Blog | Canalside Community Food - Part 4

Griddled cabbage roasted with a buttery miso sauce and served with sesame-tahini noodles creates a complex set of flavours perfectly highlighted by a garnish of chile oil and spring onions. Thomasina Miers, whose recipe this is, gives a good description: ‘Toss the miso hispi in noodles and drizzle with chilli oil, and you have a deeply satisfying, midweek dish that is rich in grains and vegetables, and as healthy as it is delicious’. Hispi cabbage are those torpedo-shaped hispi cabbages we’re getting from Canalside, which in the shops these are sometimes rather coyly called ‘sweetheart’ cabbages.
The original recipe calls for egg noodles, but it works well with wholewheat linguine or brown rice noodles. I think you can use any noodle you favour.
If you want a particularly delicious menu, finish off with some fresh mango for pudding.

Miso and Butter Roast Hispi with Sesame Noodles

Serves 4

Ingredients
For the Cabbage
40g butter, softened
70g white miso
2 teaspoons honey
1½ tablespoons soya sauce
4 spring onions, roughly sliced, white and green parts separated
2 large hispi (aka sweetheart) cabbages, each cut into 8 wedges through the stem

For the Noodles
500g whole-wheat linguine (or another noodle of your preference)
5 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons rice-wine vinegar
2 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds, to garnish
Chile oil, to serve

Method
Heat the oven to 240C (220C fan). Heat a griddle pan or, if you don’t have one, the grill.

Prepare the cabbage:
In a small bowl, mix the butter, miso, honey, soya sauce and the whites of the spring onions.
Griddle or grill the cabbage wedges for 10-12 minutes, turning them when lovely griddle marks appear on each side. Transfer to an ovenproof pan with a lid and spoon over the miso butter. Cover and roast, turning the cabbage once, for 15 minutes, until tender.

Prepare the noodles:
While the cabbage is roasting, bring a pan of salted water to a boil and cook the noodles according to the packet instructions. As they cook, whisk the tahini, sesame oil, vinegar and honey to create a thick paste. Taste, then adjust the seasoning with more honey and/or vinegar. Once the noodles are cooked, drain, reserving about 200ml of the cooking liquid. Slowly mix the cooking liquid into the tahini to create a creamy sauce. Pour some (or all) of it onto the noodles, so that they are dressed to your liking.

Pile the noodles onto a serving platter or bowl and lay the cabbage wedges on top. Spoon over any cabbage cooking juices, scatter on the green parts of the spring onions and sesame seeds, and serve with chile oil to drizzle over the top, to taste.

Recipe adapted from Thomasina Miers, Guardian (2021).

Avocado and cucumber drizzled with sesame oil and soya sauce: scarcely a recipe, but extremely delicious. I first ate something like this at the wonderful Nana’s Restaurant on Regent Street, in Leamington.

Homage to Nana’s

Serves 2 as a side dish

Ingredients

1 large, ripe avocado
1 cucumber of any size
Toasted sesame oil
Soya sauce
1 tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted

Preparation

Cut the avocado in half and remove the stone. Cut the avocado into 1.5cm cubes and carefully lever out of the shell and array on a serving plate.

Cut the cucumber into similarly-sized chunks and mix with the avocado.

Drizzle the sesame oil and soya sauce over the vegetables and sprinkle with some sesame seeds as a garnish and enjoy.

Shakshuka usually consists of eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce. This is a green version, where the eggs are poached on top of a savoury mixture of cumin-scented greens, and then topped with feta, lemon and herbs. Serve it with good bread and some harissa if you’d like to spice it up a bit. Red or green, shakshuka is apparently a popular North African and Middle Eastern breakfast dish. It is also very nice for dinner, and uses only one pan.

We made it with some amazing duck eggs, which are huge and extra unctuous, so if you happen to have some lying around this is a good opportunity to use them. Ordinary eggs will be delicious too, though.

Green Shakshuka

Serves 2

Ingredients
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, roughly chopped
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cumin seed
1 teaspoon coriander seed
2 large garlic cloves, sliced thin
650-ishg greens (spinach, chard, spring greens, or a mixture), chopped
25g coriander, dill, mint, parsley, or a mixture, chopped
a wineglass (about 200ml) of white wine, or use water
2-4 eggs
100g feta, crumbled
half a lemon
Harissa and crusty bread, to serve

Method
Over medium heat, warm the oil in a frying pan and add the onion and salt. Reduce the heat to low and cook 5-10 minutes, or until the onion has softened.

While the onion is cooking toast the cumin and coriander seeds in a dry frying pan until fragrant. Keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn. Set aside to cool a little and then grind it in a mortar and pestle (or use pre-ground spices).

Increase the heat back to medium and add the ground spices and garlic to the pan with the onion and stir for another minute or two, until it smells good.

Add the greens and most of the herbs—but keep a big handful of the herbs aside to use for a garnish. Stir everything together and sauté until the greens begin to wilt a bit. Add the wine or water, and cook for another 8-10 minutes, or until the greens are tender.

Once the greens are tender, use a spoon to create two to four little nests in the mass of cooked greens—one for each egg you intend to use. Crack each egg on the side of the pan, one at a time, and slide it into its nest. Cover the pan and cook for 4-6 minutes, or until the whites have set and the yolks are to your liking.

Remove from the heat and top with the feta. Grate the zest of the lemon onto the feta and then squeeze over the juice. Sprinkle with the remaining herbs and serve, with harissa and crusty bread.

Recipe adapted from BBC Good Food.

Asparagus is such a treat; we should eat it all the time while it is in season. If you’re tired of having it steamed with melted butter and parsley (is that in fact possible?), or you would like to make a more substantial dish, try this. It’s delicious and feels luxurious. The halloumi turns crispy in the oven, with a rich, melty interior that contrasts well with the woody flavours of the asparagus. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall thinks this will serve four. I think two hungry people could finish this off. He recommends serving with some good bread; a glass of a nice dry Riesling doesn’t hurt either.

Roast Potatoes, Asparagus and Halloumi

Serves 2-3

Ingredients

600–700g potatoes, scrubbed or scraped
3–5 garlic cloves, unpeeled, bashed
3 tablespoons olive oil
400g asparagus
225g halloumi
½ lemon
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley, to garnish

Method

Preheat the oven to 190C. Cut the potatoes into small chunks. Put them in a large roasting tray with the garlic, olive oil and some salt and pepper, and toss well.

Roast for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, snap the woody ends from the asparagus and cut the spears into 3–4cm lengths. Cut the halloumi into 2cm cubes.

After the 30 minutes is up, take the potatoes from the oven, add the asparagus and halloumi, and toss to combine. You don’t want the tray to be too crowded – everything should be in a single layer. Return the tray to the oven for a further 15 minutes, or until the asparagus is tender and the cheese is starting to caramelise.

Add a generous squeeze of lemon juice and toss everything again, then transfer to a serving dish. Scatter with parsley, and another grind of black pepper. Bring to the table along with the remains of the lemon half, and some more olive oil, so that people can adjust the flavours to their liking. Serve with wedges of sourdough bread.

Recipe adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, The Guardian, 7 Sept. 2012.

I recently listened to a fascinating episode of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme about ‘How Spain Does Beans’. The programme explained, among other things, why beans in a jar taste so good. Inspired by the programme I bought a jar of butter beans from Aubrey Allen. They cost more than beans from a tin, but they were really good. We’ve now eaten our way through several more jars, and I recommend them enormously for this or any recipe calling for butter beans. On the other hand, it’s also very, very good with ordinary tinned beans.

We ate this for diner with griddled asparagus and some roasted carrot and garlic mash.

Now, sorrel. If you can lay your hands on any of this fibrous, red-veined leaf, use it in place of some or all of the spinach. Since sorrel has its own sour, lemony flavour, you can reduce the lemon juice if you’re using sorrel.

Fried Butter beans with Feta, Sumac and Spinach or Sorrel

Serves 4.

Ingredients

60g butter
900g tinned or jarred butter beans, drained and rinsed
8 spring onions, halved lengthwise
1 garlic clove, peeled and mashed to a paste with ½ teaspoon salt
1-2 fresh red chiles, sliced thin (optional)
200g shredded spinach or, if you can get it, sorrel—or a mixture of both
3 tablespoons lemon juice (if you can get sorrel reduce this to about 1½ tablespoons)
150g feta, broken into pieces
2 teaspoons sumac
handful of chopped dill
olive oil, to drizzle over the top

Method

First fry the butter beans: heat a bit of the butter in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add enough beans to cover the bottom of the pan in a single layer and fry for 1-2 minutes on each side, until the skin is golden brown and blistered. Remove to a large bowl and cook the remainder of the beans in the same fashion, adding more butter to the pan as necessary.

When the final batch of beans is almost done, add the spring onions, garlic, and chiles (if using), along with almost all of the spinach or sorrel. Keep back a little of the spinach or sorrel for a garnish.

Sauté everything together for another minute or two, and then return the other beans to the hot pan and mix everything together.

Remove from the heat and add the lemon juice. Scatter the feta over the top, sprinkle on the sumac, and top with the reserved spinach or sorrel, as well as the dill. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and serve.

Recipe adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi, Plenty (2010).

A Falafel Salad

The New York Times describes this as the salad equivalent of a falafel sandwich. It combines tahini, mint, cucumber, and crunchy pita with spicy, warm chickpeas. It’s really good. If you don’t want to mess around with cooking the kale, you could also use salad greens.

Spiced Chickpea Salad With Tahini and Pita Chips

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the chickpeas

2 tins of chickpeas, well drained, or the equivalent of your self-cooked chickpeas

about 180ml olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 teaspoons ground cumin, or 1 teaspoon each ground cumin and ground coriander

1 teaspoon sweet smoked paprika

Salt and pepper

For the tahini sauce

5 tablespoons (80ml) tahini

freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon, plus more to taste

1 garlic clove, minced

water, as needed

To finish

Olive oil, for cooking

About 30g kale, chard or spinach, well washed and thick stems removed

180g pita chips (see Tip)

Handful of roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley

Handful of roughly chopped mint

1 cucumbers, thinly sliced

Lemon, cut into wedges

Preparation

Prepare the chickpeas: Preheat your oven to 220C. Pour the chickpeas into a small baking dish, about 15cm x 20cm. The chickpeas should be crowded together in a thick layer, not spread out. Pour in olive oil until chickpeas are just covered. Stir in the garlic, cumin, paprika, and 2 big pinches each of salt and pepper. Bake until oil is bubbling around the chickpeas and they are turning reddish-brown, 35 to 40 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, make tahini sauce: Pour the tahini into a bowl and whisk in lemon juice and garlic. The tahini will thicken and clump. Slowly whisk in the water, a little at a time, until the sauce becomes smooth, creamy and pourable. Taste and season with salt, pepper and more lemon juice, if desired. Set aside.

Cook the greens: Place a large frying pan over medium heat and drizzle lightly with olive oil. When hot, add the greens in batches, along with a big pinch of salt. Stir until wilted and tender and set aside.

Assemble the salad: in a large bowl, gently mix the chickpeas and their cooking oil with the cooked greens, half the pita chips, and the chopped herbs. Add the cucumber slices and drizzle with half the tahini sauce. Scatter the remaining pita chips on top. Arrange the lemon wedges around the side and serve, passing extra tahini sauce at the table.

Tip

It’s easy to make pita chips from stale pita bread. Cut each pita bread into triangles and separate the top and bottom layers. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil shimmers, add the pita triangles and cook, stirring often, until golden brown. Reduce the heat as needed to prevent scorching.

Recipe adapted from New York Times Cooking (2019)

This Easter I am going to make a Torta Pasqualina, or Italian Easter Tart. It combines creamy ricotta with fresh greens baked in a flaky crust—so it’s a bit like a Greek spanakopita. To give it an Easter twist you crack some whole eggs onto the greens before baking. When the finished tart is sliced you get a lovely mass of green with little pockets of soft-cooked egg nestled under the crust. Very seasonal!

Ricotta, Spinach and Egg Easter Tart (Torta Pasqualina)

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

Pastry
160g cold butter, diced
250g plain flour
200g ricotta
pinch of salt
a little beaten egg or milk to brush over the top of the tart

Filling
600g kale, spinach, chard or other mixed greens
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 large onions, chopped
300g ricotta
6 eggs plus extra for brushing
Salt and black pepper
80g parmesan, grated
A pinch of nutmeg

Method

Make the pastry: Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the ricotta and a pinch of salt, mix and bring together into a soft ball. Turn the pastry on to a floured work surface and knead until smooth. Cover with clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes.

Make the filling: Bring a pot of water to the boil. Meanwhile pick over the greens, discarding any tough stalks and discoloured leaves, then wash them. Working in batches, add some of them to a pan. Bring back to the boil and cook for a few minutes, just long enough to wilt the greens. Remove the cooked greens to a colander and repeat with the remaining greens. When they’re all cooked let them drain for at least 10 minutes. Once they are cool enough to handle, use your hands to squeeze out as much water as possible, and then chop roughly.

Heat the olive oil in a pan until warm and then add the chopped onion. Sauté for 5 minutes, and then add the greens. Stir and heat for a few minutes and then remove from the heat. Mix in the ricotta, 2 lightly beaten eggs, salt, pepper, parmesan and nutmeg.

Butter and flour a 26cm round tin, preheat your oven to 190C and put a flat baking tray in to get hot.

Cut the dough into two pieces, one twice the size of the other. On a floured surface roll the larger piece into a circle large enough to fill the tin, come up the sides and hang over the edge. Lift the dough into the tin and press it in. Add the filling. Using a spoon, make four deep indents in the mixture. Break the remaining four eggs into these indentations.

Roll the smaller piece of dough into a disc large enough to generously cover the top of the tin. Place it over the top of the tart and, using wet fingertips, press the dough to make a firm seal, and then fold any excess dough back towards the centre to make a little fringe. Prick or slash the centre of the tart. Paint the top with beaten egg or milk, put onto the hot baking tray, and bake for 50 minutes or until golden.

Allow to cool a little before turning out. Serve warm or at room temperature.

(Recipe adapted from Rachel Roddy, The Guardian and New York Time Cooking.)

This is really nice served with a green salad and some salted yoghurt on the side. Roasting the potatoes first before adding the spicy coating means you can get the potatoes nicely crisp without the spices burning.

Sami Tamimi’s Spicy Roasted Potatoes
Serves 4-6

Ingredients

1.5kg potatoes, unpeeled and cut into 3cm cubes
3 tablespoons olive oil plus 60ml more olive oil, separated
1 teaspoon salt
3-4 green chile peppers, halved, deseeded and thinly sliced crosswise
8 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons cumin seeds, crushed lightly in a mortar and pestle
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 lemon, zested and then cut into wedges
big handful (about 4 tablespoons) of fresh coriander, finely chopped

Method

Preheat oven to 250C.

In a large bowl toss potatoes with the 3 tablespoons of olive oil and the salt. Spread on baking sheets in a single layer. Put in oven and roast for about 20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into a test potato meets just a little resistance.

Meanwhile, using the same bowl, mix together the remaining 60ml of olive oil, chile, garlic and spices.

When the potatoes are almost tender, as described, use a fish slice to transfer them to the bowl. Don’t turn off the oven! Gently toss the potatoes with the other ingredients, until well combined. Tip them back onto the baking sheets and spread them again into a single layer.

Return them to the oven and roast for another 10 to 15 minutes, or until the skewer meets no resistance. Cool for about 5 minutes.

Sprinkle the lemon zest and coriander over the potatoes and serve with lemon wedges.

Recipe adapted from Milk Street (2021).

I imagine you’re already aware of how good roasted beets are in a salad, especially if they are accompanied by some salty cheese. Here is a particularly tasty variant on this classic combination. Suzanne Goin, whose recipe this is, claims it converted her beetroot-hating mother into a beetroot fan. The cumin vinaigrette, fried chickpeas, flat-leaf parsley and sharp black olives combine with the rich, roasted beets and salty ricotta to make a treat for your mouth.

Ricotta salata is a hard, dried version of ricotta. You could use a hard goat or sheep cheese in its stead.

Roasted Beet Salad with Fried Chickpeas, Black Olives and Ricotta Salata

Suzanne Goin says this serves 6 as a starter. Matt and I ate the whole thing for dinner, with some bread.

Ingredients

1kg beetroot, cleaned
120ml olive oil
1½ teaspoons cumin seeds
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 shallots, thinly sliced
250g cooked chickpeas
a fragment of chopped Canalside chile pepper, seeds removed if you like (optional)
90 grams dry, Niçoise-style black olives
15g flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
100g ricotta salata, cut into thin slivers
more salt and pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Put the beetroots in a roasting pan, add a splash of water, and cover the pan tightly with foil. (I know it’s not great to use foil. You can at least try to reuse this foil, since it won’t get dirty.) Roast the beets for 40-90 minutes, or until tender when pierced with a knife. How long they take to roast will depend on their size. Let cool and remove the skins. They should rub off easily. If they don’t, you can use a knife. Slice the beetroots into wedges and place in a large bowl.

While the beetroots are roasting, toast the cumin seed in a dry medium pan over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes, or until they smell cumin-y. Let cool a bit and then grind coarsely in a mortar and pestle. Transfer to a bowl.

To this bowl add the salt, red wine vinegar and lemon juice. Whisk in 100ml of olive oil. Taste and balance the seasoning, if necessary. Does it need a little more lemon juice, or salt? Add the shallots and set aside to marinate a bit.

Heat the remaining 20ml of olive oil in the pan you used for the cumin. When it is really hot, add the chickpeas and the chile (if you’re using it), and fry for 4-5 minutes, until the chickpeas are crispy. Shake the pan often. Once they’re crispy, season with a bit more salt and pepper and set aside.

Gently toss the beetroots with the cumin-shallot vinaigrette. Add the olives and parsley leaves and taste again. Balance the flavours with more lemon juice, salt or pepper, if necessary.

Array half the salad on a platter. Tuck half the cheese around the vegetables, and top with half the chickpeas. Place the rest of the salad on top, nestle in the remaining cheese, and finish with the remaining chickpeas. Enjoy.

Recipe adapted from Suzanne Goin, Sunday Suppers at Lucques (2005).

According to Dr Bill Schindler, fermented carrot sticks not only taste more interesting than ordinary carrot sticks, but also contain lots of probiotics. I can’t comment on the merits of this claim, but can confirm that fermented carrot sticks are really tasty. They retain the pleasant crunch of raw carrots, but are a little softer—midway between raw and cooked. The brine imbues each carrot stick with a salty tang, and the short fermentation adds an additional dimension. As fermentations go, this is really, really easy. You basically pack the carrots in a jar, add salty water, and leave them for a few days.

Serve your fermented carrot sticks as a nibble with drinks, or add them to a salad.

Fermented Carrot Sticks

Ingredients

3-6 carrots
sea salt
1 glass jar large enough to hold your carrots
kitchen scales of the sort you can zero

Method

Peel and trim the carrots. Cut them into sticks of a size you’d like to munch on.

Put the empty glass jar on the scales and zero the scales.

Leaving the jar on the scales, stand the carrot sticks neatly into it, packing them as tight as possible. With the carrot-filled jar still on the scales, pour in enough water to cover the carrots but leaving 2cm between the top of the water and the top of the jar. Note down the weight in grams.

Now do some maths to work out how much salt you will need. Multiply the weight by 0.02. This is the amount of salt you need. So, for instance, if the vegetable mixture weighs 1000grams, then you need 20 grams of salt.

Measure out the amount of salt you will need and put it into a medium bowl.

Drain the water from the carrots into that bowl. Mix until the salt is dissolved, and then pour the salty water back into the jar to cover the carrots.

Cover your jar with a piece of clean cloth secured by a rubber band. Put it somewhere tranquil and temperate—an ideal temperature is around 17C. Leave for 3-5 days to ferment. Try tasting a carrot after 3 days, and see if you like its crunchy, salty flavour. Once you’re happy with the flavour, move the jar to the fridge, where it will keep for up to 3 months.

Recipe adapted from Bill Schindler, Eat Like a Human (2021).