that could be prised from creaky, neglected hinges. The act of blowing out the dank, recycled air was long overdue. A musky breath of Japanese incense curled around the kitchen as the house, and my thinking, sprang back to life.

Does the season in which one is born dictate the sort of holiday one craves? Not the classic hammock strung between coconut palms for me, a babe of the colder months. Give me cold, give me cosy fires, give me brisk walks and blanketing snow. Yet the food of balmy climes captures all of my imagination. A friend’s email arrived describing, in the course of things, a dish of such sweetness and exotic perfume that I wondered, aloud, if we here in Australia are hard-wired to the exotic foods of our South East Asian neighbours. Slipping a kaffir lime leaf into a mug of freshly boiled water, waiting for the citrus scent to rise, this must, surely, be true.

James Oseland describes an Indonesian technique of bruising and knotting stalks of lemongrass to impart flavour in much the same way as the French use a bouquet garni. The fragrant, crushed stalks make a winter kitchen, indeed any kitchen, smell incredible. A gingery, coconutty Malaysian and Singaporean breakfast specialty, Nasi Lemak translates literally as the less than appetising ‘fatty rice’. Fatty here simply describes the rich, sumptuous nature of the dish. It is far too good to be saved for breakfast alone. Served with a vaguely Indonesian (and Very Addictive) quick pickle of vegetables and little dishes of crispy things, this is a surprisingly fast and deeply satisfying meal. P’raps I am a warm weather girl after all…

Quick cucumber and carrot pickle feeds 4-6

Vaguely Indonesian, these quick pickles, stained yellow from a smattering of ground turmeric, are tangy and moreish. The green chillies have only the merest hint of heat to them, but half a green capsicum (pepper) could be substituted. Unfortunately the best use I can come up with for a green capsicum is the compost heap…

1 large carrot
1 cucumber, same length as your carrot
3 golden shallots, peeled
2 long green chillies
1 tablespoon of sea salt
1 clove of garlic, crushed
½ cup rice or white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons of palm sugar or caster sugar
½ teaspoon of ground turmeric
1 tablespoon of mustard seeds
¼ cup of macadamia or light olive oil

Peel the carrot and cut it into thin matchsticks. Slice the cucumber lengthways, scrape out the seeds using a teaspoon and cut into batons. Slice the shallots and green chillies into rounds. Place all in a bowl, toss and set aside.

Mix the remaining ingredients together in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and pour over the vegetables. Toss well, then rest while you prepare the rice. Remainders will keep, well sealed and refrigerated, for a few days.

Nasi Lemak (Lemongrass, ginger and coconut rice) feeds 4-6

Adapted from Oseland’s wonderful Cradle of Flavour. A small tin of coconut milk is just that – as small as you like. Remember that ‘light’ coconut milk is simply the full-fat stuff diluted with water. Like the homogenization of milk, it’s something I can do, quite simply, myself.

2 cups of basmati or jasmine rice
1 small tin of coconut milk
3 stalks of lemongrass
A large thumb of fresh, juicy ginger, peeled
1 ½ teaspoons of sea salt
A few tablespoons of fried shallots
A few tablespoons of dry roasted peanuts, chopped
4 hard-boiled eggs, quartered (optional)

Wash the rice in several changes of water. Drain well. Pour the coconut milk into a measuring jug and top up with enough water to make 3 ½ cups of liquid.

Bruise the lemongrass all the way along each stalk with something blunt and heavy – ideally a pestle. Tie each roughly in a knot. Bruise the ginger in the same way. Place the rice in a medium-sized saucepan, one with a tight-fitting lid. Pour in the diluted coconut milk, add the lemongrass knots and ginger and bring to a boil. Add the salt then place the lid on tightly and reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting. A heat diffuser set between pot and heat is very helpful. Simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat (no peeking) then rest untouched for 10 minutes.

Discard the lemongrass stalks and any visible chunks of ginger. Fluff with a fork and serve in a large bowl. The pickles, shallots, peanuts and eggs should be set in separate dishes for everyone to help him or herself.

Suganya of Tasty Palettes is hosting this month’s edition of ‘A Fruit a Month’ and she has, rather cleverly, chosen coconut as this month’s theme. This, accordingly, is my entry.

Three eggplants, one curry

February is rapidly vanishing. Just writing the words makes me slightly queasy. How can March, already, be in view? No more cherries, no more nectarines. Frankly, I am devastated. Seasonal cooking, in this most fruitful of seasons, has been a little difficult. Not for want of trying, nor for want of beautiful vegetables to work with; rather for want of opportunity and, more importantly, inspiration. The market was crucial last year for a weekly, albeit indulgent, exploration of fresh, seasonal produce. This year has proven to be harder to navigate, caught between commitments, holidays and work.

Wendy posed an interesting question a week or so ago. A mystery vegetable, floating in her takeaway curry, had both her and her family puzzled. Small and bitter, it was identified as a Pea Eggplant, a pea-sized (obviously) vegetable fruit native to South East Asia. These hard-skinned, bitter little nuggets are an acquired taste, but one worth investigating. An unknown, odd little vegetable muse to inspire; one whose usefulness had me puzzled and nearly stumped.

James Oseland suggests that they are a medicinal addition to curries, cooling ‘hot’, spicy dishes. Biting into one, plucked raw, straight from the sprig, is ill-advised (duly spat out, lips puckered in disgust). Instead, use them as you would an unfamiliar spice, an apt way to describe their flavour, in scant amounts to begin with, building gradually toward something as fascinating as this Sambal Hijau. Occasionally you’ll come across jars of pickled ones, but if you can’t locate them, a splash of Angostura Bitters will mimic at least some of their unique intensity. A welcome, satisfying dig around the market late last week unearthed some very healthy specimens as well as a plastic sleeve of purple and white golf ball-sized Apple Eggplants (another South East Asian native) and a very sexy bundle of taut-skinned, slender Japanese ones. Much needed inspiration, eggplant-style.

I like to think of this as a curry that Goldilocks and her trio of hirsute friends might find amusing – three types of eggplant, of varying size and texture, from which to sample in each serve. The quietly addictive, bitter burst from the Peas and crisp, sweet crunch from the Apples are set against golden, silky slices of more familiar eggplant. Bound with coconut milk and an easy Thai Green Curry paste, this is anything but puzzling. Thanks Wendy - you provided just the leap of imagination required.

Three eggplant curry – for 2-3

What looks like a lot of work is, in fact, not. The curry paste is considerably milder than the Nigel Slater recipe that it began life as – we make it with alarming regularity but have fiddled only a little with it over the years, so delicious is his original version. Wendy has her own great version, too.

Green curry paste:

3 stalks of lemongrass, tender white parts only, chopped
2 long green chillies, deseeded and chopped
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
A thumb of ginger, peeled and chopped
1 small red onion, peeled and chopped
Most of a bunch of coriander (cilantro), roots ’n all, well washed
6 lime leaves, chopped (or zest and juice of one lime)
1 tablespoon of tamari, umeboshi vinegar or fish sauce (nam pla)
½ teaspoon each of ground coriander and cumin
1 tablespoon of palm sugar or brown sugar

Whiz to a slurry in a food processor or bash to a paste with a mortar and pestle.

The rest:

2 tablespoons of oil (not olive)
5-6 long, slender Japanese eggplants
4 apple eggplants
Green curry paste (see above)
A sprig of pea eggplants (about 10)
200mls (a scant cup) of coconut milk
500ml (2 cups) of vegetable stock, cube is fine
1 bunch of gai laan or 3 heads of bok choy, well washed
The rest of the coriander, chopped, to serve
Steamed white rice, to serve
Wedges of lime, to serve

Warm 1 tablespoon of the oil over a medium heat in a large frying pan. Slice the slender eggplants into 1 cm (¼ inch) rounds, on the diagonal looks quite good. Place the slices in one layer and fry until golden, turn them over and continue cooking and turning until they are golden brown and soft. Try to resist the temptation to add more oil – at some point as they steam and cook eggplants release some of the oil they initially soak up. De-stalk and cut each apple eggplant into eight, top to tail, and add these to the pan for 2 minutes, tossing a few times. Remove to a plate with a slotted spoon.

Increase the heat to high and add the remaining oil to the pan, followed by the curry paste. Stir-fry for 2-3 minutes. Pluck about 10 pea eggplants, up to half a cup depending of your sense of adventure, from their sprig and drop them into the pan, stir, and pour over the coconut milk and stock. Bring to a boil, lower the heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop the gai laan into short lengths or slice each bok choy head crossways thinly. Add the greens to the pan followed by the cooked eggplants. Simmer for 5 minutes and serve, garnished with the coriander and lime wedges, over steamed rice. An extra splash of tamari, umeboshi vinegar or fish sauce may be necessary to balance things out nicely.

This is my entry to this week's edition of Weekend Herb Blogging, created by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen and hosted this week by Zorra from Kochtopf.

Pea eggplants

Pretty, but tiny.

You should see the purple ones for the weekend.

Embracing the new

If the world is divided into those that love coriander and those that loathe it, then I am a card-carrying, paid-up, life-long member of the former camp. Its sharp citrussy notes and soft, pungent green-ness get all my juices flowing. Luckily, I fell for it from the very first mouthful. Equally at home in the cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, India and South East Asia, it pairs beautifully with vegetable dishes of all kinds. For this reason alone, I cannot fault it.

Tofu on the other hand, I can take or leave. Or so I thought. New Year, new resolve. Dismissing something simply because one has little experience with it is not a good enough reason to ban it from the kitchen. Something worthwhile addressing, and soon, I think. Tofu feeds entire cultures – it is the ‘cheese’ of Asia with varieties and grades to match the finest dairy in Europe – and provides a sizeable chunk of the world’s population with a cheap, affordable form of good, plant-based protein. It loves the flavours that I love. What’s not to like?

One of the things I have learned to love about silken tofu – and it is by far my tofu of choice - is its wobbly texture. Slicing through it is like gliding your knife through a shivering, jelly-like cloud of pure white. Easier to cut than butter; even room-temperature butter at that lovely stage of near collapse, caught moments before it melts into a puddle of gold. Its soft, barely-there texture is light, airy even, on the tongue. Here, simmered briefly in a coconut milk broth, like a sponge, it absorbs the strong flavours of coriander, lemongrass, ginger and chilli but somehow manages to diffuse and tame the heat at the same time. A full-blown tofu-lover I may not be yet, but I do know a good thing when I’m onto it.

Silken tofu and green beans in a lemongrass broth – for 2-3

Light, aromatic and pretty, yes, but the real clincher is that it is both quick and easy. You need rice to soak up the juices going on here, and while steamed jasmine or basmati are good, sticky short-grain brown rice is my preference. Brown rice grounds the lightness of this dish with its particular brand of earthy goodness and, of course, is far more nutritious to boot. My method is below, but follow your own by all means.

2 stalks of fresh lemongrass, roughly chopped (the whole lot)
2 thick slices of ginger
6 kaffir lime leaves (or zest of 1 lime)
1 large bunch of coriander (cliantro), well washed and shaken dry
Sea salt
1 tablespoon of tamari or soy sauce
1 tablespoon of palm sugar or brown sugar
1 x 300g (10 oz) packet of organic silken tofu
A large handful of green beans, topped and tailed
1 teaspoon of macadamia or light olive oil
2 small red onions, thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 red chilli, finely chopped
½ teaspoon of turmeric
200ml of coconut milk
Rice, to serve (see below)
Fried shallots, to serve (optional)

Get your rice on before you begin, regardless of type and method.

Place the first 3 ingredients into a saucepan. Cut the leaves from the stalks of the coriander and set them aside. Roughly chop the stalks and, if you are lucky enough to have the roots with your coriander, roughly chop them too. Chuck these in to the saucepan, add 1 ½ cups of water and a good pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes or until reduced to a little over half. Strain into a jug and stir in the tamari and sugar.

Gently drain the tofu. Place it carefully on a wad of kitchen paper and slice into cubes (don’t be precious – it will dissolve a little into the sauce). Slice the beans into 5cm (2 inch) lengths. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil, throw in the beans and simmer them for 3 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Heat a frying pan, add the oil and when it is hot add the onions, garlic and chilli. Stir fry over a high heat for 2 minutes and then add the par-cooked beans and the turmeric. Pour in the broth, add the tofu and gently stir. Add the coconut milk and simmer the whole lot for about 5 minutes. Add the reserved coriander leaves (yes, all of them), stir and simmer for a further minute.

Taste for salt, adjusting as you see fit - a splash of fish sauce (nam pla) is good - and serve over rice. Scatter each dish with fried shallots, if using, and serve immediately.

Brown rice, enough for two

½ cup of short grain brown rice
1 cup of water

Bring the rice and water to a boil in a small, heavy-based saucepan. Don’t be tempted to add salt – it inhibits the grain’s cooking, much as adding salt to dried beans does. Lower the heat right down to its lowest possible setting, clamp a lid on tightly and leave, untouched, for 45 minutes. Now you can lift the lid. The water should be completely absorbed and the grains should be bursting from their skins. Replace the lid, remove from the heat and leave to rest for a further 5 minutes.

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.

Kaffir lime leaf gyoza

Native to Indonesia, but now grown round the world, the double-barreled leaves of the Kaffir lime tree pack a citrus-laced punch. The perfume they bring to South East Asian food is matched only by their unique floral flavour, lying happily somewhere between a lemon, a lime and an orange. The zest of this knobbled, almost ugly fruit is good, but don’t bother to juice the little brute – more often than not it will be bone dry. Better to stick with that glossy foliage.

Harvesting the leaves commercially is a laborious and painful process; with protective thorny branches, just itching to tear at hands, it’s little wonder the leaves can at times seem expensive. A small potted tree, moved around to catch the sun is a fabulous thing in warmer climates - the fresher the leaves, the better the flavour.

One leaf, added to a pot of jasmine or basmati rice as it cooks, will leave your kitchen headily and exotically scented. And if that rice is also cooked with a dash of coconut milk and a stalk of lemongrass, smashed with the flat of your knife, all the better.

Gyoza with mushrooms and lime leaves – makes 12
These silky little dumplings are a doddle to make. Soft and pillowy on top; crunchy and golden on the bottom. And scented with that lime? Pretty sexy stuff. I’ve gone for the quick and easy prep – for more a more authentically prepared gyoza, pop over here.

75g of fresh mushrooms (Swiss brown [cremini] or shiitake)
75g of tofu, drained and blotted with kitchen paper
2 Kaffir lime leaves, spines discarded and leaves finely shredded
1 small red chilli, deseeded and chopped
1 x 2cm (1 inch) of ginger, peeled and grated
2 spring onions, white and tender greens, chopped
1 tablespoon of tamari
1 teaspoon of toasted sesame oil
12 wonton or gow gee wrappers (freeze the remainder)
1-2 tablespoons light olive oil
½ cup of water

DIPPING SAUCE:
Juice of 1 lime
1 tablespoon of tamari
1 tablespoon of water
2 teaspoons of fish sauce (nam pla - optional)
1 tablespoon of sesame seeds, toasted

De-stalk the mushrooms and roughly chop the caps, then place everything in a food processor and whiz to a smooth paste.

Hold a wonton wrapper in the palm of your hand. Place a generous teaspoon of the stuffing in the centre. Dip your index finger into the water, lightly dampen the edges and bring them together. Pinch the edges tightly to form a half-moon shape. Continue with the remaining wrappers.

Heat the oil in a heavy-based frying pan. When hot, add your gyozas in one layer. Fry over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes, or until golden underneath. Stand back and add the water (it will bubble and spit). Cover the pan, reduce the heat to low and leave to steam for 3 minutes. If there’s any water left at the end, take off the lid and let it evaporate. They will be soft and translucent when ready.

To make the dipping sauce, mix everything together in a small serving bowl.

Serve hot, dipping as you go.

This post is being submitted to Ulrike of Kutchenlatein, this weeks host of Weekend Herb Blogging.

Bok choy

Prolific American cookbook author Barbara Kafka’s most recent book is the rather suggestively titled Vegetable Love. It’s huge, encyclopedic and white with beautiful multi-coloured text splashed across the cover, full of technique and an enormous array of (mostly) vegetarian-friendly recipes.

A bunch of organic bok choy, crisp and juicy from the market this morning, needed a new approach. Enter Babs and her Vegetable Lovin’.

Radiant Bok Choy. Radiant. What a word. Made me want to eat this immediately.

But you know what? Babs needs a bit of hand with this recipe. Though she claims in the introduction that, ‘This is one of my proudest [sic] recipes’, and it was very, very good, it needs some extra help to develop the flavour. Firstly she uses too much turmeric, a whopping 2 tablespoons – oh, the bitterness; oh the shirt-staining, jeans-staining, couch-staining horror - and secondly she uses far too much salt.

Here goes. It’s delicious. There’s a lot of sauce, so soak it up with some plain basmati rice.

Radiant bok choy, adapted by me – for 2

2 heads of bok choy

2 teaspoons of turmeric

Generous pinch of sea salt

1 small tin of coconut milk, mixed with enough water to make 1 ½ cups in total

A few slices of ginger

A few shiitake mushrooms, de-stalked and caps sliced (dried are fine – just remember to soak for 20 mins in hot water and drain before proceeding)

Tamari or umeboshi vinegar

1 lime, cut into wedges

Quarter the bok choy lengthways and give it a really, really good wash. There's always sand embedded deep between the base of the leaves.

Place in one layer in a large saucepan or lidded frying pan. Add the turmeric, sea salt, coconut milk-water mixture and ginger. Bring to a boil, cover and turn the heat down to medium. Simmer for 6 minutes.

Take the lid off, turn the bok choy over using tongs, add the shiitakes and cover again. Simmer for further 6 minutes.

Serve splashed with a little tamari or umeboshi vinegar to taste and arrange the lime wedges on the side.

A very yellow dish. Don’t wear white when you eat this. Turmeric makes the very worst kind of stain…

'Fish' and 'Chips': Asian flavours

Spent too much time working at the bookshop this past week. Too much time dealing with the general public, cranky and ungrateful buggers that they are. “I’d love to work in a bookshop. You must get to sit around reading all day”, they say. Never, not even once in my fifteen years of flogging books in various full time roles have I ever been able to stop for even a millisecond to actually read a book on the shop floor. Obviously my recent freedom from such duties, resulting in only one blissfully quiet day per week there now, is about all I (and the public) can take.

So by the time Friday came around, I was ready to cook something comforting.

If the pages of this blog are to represent the sort of food I cook on a regular basis, there was bound to be some coconut milk creeping in at some stage. What started out as a spoonful added here and there to enhance a stir fry, to deepen the flavour of a vegetable curry, has developed into a full-blown addiction to the full-fat stuff. No, none of that ‘light’ coconut milk for me thank you. On it’s own, coconut milk is fairly bland but, introduce it the fresh tastes of South East Asia and it’s another story entirely.

With the remainder of a side of ocean trout in the freezer, enough for the two of us, I wanted something sharp, fresh and clean from the fish part of the meal. The potatoes, as always, were the starting point. They would be creamy and comforting, but with a depth of flavour from lemongrass and kaffir lime leaf. As it turned out these two meals, delicious as they are on their own, are perfect together.

No, let me rephrase that. They are incredibly, seductively sexy together.

The fish: Simple. For 2.

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Take a large sheet of baking paper, and an equal sized sheet of aluminium foil. Lay the foil down on the bench and place the paper on top. Take two fillets of ocean trout or salmon and, using a sharp knife, remove, and then discard the skin. Place the fillets in the centre of the paper and top with 2 kaffir lime leaves, a small mound of peeled ginger cut into matchsticks, a small red chilli, finely chopped and a handful of fresh coriander. Drizzle over a splash of soy sauce or tamari and a thin dribble of macadamia oil (a light olive would be fine). Wrap up your fish parcel and cook in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. The fish will be tender and juicy.

The potatoes: I was left wanting some for lunch on Saturday, so beautiful are these and I urge you make the full amount. You’ll be glad you did.

South East Asian crushed coconut potatoes – serves 4

675g of waxy potatoes, scrubbed
Salt
2 stalks of lemongrass, tender white part only, finely chopped
400ml tin of coconut milk (full fat – go on, it’s so much better)
3 kaffir lime leaves, finely shredded
A large handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped
Fish sauce
A grating of palm sugar (or a pinch of brown)
Half a lime

Cut the potatoes into quarters. Place in a large saucepan of cold water, salt it well, and bring to the boil. Toss in half of the lemongrass and reduce to a simmer, cooking for 20-25 minutes or until they are just beginning to break up. Drain very well when ready and return to the saucepan.

Meanwhile, warm the coconut milk in a small saucepan. Add the remaining lemongrass, the lime leaves and half of the coriander (use the roots too if you’ve been lucky enough to buy it root-end attached). Bring to a simmer then turn off the heat. Leave to infuse while the potatoes cook.

Strain the infused milk over the drained potatoes. Add a little fish sauce, tasting as you go. I love it so will happily add a rather generous splash or two, but suggest you start small – a teaspoon should be a good starting point. Grate a little palm sugar (or add a pinch of brown sugar) into the saucepan, squeeze in half a lime and stir it well. Gently reheat the whole lot, adding the remaining coriander just before serving.

Bloody freezing

What the hell is going on! The weather today in Melbourne is wild and unexpectedly cold for the end of spring. Let me rephrase that. It is bloody freezing down here! These unseasonably cold arctic winds are whipping the trees outside our office window around madly, and there odd patches of sunlight creeping in between dark and heavy skies. Cold weather food is the order of the day. But with the boys coming tonight, the question is what to cook?

Risotto.

Last night I made the most luscious rice pudding. Puddings of rice are not something I would normally even consider making – too stodgy and filling – but yesterday I bought home a bag of sticky black rice. Asian desserts don’t really do it for me, though I know many people who positively love them. But I am now a convert (well, to this recipe at least). It was the most beautiful deep, deep purple. The cardamom softly scented the rice; the coconut cream and mango made it rich but light. A touch of exoticness in the kitchen and not a bit of dairy in sight. The Artist even liked the mango element…

So risotto it will be – a deeply satisfying bowl of warm risotto. I plan to make more than enough (difficult thing to do this as the Musician would eat the entire thing if he could) so I can make a dish of risotto croquettes with spring vegetables from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Suppers book for tomorrow.

I urge you to make this. You won’t be disappointed. Not for a second.

Black rice pudding – serves 2

100g of black glutinous rice
50g of palm sugar
500ml of water
Seeds from 2 cardamom pods
A little coconut cream
1 ripe mango (or more if you like) – peeled and sliced

Put the rice, sugar, water and cardamom seeds into a large pan. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to its lowest setting. Cover with a lid and stir frequently (lazily as you go past the stove is fine) for 45 minutes. Uncover, turn up the heat a little bit and stir constantly for another 15 minutes. The rice should be sticky and sloppy, but still distinct and separate.

Spoon into small bowls, top with a little drizzle of coconut cream and top it all with the skinned mango slices. Beautiful in a rather unexpected way.