May leftovers

Other recipes from the internet that I used this month:

*In the spirit of trying new things, I made a bitter gourd curry (kayippakka vartharacha curry). Despite its name, I was a bit surprised by the intense bitterness, it's definitely not one for the unadventurous. 

*A Mark Bittman Spanish influenced chickpea and chorizo dish. I made it mid-week and had no fresh spinach, so I grilled some large chunks of tomato and chucked them in before the whole dish is covered in breadcrumbs and grilled. It was really quite good.

*When Aldi had cheap bundt pans I bought one and made this orange bundt twice; it's a great cake for a crowd.

Tuna Melt

Saw the tuna melt on the menu at Sweet Mothers Kitchen while in Wellington recently, I was curious, but I got a burrito. With my amazing (ha!) powers of recall I thought to make it for lunch today. One of my few food issues is warm canned tuna, but this was surprisingly tasty. Needs about ~1/4 the mayonnaise and I can't imagine the celery is necessary or essential, Swiss or Emmental cheese probably is.

Jamaican BBQ

This week we took a detour from Asia and moved to Jamaica. Jerk isn't a style of BBQ I have come across in Australia, but with all the ingredients for the marinade readily available it's a easy style to try and recreate on a charcoal BBQ.

I marinated some whole butterflied chickens in jerk marinade for about 3 hours, then cooked the chickens over coals with the vents partially closed.

To accompany the chicken we had a roasted sweet potato salad and a cold watermelon for afters.

Jerk Marinade
Makes enough for 2kg of meat
Adapted from Jerk form Jamaica by Helen Willinsky

1 brown onion, chopped
1/2 cup spring onions, chopped
2 tsps of fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp allspice
1 jalapeño chopped
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp cider vinegar

Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and process until smooth. Store leftovers in a sealed container in the fridge for up to one month.

Vietnamese BBQ

Vietnamese BBQ this week, I picked some recipes from the recently released Little Vietnam by Vietnamese-Australian chef Nhut Huynh. The meaty component of the menu was barbecued pork balls, these pork meatballs were seasoned with fish sauce, oyster sauce, shallots, and sugar which led to some lovely caramelisation. Threaded onto bamboo skewers for grilling they were then served with iceberg lettuce cups, cucumber, and a hoisin dipping sauce.

To accompany the pork I made the papaya salad, which I can add to the new foods list for this year as I've only eaten it ripe in the past. I have a potted Vietnamese mint (Persicaria odorata) which came in handy, the picture in the book also has something that looks very much like perilla (serrated leaf margins, purple underside) which might be worth trying if you can get some, but wasn't listed in the recipe. Don't bother making more servings than you need since it supposedly doesn't keep well, a green papaya weighing 550 grams should be enough for about 4 serves; half of the unpeeled and unseeded fruit can be put in an air-tight container and reversed for later use.

The salad is a really interesting mixture of textures, the mint is probably the most notable flavour, the papaya is crisp and fresh and is more like bean shoots than you might be expecting. Piling the salad into the lettuce cups with cucumber and the BBQ pork made for a refreshing late lunch.

Papaya Salad
Serves 2
Adapted from Little Vietnam by Nhut Huynh

1/2 a small green papaya (~260 grams), peeled and seeded
Squeze of lemon juice
1 cup Vietnamese mint, washed
2 tbsp fried shallots
1 tbsp crushed roasted unsalted peanuts
20 ml fish sauce
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
2 fresh birds eye chillies, finely chopped

Finely julienne or grate the papaya then soak in cold water with a squeeze of lemon juice added, this removes some bitterness.

Mix the papaya with the other ingredients and toss well to ensure the papaya is coated with the dressing. Serve immediately.

Indonesian BBQ

It was 31 degrees and sunny today, it seemed like a good idea to cook outdoors. I would like to try BBQ dishes from all over the world this summer, we started with Indonesia. According to my cookbook ayam taliwang (chicken with spicy sauce) is Lombok's most famous charcoal grilled chicken dish; it is basted with and served with a chilli-coconut sauce - which is quite delicious on it's own.

To complete the meal we had an authentic pickled cucumber - acar mentimun - and some improvised sides of spinach stir-fired with kecap manis and BBQ roasted sweet potatoes. The chicken elicited audible moans of appreciation and the vegetables provided a sweet textural counterpoint to the chook.

Next weekend, Indonesian again or Malaysian BBQ.

Ayam Taliwang
Serves 4 - 8
Adapted from The Food of Indonesia, Periplus World Cookbooks

14 bird's-eye chillies
1 medium brown onion
1 tsp dried shrimp paste, toasted
1 tsp palm sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil
4 cups coconut milk
1 tbsp lime or lemon juice
1 whole fresh chicken (sauce will be enough for 2)
1 tsp salt

To prepare the sauce blend the chilli, onion, shrimp paste, palm sugar and salt into a smooth paste using a food processor or mortar and pestle. Heat the oil in a wok then add the paste and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the coconut milk and reduce the heat, let the mixture simmer until the coconut milk is reduced by a quarter, then remove from the heat and add the lime/lemon juice. This makes enough sauce for up to two whole chickens, it can be stored in the fridge or frozen for longer term storage.

Butterfly the chicken by removing the backbone with a knife or kitchen shears, then place the chicken breast side up and press hard on the breast to snap the wishbone so the chicken will sit flat. Charcoal grill breast side up for 20 minutes, pour half a cup of sauce into a new container and use it to baste the chicken every 10-15 minutes until the internal temperature reaches ~83°C. Allow the chicken to rest for 10 minutes and then cut into large serving pieces. Spread some additional warmed sauce on the chicken before serving.

Pluot

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sadsnaps/ / CC BY 2.0

I was recently in the United States, while there I thought I'd try some foods I hadn't tried before; but being stuck in the midwest with limited access to transport my options were limited. I did get some pluots, a fruit that I haven't seen in Canberra markets yet. The pluot is a complicated hybrid Prunus bred from plums and apricots, Slate recently ran an accessible piece explaining the genetics of the fruit.

I grabbed a few plouts of varying ripeness for a taste test. The variety I tried was very similar to a ripe plum in taste and texture, the redish flesh was pleasantly juicy, maybe with a hint of under-ripe apricot sourness that wasn't unwelcome. Based on this test, I think I prefer plums to pluots and won't be paying a premium of pluots when they do start appearing in fruit shops here; if I had my own orchard though I'd consider growing one. Ed is far more excited about the pluot than I was.

Sorrel

My unofficial new years resolution for 2009 was to try new foods. This week's find was a bunch of just-picked of sorrel from the local Sunday markets. I used it in a simple breakfast, I removed the stalks and cut the leaved into ribbons and folded though an omelette until the leaved were just wilted. I served the omelette over a small pile of home fries. The tartness of the leaves really complemented the eggs and fried potatoes beautifully.

I will buy it again. Or I might try and forage for some as this vegetable is a common weed in most of eastern Australia. This video shows how to identify it in the wild.



Inspiration for our next meeting:
*Salmon with Sorrel Sauce
*Sorrel Tart

Indian Summer

Tonight we threw together a summery Indian vegan meal for our visiting Auditor. I picked all the dishes from Indian Cookery by Madhur Jaffery, I've had this book for a few years and have appreciated most of the recipes that I've cooked from it; her recipes can be a bit generous with the oil and salt, but these quantities can be easily adjusted to taste. One food blogger is reviewing his experience with all the recipes in the book here. As a general Indian cooking text I think that Indian Cookery is notable for the variety of vegetable and pulse dishes and other accompaniment recipes it contains; here we've made a light, invigorating vegan Indian meal with minimum effort that's perfect for a mid-summer evening. The dishes prepared were:

Aromatic yellow rice, peelay chaaval
Flat bread, chapati
Red split lentils with cumin seeds, masoor dal
'Dry okra', sookhi bhindi
Beetroot with onions, shorvedar chukander
Tomato, onion and green coriander relish, cachumber

It's the first time I've cooked okra and I was surprised how much I liked it. This easy dry preparation allows you to fully appreciate the texture and flavour of this pod. Besides okra, amchoor is probably the only exotic ingredient in this recipe - amchoor is a seasoning of powdered dried green mangoes. It adds a sour note to Indian food, a small amount of lemon or lime juice could be used as a substitute. If you make this dish as a part of a larger meal make it last, since the texture of the okra is best straight out of the pan, I suspect that keeping this dish warm or reheating it would turn the okra to mush.

Madhur Jaffery's Dry Okra
Serves 4 as a side
Adapted from Indian Cookery by Madhur Jaffery

450 g fresh okra
4 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp cumin seed
200 g onions, peeled and cut into a large dice
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp amchoor powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Wash the okra, then wipe it dry with towel. Cut the stem and tips from the pods, then cut crosswise into 1 cm pieces.

Heat the oil in a large cast iron frypan (at least 28 cm) and set over a medium-high heat. When the pan is hot add the whole cumin seed and let them sizzle for 10 seconds. Put the onions and okra in the pan and spread the mixture evenly, ideally into a single layer. Fry the onion and okra mix for 10 minutes stirring occasionally, both the onions and okra should be browning at this point.

Turn the temperature to medium and cook for a further 5 minutes, stir gently to avoid mashing the okra. Add the salt, ground cumin and coriander, amchoor and cayenne and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Serve hot.