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.

Home, sweet home

Our backyard, the one in which I grew up, teemed with wildlife. Backing onto bush land (Patrick White territory, no less) my father’s garden, always beautifully kept, is a haven for birds of all kinds. In a week that saw an extraordinary outpouring of emotion from the sublime (a nation’s long overdue apology) to the ridiculous, I spent most mornings patiently coaxing the Rainbow Lorikeets into eating, literally, from the palm of my hand. They sang to me then danced on the table for the camera, hanging first this way, then that. Jesters the lot of them, dressed in vivid green, red and blue.

As usual, food was central to the week away. There was Jo’s birthday dinner, a sun-soaked lunch on a central coast deck with Emma (we’ve hatched a little visual project to keep us both in check), an exquisite lunch with mum and dad and a long overdue catch-up at Red Lantern with my oldest friend. There is something about the simple – no, simple won’t do - spare elegance of Asian cuisines that cleanse more than merely the palate. Who would have imagined that fresh lemon juice mixed with roasted, ground peppercorns would make the most amazing, ever, dipping sauce?

My mother’s cooking is a dessert-lover’s dream. Her cherry sorbet was blindingly good, especially when paired with another made of ripe, juicy nectarines. A marriage of two beautiful stone fruits in each little bowl – one scoop assertive and unctuous, best attacked in small spoonfuls; the other light and pink, a tart contrast to the rich, wine-dark red. The pantry boasts six kilos of chocolate at any given time; three of the creamy, buttery white variety and three of the wickedly dark and bitter stuff. I was brought up on a passion for dessert. But somehow, working my own way around the kitchen, it seems that the sweet tooth that defines my small family has, in my case, been firmly extracted.

Is it a remnant of teenage defiance? That sheer will and determination to set oneself apart from the flock? Actually, I think it’s all the washing up. Coming back to our quiet, sparsely decorated home, the baking bug bit in an altogether unfamiliar way. Like that teenager I recall, my brand of baking is stamped, decidedly, with my own, unfussy, thang.

Chocolate thumbprint cookies – makes about 20

A revelatory one bowl wonder this recipe is and, thankfully, there’s very little washing up. Based on a recipe in Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s now legendary book, Vegan with a Vengeance, these are utterly, spectacularly, delicious.

5 tablespoons of macadamia oil (or almond, grapeseed, etc, but not olive)
5 tablespoons of soy milk (or rice, oat, etc)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
½ teaspoon of almond extract (this adds a great, marzipan-like something)
135g (4 ½ oz) unrefined sugar
120g (4oz) of wholemeal (whole-wheat) flour
5 tablespoons of good quality cocoa powder
Good pinch of sea salt, finely crumbled
Good pinch of baking powder
Jam (fruit preserves), your favourite, to finish

Preheat the oven to 180 C (375 F). Line two baking sheets with parchment.

Mix the first 5 ingredients together in a roomy bowl with a fork. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder into the wet ingredients and stir well to combine.

Place dessertspoon sized dollops of the mixture onto the baking trays, leaving a little space for expansion around each. With damp hands, roughly mould each dollop into as round a shape as you can be bothered to, then gently press to flatten very slightly.

Bake for 5 minutes, retrieve from the oven and gently make shallow thumbprint sized indentations in each cookie. Fill each hollow with half a teaspoon of jam and return to the oven for 6 minutes. Cool on their trays for 2 minutes then cool completely on a rack.

And I'm baking another batch tonight.

For the boys, you understand...

Mango

Have I told you

just how much I love
mangoes?

Zucchini soup with dumplings

Of the four seasons, summer, that bountiful, buxom beauty, is the one I secretly dread. The produce of summer is spectacular, a dream for cooks who revel in the pleasures of vegetable cookery; rather what I dread is the obligatory simmering heat, the unspeakably long hot days that render you listless, indifferent. Worse still are the ones that throw a dry northerly wind into the mix. The entire city becomes a giant hairdryer. Strangely, those days seem to have bypassed us. A few wildly out of kilter days aside, it’s been a remarkably gentle January.

Evenings stretch into night, the sun setting softly on the rooftops, old and new, in the neighbourhood. Somewhere between eight and half past, for the briefest of moments, the sky blazes pink, orange and blue, chalky strokes of pale colour heightened by the sinking sun. Nigh impossible to capture, though not for want of trying. The temperature drops, then gooseflesh sends you indoors digging deeply into the trunk at the end of the bed for something warmer, through things you’d put away months ago. Autumnal weather, this, delightful but disarming. All the ‘proof’, perhaps, that now rare creature, the Climate Change Skeptic, may require.

The garden heaves an almost audible sigh of relief in these cooler days. What’s left of the garden I should say; little survived the furnace-like heat of late December and early January. What did make it through unscathed confirmed, once again, that what thrives here is what thrives along the sandy shores of the Mediterranean. Tomatoes seem to love those searing, waterless days. The wild rocket, slow to start, continues to astound with its lush green growth. The basil, too. And finally, as of this week, the zucchini have begun to blossom, their pretty saffron faces nodding on the morning breeze. Zucchini, small and crisp, are a seasonal treat, especially at this early stage of the proceedings. Too few to make a meal of yet, but the beginnings of a crop to be sure.

Armed with a punnet of tiny, creamy fleshed zucchini, and a hankering for something substantial but light and summery, this is inspired (yet again) by Deborah Madison. It’s brilliant, multi-layered and satisfying, but light-as-a-feather. The broth is unlike any other I've met; restorative and rich like the chicken stock I fondly remember, but made without an ounce fat. None at all. Like most of these things, it will take a few hours, intermittently, of your time to prepare and mere moments to be devoured in quiet, but grateful, slurping spoonfuls. Silence is, after all, quite the complement itself. And it’s a perfect soup for weather that can’t quite make up its mind.

Zucchini in broth with corn and cheese dumplings – for 4-6

The broth takes two hours to simmer. I know that seems like a lot, but it’s got to develop deep flavours, you see, if it’s to hold its own in the same way as, say, a clear broth of chicken or beef would. And hold its own this broth does. My word.

First, make the broth:

Pour 3 litres (approx 3 quarts) of water into a large saucepan. Toss in 1 large onion, sliced, 1 large zucchini, sliced, a 400g (15oz) tin of tomatoes, 6 cloves of garlic, bashed with the flat of your knife, 1 large carrot, sliced, 3 stalks of celery, sliced, 1 bunch of coriander (cilantro), roots and all, 1 small bunch of parsley, a handful of green or brown lentils, ½ a green chilli, a pinch of fennel seeds, a few sprigs of fresh oregano (if you have it – it’s optional here), 2 teaspoons of sea salt and 1 teaspoon of peppercorns, lightly crushed. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer, partially covered with a lid for 2 hours. Strain and set aside.

To make the dumplings:

½ cup of fine cornmeal (Masa Harina preferably) – NOT polenta
½ cup plain flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
½ teaspoon of chilli powder
Good pinch of sea salt
½ cup of crumbled feta or grated cheddar
1 egg
2 tablespoons of olive oil + extra for frying
1/3 cup of water or milk

Make these while the broth is simmering. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat the wet ingredients in a small bowl and then tip into the dry. Bring together with a fork, then use your hands to form a solid mass. Break off small pieces of dough and roll into balls the size of a marble.

Heat ½ cm (¼ inch) of the extra olive oil in a large frying pan. When the oil is hot, drop in the dumplings, turning with two forks until golden all over. Remove to a rack set over some kitchen paper and leave to cool.

The soup:

Broth, from above
Dumplings, from above
1 punnet of baby zucchini or 2 medium-sized zucchini, thinly sliced
½ bunch of spring onions, thinly sliced with most of their greens
1 bunch of coriander (cilantro) leaves, roughly chopped
1 small green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Sea salt
3 ripe tomatoes, diced
1 avocado, peeled and diced
Lime wedges, to serve

Bring the broth to a simmer. Drop in the zucchini and the spring onions and cook for 5 minutes. Mix the coriander with the chilli and oil, seasoning with a little salt.

Drop the dumplings into the soup and simmer for 5 minutes longer. Divide the tomatoes between serving bowls, spoon the vegetables and dumplings on top and ladle over the broth. Add a spoonful of the coriander mixture to each bowl, a cluster of avocado and serve immediately with lime wedges.

This is my submission to Lisa of Lisa’s Kitchen, who is hosting the inaugural edition of a monthly, vegetarian event both she and Holler of Tinned Tomatoes will be hosting, called No Croutons Required. This month’s theme is soup.

Eggplants and tomatoes

Pretty rose coloured eggplants and tomatoes that taste, well, like a tomato should.

Ripe, juicy and sun-drenched.

For a gratin, topped with sourdough crumbs, parsley and slivered almonds.

Adzuki croquettes

"azuki togō ka, hito totte kuō ka? shoki shoki."*

* "Will I grind my adzuki beans, or will I get a person to eat? shoki shoki."

This little ditty is sung by Azukiarai, a macabre river-dwelling creature of Japanese legend, who, when he isn’t rinsing his adzuki beans in running water, is grinding them to a powder in a skull. A human one presumably, given those lyrics. A little odd, yes, in an Iron Chef, inscrutable kind of way. Considering the reputed healing powers of the adzuki I’m not surprised this fellow is obsessed with them, though I cannot condone, nor fathom, his fondness for human flesh. Besides, there’s enough protein in those little red beans to keep one happy, healthy and nourished without resorting to...well, whatever it is that he does.

Adzuki beans are easy on the digestion and require no (or precious little) soaking. Their inherent sweetness, coupled with a tendency to cook down to a creamy, red-flecked mass makes cooking desserts with them a natural to the Oriental palate. There you’ll find sweetened red bean pastes, cakes and a creamy, dairy-free sorbet quite unlike any other. An elusive flavour it has, difficult to put an exacting finger on. My step-sons loved it right up until the moment they learned it consisted of only red beans, vanilla and sugar. Both were caught with spoons in the pail later on – its light but mealy texture had them hooked, but they needed to go away and think about it for a little while.

Tinned legumes are a necessity of modern life – you can squander an entire afternoon waiting for chickpeas to reach that butter-soft stage (not to mention the twenty four soak required prior to their immersion) - but there are some legumes that are light years ahead in both texture and flavour when cooked from scratch. Tinned adzuki’s tend toward mush which is fine, desirable even, for sweet things but less pleasant in a savoury dish like this. They’ll take an hour, sometimes up to two, to reach tender creamy perfection. If you double the quantity, you’ll find they freeze well (this is true of all home-cooked beans) and you get the added bonus of a mineral-rich broth reputed to cleanse the kidneys. Two meals and a detox. Not bad, eh?

Sit these croquettes on a bed of quickly-wokked carrot, shredded wombok (Napa cabbage) and ginger and this meal is will evoke the exotic flavours of the Orient. It combines a bit of Japanese flavouring, a pungent Korean sauce and a Chinese-ish stir-fry. Oh for such harmony beyond the kitchen walls. Perhaps I could coax even that nasty old Azukiarai into trying this, and maybe, just maybe, he’d abandon his cannibalistic ways.

Adzuki bean croquettes – for 4

Dip, crunch, lick fingers. Repeat. It’s a ritual that appeals enormously. And if the sauce into which you are dipping just happens to be a complex, salty brew, all the better. Get the sauce made while the beans are simmering. The beans themselves are great over rice or even a steaming bowl of quinoa.

For the beans:
1 cup of adzuki beans
1 ¼ litres (5 cups) of water
1 x 5cm (2 inch) piece of kombu
1 onion, peeled and stuck with 2 cloves
A thumb of ginger, peeled and sliced
4 cloves of garlic, whole
2 tablespoons of mirin (or white wine/sherry)
1 tablespoon of oil
2 bay leaves
Sea salt or tamari

Pick over and rinse the beans. Place all of the ingredients except for the salt/tamari in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to its lowest setting, cover with a lid and simmer for 1-2 hours, or until the beans are completely tender.

Remove the kombu, onion, bay leaf, ginger and garlic. Taste, seasoning with salt and/or tamari. Simmer gently for a further 2-3 minutes.

Drain, holding back just a little of the cooking liquid.

To make the croquettes:
2 cups of cooked, drained adzuki beans (see above)
4 spring onions (scallions), finely chopped (greens, too)
1 generous teaspoon of Sichuan peppercorns
Good pinch of sea salt
½ cup of breadcrumbs
½ cup of toasted sesame seeds
Oil, for greasing

Preheat the oven to 200 C (400 F).

Puree the beans, either in a food processor, blender or a food mill (I quite like the texture a food mill gives and you get a bit of an upper body work-out in the process). Don’t be tempted to blitz to a super smooth puree – leave it just a little bit chunky. If the mixture looks a little dry, add a spoonful or two of the reserved cooking liquid.

Tip the beans into a bowl and mix through the spring onions. Crush the Sichuan peppercorns with the salt in a mortar and pestle then stir into the bean mixture. Add the breadcrumbs bit by bit until the dough is stiff enough to shape easily – you may not need them all.

Roll the mixture into small, slightly flattened croquettes – 5-7 cms (about 2-3 inches) is just fine. Make them smaller if you like, finger food-style. Tip the toasted sesame seeds out onto a plate and roll the croquettes around to coat.

Lightly grease a baking sheet and carefully place the croquettes on top. Brush the tops with a little extra oil and bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes. They should be golden and crisp. Alternatively you can shallow fry them, but I find that baking them makes for a much lighter and, it must be said, less messy meal.

Serve hot, with the following sauce.

Sesame dipping sauce:

This is pungent stuff and much as I love raw garlic, I’ve toned it down just a fraction from Mark Bittman’s original recipe. It’s very salty, very umami and very, very addictive. Consider yourself warned. Serve it in small dishes by the side of each plate. Leftovers (which there will be) make a great marinade.

¼ cup of tamari, shoyu or soy sauce
¼ cup of warm water
2 tablespoons of rice vinegar
1 tablespoon of toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon of pale sesame oil
2 tablespoons of sesame seeds, toasted until golden in a dry pan
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 small clove of garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon of finely grated ginger
Pinch of chilli powder

Mix everything together until the sugar dissolves. Will keep, refrigerated, for a few days.

I’m submitting this to Susan, the Well Seasoned Cook, who is hosting an event called My Legume Love Affair. Love your beans too? Get posting.

Gifts that arrive in the post

Had the postman known what lay inside, surely he would have nabbed the parcel for himself. Luckily, he’s rather a busy man during the month of December. A jar of apricot jam, amber-hued and golden lay inside, a gift from this extraordinary woman. I tore the lid off and poked a greedy, exploratory finger in before I heard my mother's voice say, ‘Ahem, wouldn’t you like to thank Shula for her lovely, thoughtful, hand-made gift first?’

Whoops.

Thanks. It was gorgeous.

Baked olives and cricket

With a tennis-coach for a brother and a father who, in his forties, played hockey (the grass variety, that is) for the amusingly named Geriatrics team (they would beat the Pensioners, mere children in comparison, often) one could say that mine is a sporting family.

I, on the other hand, was shy and uncoordinated, and, as I got older, found that team sports were reserved for the popular girls, not misfits like me. The netball girls weren’t awkward; instead they were pretty, long-legged and looked good in their tiny pleated skirts. In our final year of school, two friends and I felt vaguely guilty about our lack of sporting prowess in a school that rewarded even average sporting results well above academic or creative ones. So, we padded-up and joined the cricket team. We spent most of our time far out in the field, making each other laugh hysterically. It was, thankfully for the team, short-lived.

Summer is cricket season in these parts. Indeed, it wouldn’t be summer without the radio gently simmering in the background, the occasional call going up as a wicket is taken, waking you from your lazy, heat-induced lethargy. Though I know precious little of the actual rules, secretly I love the cricket being on. The language of the game is esoteric to say the least – a yorker is beyond me and the less said about googly's the better – but what I do know is that sports fans need a little something on which to snack while they watch. And that’s something I can provide you with.

While I think these are better with a glass of wine, they are very good with a beer, too.

Maggie Beer’s Baked Olives – for 6-8

Fast to make, these are better than most marinated olives you can buy. Baking them makes them juicy and flavourful. I used Mount Zero’s mixed olives – a delicious mix of teeny-tiny ones, Manzilla and a giant variety whose name escapes me. By ‘cured’ olives, I mean the kind in brine rather than already in oil. The recipe is only slightly adapted from this, magnificent, book.

2 cups of cured olives
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
Zest of 1 orange
4 fresh bay leaves, torn in half
1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 teaspoon of fennel seeds

Preheat the oven to 180 C (375 F).

Toss all the ingredients together in a baking dish and cook for 10 minutes. Leave to cool a little before serving – remember, there are hot pits in the centre of each little morsel. Stir through a little more oil or lemon juice if you like and serve.

I’m submitting this to Mansi whose blogging event Game Night is in full swing. She’s looking for fast, vegetarian-friendly snacks that will tame a sports fans’ hunger.

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.

Happy....

...whatever it is that you celebrate.

Be good. And don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Bid for something wonderful while I'm gone. (I know what I want...)

Back in early January.

Happy 2008!

Dinner for two: Coconut and date chutney

Sitting on the front porch, mango juice dripping down my arms, cicadas shrilling in the background. The dog chases flies, snapping at them as they buzz. Older cars that pass have their windows wound down, all the way, and snatches of their music filter into my garden. Party music, all thumping bass and angry words, alternates with the chatter of afternoon radio, a voice or two almost recognizable. Almost. I throw the leathery mango skin into the garden, frisbeed against the fence. It’s summer after all. The black bird and his wife, scratching around in the undergrowth, will be happy enough to pick at the tiny amount, if any, of flesh left. It will be gone, skin and all, before the daylight fades.

School is nearly over for the year. The dragging days, countdown to six whole weeks of freedom were, as a child, excruciating. A week, often longer, would pass before Christmas arrived. I'd play cricket in the street with my brother, calling as cars approached, slower than they do now. The forbidden thrill of roller skating on the Bennett's driveway, the most satisfying of surfaces to roll across, was noisy and wonderful, but only if they were out. We'd skate past nonchalantly just to make sure. Riding bikes full pelt down the steepest of roads, no hands, definitely no helmet. You fell, picked the gravel out of your knees and started again, winded, but laughing.

The difference between the cozy northern Christmas and the sunny southern one is vast. Despite this we share the same snowy imagery, an irony not lost on Australian children. So, our Santa is often depicted in shorts, fur-lined thongs (the shoes, thankfully, not the underpants) and sports a jolly beer belly. Kangaroos pull his sled, a cringe-worthy but amusing thought. He sometimes wears a hat strung with corks that dangle from the brim to keep the flies off. Sitting in the front yard, flies everywhere, I could do with one of those hats. Luckily the dog does what she can.

Holidays again. Off to Sydney, to blue carpets of Jacaranda petals and the squealing of parrots as they settle colourfully in my parent’s leafy suburban yard. Glimpses of the harbour, sun-sparkled, caught between blocks of flats; congested streets but knowing all the short cuts, all the back ways. Seeing mum, dad and my brother (my brother!) who has, I think, fallen in love. Cooking with mum, who shares her daughter’s obsessive interest in food and literature. Talking, properly, with my dad. Friends. Jo especially. She’s had a tough year, but it’s been good. This is what Christmas holds for me.

Until then, though, we still have a week or so up our sleeves. Just like that break between the last day of school and Christmas itself, it stretches ahead of me. But it’s passing way too quickly. Something tonight, then, for just the two of us. A quiet night in before the silly season gets into full swing.

Coconut and date chutney

Adapted from Claudia Roden’s unbelievably useful Book of Jewish Food. This addictive fresh chutney, easy to make and easier still to eat (said as she pauses to dip in yet another cracker) is from the Bene Israel community of India. You’ll need to be an unabashed coriander-lover (cilantro) to enjoy this and while a combination of mint and parsley might work, I love coriander. Adore it. Great with fish, especially the fragrant banana leaf-wrapped parcels below, but wonderful too with slices of fried eggplant. Try serving it as a dip with crisp papadams, rice crackers or those mini toasts that the French make. Hard to stop eating, I tell ya…

1 tablespoon of tamarind paste
1 ¾ cups (about 125g) of shredded coconut
2/3 cup (about 150ml) of warm water
1 large bunch of coriander (cilantro), well washed
12 dried, pitted dates
Juice of 2 limes (or one juicy lemon)
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
½ teaspoon of sea salt
¼ teaspoon of hot chilli powder

Dissolve the tamarind paste in 2 tablespoons of boiling water. Tip the coconut into a large bowl and pour over the warm water. Leave both tamarind and coconut for 20 minutes.

Discard the roots of the coriander and roughly chop the rest. Push the dissolved tamarind paste through a sieve, pressing to extract as much liquid as possible, making sure to scrape anything that accumulates on the underside of the sieve too. Place all the ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and whiz until well chopped. Add a tablespoon or two of water down the chute to make the chutney smoother. Keeps for a few days, tightly lidded, in the fridge.

Banana leaf snapper parcels – for 2

We had these with tiny, pebbly new potatoes, boiled in their skins until tender (10 minutes), drained well and then sauteed, whole, in 2 teaspoons of ghee. 1 tablespoon of garam masala was added moments before serving.

Preheat the oven to 200 C (400 F). Take 2 banana leaves and lay them out flat on the bench, dull-side up. Place a fillet of snapper (or any firm-fleshed, white fish) in the centre of each leaf. Top each fillet with a sprinkling of freshly ground cumin, a few slices of lime, 1 long green chilli, sliced on the diagonal and some thin slices of ginger. Season, then wrap securely, tying the parcels with kitchen string or using bamboo skewers. Bake, on a tray, for 15 minutes. Unwrap at the table. Serve with the coconut and date chutney.

So, over to you. How will you be spending the festive season?

Eggs

Crackled, crazed shells of marbled tea eggs.

Sadly, much prettier than the eggs themselves.

'O' is for Oyster Mushrooms

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you, Heather, very much indeed.

An Asian mushroom salad - for 2

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

For the mushrooms:

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

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

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

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

For the dressing:

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

For the salad:

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

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

Nepalese potato salad

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

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

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

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

Nepalese potato salad (Aloo Achaar) for 4

Adapted, slightly, from this book.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can you believe that the year is almost over?

I don't know where it went...

White cherries

Thing is, they don't really look real.

Until, that is, you take a bite.

First day of summer.