Moroccan BBQ

We had the final barbecue of the season about a month ago. On the menu, grilled harissa chicken legs, made with a hastily prepared harissa paste when my tube ran out.  A stew of broad beans and pumpkin made also well seasoned with harissa from a Sheridan Rogers recipe for the vegetarians and the table and cous cous.

Dessert was the remarkable part, a simple salad of watermelon and lemon balm.

Watermelon Salad with Lemon Balm
Adapted from Flavors or Morocco by Ghillie Bassan
Serves 4-6

1.5 kg of seedless watermelon
2 tsp white sugar
2-3 tablespoons of orange blossom water
A small bunch of fresh lemon balm

Remove the skin from the watermelon and cut into bit size cubes and place in a serving bowl. Add the sugar to the orange blossom water and stir until the sugar has dissolved Pour the mixture over the watermelon, mix gently then cover the bowl and leave to chill in the fridge for about an hour.

Toss the watermelon again before serving, and scatter the lemon balm leaves over the top.

March Leftovers

*Youtube is a great resource for learning to cook International cuisines. I made cookingwithdiog's yakisoba noodles and I really liked them.

*I made Nigel Salter's onion soup to use up some Gruyere, I think I prefer a onion soup with more onion.

*The Accountant loved this chickpea salad from Gordon Ramsay. So I made it too. It's very nicely balanced and delicious with some finely slices medium-rare lamb steak mixed through.

*I've been trying to eat more fish, we had teriyaki salmon with pickled vegetable salad. I liked the salad a lot, but I wasn't convinced by the salmon - it's probably better pan fried to achieve some different textures.

*I made these blueberry pancakes, but used all yoghurt instead of butter milk. They were great, but it's uncommon to go terribly wrong with a pancake recipe.

*Nigel Slater's oven method for rice pudding got well-tested this month, but I still haven't decided on the optimal amount of sugar, and the timing is off too. Letting the pudding cook slowly in the oven is much more convenient that the stove top method.

Portuguese BBQ

The Portuguese have a popular charcoal grilled sardine dish called sardinhas assadas; I recreated it using whole blue mackerel to great success. The traditional accompaniment, a salad of roasted capsicums, tomatoes and onions, cut through the oily fish beautifully.

To finish we had arroz doce, or rice pudding, flavoured with lemon peel and cinnamon. Next time I may try to make this in the Webber too.

Salt Grilled Blue Mackerel with Portuguese Salad
Serves 4
Adapted from Jill Dupleix, delicious November 2008

2 large potatoes, peeled, cut into 2cm rounds
2 tbsp olive oil1 tbsp hot smoked paprika
1 red capsicum
1 green capsicum
2 tomatoes
1 red onion
Handful coriander or parsley
4 blue mackerel
1 lemon quartered

Parboil the potatoes, when cool slice into rounds 1 cm thick, coat with oil and paprika and bake in the barbecue over indirect heat with all vents open for 45 minutes.

Cook the capsicums over the coals until blistered, then put them in a bowl and cover it with cling film. Peel the capsicums when cool and slice into strips. Finely slice the tomatoes and onion and mix into the capsicums, add the herbs. Dress with a little vegetable oil if not serving immediately.

Salt the cavity of the fish and the outside, cook over indirect heat for 10 minutes a side, or until the flesh comes away from the bone easily. Serve the grilled  fish with lemon quarters, the roasted potato slices and capsicum salad.

Indian BBQ

Last weekend we had Indian BBQ. I cooked from The Food of India by Priya Wickramasinghe, making parathas, pork tikka and a delicious salad dish called kosambri.

To convert the pork tikka recipe for the BBQ I skewered the marinated pork and grilled over indirect heat. I made the sauce the recipe calls for in the food processor using red onion, garlic, ginger, green chilli, coriander, and added about 30 millilitres of vegetable oil. This was served alongside the pork like a fresh chutney, it was refreshing and complemented the lightly charred pork well.

The salad was worth repeating, make a larger batch so you also have some for lunch the next day. For the coconut I used McKenzie's moist flakes, which worked really well here.

Kosambri
Serves 4
Adapted from The Food of India by Priya Wickramasinghe

50 g moong dal
200 g carrot or white radish
25 g grated coconut
25 g coriander leaves
1/2 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp yellow mustard seed
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
2 tbsp lemon juice

Cover the dal in boiling water and leave to soak for at least 3 hours. Rinse well and drain.

Finely grate the carrot or radish in to a bowl and add the coconut, dal and coriander. Heat the oil in a small fry pan over a medium heat and add the mustard seed. When the seed begins to pop add the chilli and remove from the heat. Add the lemon juice and stir, pour over the salad once cold and toss well.

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.