Coriander | Canalside Community Food - Part 3

What are you going to do with the three million tiny red onions you’ve accumulated from Canalside over the past months? Use them in this in this delicious, vaguely Thai curry. They’re a bit of a nuisance to peel, but the result is worth it. (Ali suggests soaking in very hot water for 5 minutes to make for an easier peel.)

Serve this light and spring-like curry with rice and an additional squeeze of lime. It’s pretty quick, and very, very flavoursome.

Coconut-Miso Salmon Curry
Serves 4

Ingredients
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
200g red onions, peeled and sliced ¼-in thick
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons miso (the recipe calls for white miso but I used brown rice miso)
½ cup coconut milk
600g salmon fillet, cut into 2-inch pieces
About 5 cups of baby spinach or some other soft greens
1-2 tablespoons lime juice
½ cup coriander, coarsely chopped
¼ cup basil, coarsely chopped
1 chopped red chile, to serve (if desired)
Additional lime juice, to serve

Preparation
In a large pan heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions, ginger and garlic. Stir and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes, or until softened. Add the miso and continue to stir until the miso begins to caramelise a bit on the bottom of the pan. This will take about 2 more minutes.

Add the coconut milk and 2 cups of water. Bring to the boil over high heat and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the liquid had reduced a little.

Add the salmon and reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer gently for 3-5 minutes, or until the salmon is cooked to your liking. Stir in the spinach and lime juice. Turn off the heat and stir in most of the herbs, keeping a little back to garnish the top of the dish.

Serve with rice, topped with the fresh herbs , chopped chile, and additional lime juice, if you like.

Recipe adapted from New York Times Cooking.

‘Wow—that looks delicious!’, exclaimed a friend as we unpacked our lunches yesterday. It was. The ribbons of orange squash soften in lime juice spiked with the sweet spiciness of pink peppercorns. (These are essential; substituting black pepper will not work.). You can make this well in advance if you like.

Anna Jones recommends serving with tofu crisped in a pan with honey and soy, and brown rice, to make a dinner.

Squash and Pink Peppercorn Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients
500g pumpkin or squash, peeled and deseeded
1 lime
1 tablespoon pink peppercorns
1 teaspoon salt
Big handful of mint, dill, parsley or coriander, roughly chopped

Preparation
Shave the squash into thin ribbons, using a vegetable peeler or whatever specialist gear you happen to have. Place the ribbons in a bowl.
Zest the lime over the ribbons, squeeze in the juice, and toss together with the salt.
Put the pink peppercorns in a mortar and crush them roughly before adding to the salad.
Stir in the herbs and serve.

Recipe adapted from Anna Jones, The Modern Cook’s Year (2017).

My friend Sharon gave me a copy of Diana Henry’s beautiful new cookbook. It consists of a series of menus. This magnificent recipe is from the menu called ‘Midnight at the Oasis’. She recommends serving it alongside some pickled vegetables with other nibbles, semolina bread with orange and aniseed, olive oil braised leeks with harissa and dill, roast sprouting broccoli with chile, feta and preserved lemon yoghurt . . . well, I’ll stop there but it’s a pretty mesmerising list of dishes, no?

This particular dish combines the buttery crunch of barley with the melting texture of roast pumpkin, all topped with very spicy red shatta. (I’d not heard of it either, but it’s apparently a first cousin of zhug.) It turns out to be a thick, chile-hot blend of fresh green herbs with tomato and cumin. It’s very good.

I have no idea where you get black barley, so I used ordinary pearl (not instant) barley, and it was delicious.

Pumpkin with shatta and black barley
Serves 4

Ingredients

For the pumpkin
3 tablespoons olive oil
10g butter
1.5kg pumpkin
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, roughly crushed in a mortar
3cm ginger, peeled and grated
3 garlic cloves, finely sliced

For the barley
10g butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 small onions or shallots
250g barley
5 tablespoons dry white vermouth
700ml water or stock
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper, to taste

For the shatta
5 red chiles, 4 de-seeded and all roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
50ml olive oil
50ml water
50g tomato purée
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Juice of ½ a small lemon
30g coriander and parsley in any proportion

Preparation
To make the pumpkin, preheat the oven to 190C. Put the olive oil and butter into a roasting pan large enough to allow the pumpkin to lie in a single layer, and melt in the oven while you prepare the pumpkin. Halve the pumpkin and remove the seeds. You can peel it or not as you prefer. Cut it into slices about 3cm thick.

Toss the pumpkin in the melted butter and oil, and roast for 20 minutes.
Add the fennel, ginger and garlic, toss, and roast for another 20 minutes or so, or until the pumpkin is tender and begins to caramelise on the edges. Set aside.

To make the barley, heat the butter and olive oil in a large saucepan and sauté the onions (or shallots) until they are soft but not coloured. Add the barley and stir it about for about 2 minutes so that it gets coated with butter. Add the vermouth and cook until about half of it has evaporated. Add the water or stock, bay leaves, and season with a bit of salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer. Cook, with the lid on, for about 40 minutes, or until the barley is al dente. The liquid should be absorbed but check a bit beforehand and if it’s still very liquidly, take off the cover and raise the heat a bit so that some of the liquid can evaporate.

To make the shatta, purée everything except the herbs in a blender and pulse into a chunky purée. Add the herbs and pulse it again so that you have a red purée flecked with green—don’t over-blend this. Set aside

To serve, arrange the barley on a big platter and set the pumpkin on top. Spoon some of the shatta over the top, and serve the rest on the side, in a little bowl.

From Diana Henry, How To Eat A Peach (2018).

Carrots simmered in warm spices with dried fruit, topped with pistachio nuts and salty yoghurt. You will enjoy this. I served it with a surprisingly complex beetroot salad dressed with balsamic vinegar and maple syrup, mixed with shredded daikon radish, a root-vegetable hat trick, but that’s for another day.

The recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of barberries, which, amazingly, I happened to have. I think you can leave it out. You could also serve this over pasta, or in a pita with a shredded hard-cooked egg.

Uzbeki Carrots
Serves 2-3.

Ingredients
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 tomatoes, cut into thin wedges (or several tinned tomatoes)
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
½ Canalside chile, seeded and shredded (or to taste)
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cumin
salt and black pepper
500g carrots, peeled and cut into batons
75g currants
1 tablespoon dried barberries (entirely optional)
¼ teaspoon saffron
350ml water (or use some of the tomato juice from the tin if you’ve used tinned tomatoes)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 teaspoons honey, or to taste

To serve:
2-3 tablespoons shelled unsalted pistachios, coarsely chopped
Salted yoghurt
Fresh coriander, chopped
4 spring onions, sliced

Preparation
Heat the oil in a large saucepan and sauté the onion over medium heat until golden brown, then add the tomatoes and cook until they begin to soften. Add the garlic and chile and cook for another minute, then the cinnamon and cumin and cook for another minute. Add a couple pinches of salt and pepper, and then add everything else, except garnishes. Bring to a gentle boil.

Reduce the heat and simmer the carrots until completely tender, 20-25 minutes. The mixture should remain moist but not be swimming in juice. If it gets too dry, add a little more water. If it is too sloppy, turn up the heat and boil off some of the liquid. Taste for seasoning and balance; the mixture should be sweet and savoury.

Serve topped with a generous dollop of yogurt, pistachios, coriander, and spring onion.

Recipe adapted from Diana Henry, A Change of Appetite: Where Healthy Meets Delicious (2014).

Cooked slowly at a very low temperature, salmon becomes meltingly tender and immensely flavourful. It’s the complete opposite of the dry, overcooked fish one so often encounters. The fish is rubbed with a mixture of North-African spices and baked for nearly an hour. A coriander-packed herb salsa provides the perfect foil. Serve this with plain, boiled potatoes and a green salad for a spectacular meal.

The recipe is extremely easy—just make sure to allow an hour or two for the salmon to absorb the flavours of the spice rub before you cook it. This is a very good way of serving fish at a dinner party, since it doesn’t require any last-minute cooking.

Slow-roasted Spiced Salmon with Herb Salsa
Serves 6

Ingredients
For the salmon
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp fennel seeds
3 cloves
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 generous pinch salt
900g salmon fillet, skinned. Ask the fishmonger to pin-bone it.
Salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

For the salsa
2 medium shallots, finely diced
6 tablespoon lime juice
20g coriander leaves and tender stems, very finely chopped
2 tablespoon minced chile pepper. Remove the seeds if you don’t want this to be too hot
4 tablespoon spring onions, very finely chopped (green and white parts)
110ml neutral oil
Salt

Preparation
Toast the seeds and cloves in a dry frying pan over a medium-high heat and then grind finely with a pestle and mortar or a spice grinder. Transfer to a small bowl. Add the cayenne pepper, turmeric and salt.

Rub the spice mixture on both sides of the salmon, and refrigerate, covered, for one to two hours.

Heat the oven to 110C. Bring the salmon to room temperature while the oven is heating.

Drizzle the olive oil over the salmon and rub it in evenly with your hands. Roast in a baking dish for 40 to 50 minutes, until it begins to flake in the thickest part of the fillet when you poke it with a knife or your finger. Samin Nosrat notes that ‘because this method is so gentle on its proteins, the fish will appear translucent even when it’s cooked’.

While the fish is cooking make the salsa: In a small bowl, combine the shallot and lime juice and set aside for 15 minutes to macerate. In a separate small bowl, combine the coriander, jalapeño, spring onions, oil, and a generous pinch of salt. Add the shallots and lime juice, and more salt to taste.

Once the salmon is cooked, transfer it to a serving platter, spoon the herb salsa on top in generous amounts and serve.

Recipe adapted from Samin Nosrat, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat (2017).

This is pretty addictive. It delivers a big dose of umami and makes an outstanding dressing for robust vegetables. I’ve been eating it on a salad of finely shredded red or white cabbage, grated carrot, and chopped coriander. It would be good on grilled tofu or fish, or roasted butternut squash. Or use it as a dip for whole potatoes—the little ones we’re getting in our shares—roasted at 200C for 30 minutes.

Miso-Tahini Dressing
Serves 2

Ingredients
1 tablespoon miso paste
1 tablespoon tahini
1 tablespoon soya sauce
1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Preparation
Combine the ingredients and blend well, using a fork. Taste to see if it would benefit from a little more vinegar. The mahogany-dark dressing is now ready to use. This makes enough for half a small cabbage, shredded, together with several grated carrots.

Crispy chickpea and carrot pancakes make a quick and tasty base for a variety of toppings. The chickpea flour creates a rich and moist interior that’s satisfying without being heavy. We ate these with spinach and avocado dressed with lemon and olive oil, and some grated goat cheese. You could also try roasted tomatoes topped with basil and a fried egg.
If you use two frying pans you can make two pancakes simultaneously, and the whole thing will take under 15 minutes.

Chickpea and Carrot Pancakes
Serves 2

Ingredients
125g chickpea flour (aka gram flour)
125g carrots, grated
175ml milk or oat milk
1 tsp roasted ground cumin, or coriander, or caraway, or fennel or mustard seed, as you prefer
Salt and pepper, to taste
1-2 tablespoons olive or rapeseed oil, for frying

Preparation
Mix the pancake ingredients aside from the oil in a blender—I used a Nutribullet—and blend until the mixture is smooth.

Heat two frying pans over medium heat and add the oil. Swirl the oil around to coat the bottom of each pan and let the oil get hot. Once it’s hot (test by adding a drop of water and seeing if it sizzles), pour half the batter into each pan and cook for 2 minutes. As it sets the colour will darken a bit and some bubbles will begin to appear on the top. Adjust the heat if you think it’s starting to get too brown on the bottom. Using a fish slice turn each pancake over and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes on the other side, until it looks firm.

Remove each pancake from the pan, and place on a plate. Top with your selected topping (see below) and enjoys.

Pancake Toppings

Spinach with avocado and goat cheese
Toss baby spinach with sliced avocado and dress with an olive oil and lemon vinaigrette (50% olive oil, 50% lemon juice, salt and pepper). Arrange some dressed spinach on each pancake, and top with grated goat or sheep cheese. Garnish with additional slices of avocado and a grind of black pepper.

Tomato, basil and egg
Drizzle cherry tomatoes with olive oil and roast in a 200C oven for 30 minutes. Toss with shredded basil and lemon zest. Arrange on pancake and top with a crispy fried egg.

Brussels sprout slaw with avocado and cheese
Trim the bottoms off several handfuls of Brussels sprouts and shred them finely. Dress with a lemon vinaigrette and toss with chopped parsley or coriander. Arrange on top of each pancake. Garnish with sliced avocado, freshly ground black pepper and lots of grated cheese.

Recipe adapted from Anna Jones, Guardian 6 Oct. 2018.

Our resident Recipe Meister, Rebecca Earle, is having a break during July, and so newly joined member Pip Smith has stepped forward to tantalise our tastebuds in Rebecca’s absence. Here’s this week’s recipe:

Mediterranean Stuffed Courgettes

Despite having a high water content Courgettes are a great source of vitamin C. The larger they get the more water they hold and it is then best to cook them with as little water as possible. My daughter always picks the largest and I just roll with it as she loves a stuffed courgette. This is the recipe we like to do together at home:

Ingredients:

One courgette
2 spring onions trimmed
Two medium tomatoes, seeds removed
Optional – a handful of chopped black olives
1 clove of garlic
1 slice of day old whole meal bread
1 tsp dried mixed herbs (unless you have some fresh)
1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
Rapeseed oil to spray

Method:
Heat the oven to 180 degrees
Slice the courgette lengthways and dig out the soft flesh and chop (you can choose to discard half the flesh).
Finely chop the tomatoes and spring onion.
Mix the tomato and onion with the olives if using and the courgette flesh.
Spray your baking tray with rapeseed oil and rub the courgette skins over the spray, leave flesh side up on the tray.
Cut the garlic in half and rub the garlic over the fleshy surface of the courgette.
Fill the courgette with the tomato mix.
Grate the bread into breadcrumbs and stir in the herbs and black pepper.
Sprinkle the bread crumbs over the courgette.
Finally spray the stuffed courgettes with rapeseed oil and bake for approximately 20 mins.

If you have fresh herbs leave out the dry ones and sprinkle with fresh herbs once removed from the oven. Enjoy!

‘A combination of lifting aromatics and wintery earthy roots, roasted until crisp around the edges and sweet’, writes Anna Jones. This flavoursome broth is satisfying and unctuous without being cloying or heavy. I think you will enjoy it. ‘Definitely one for a Canalside recipe’ said Matt when I made this.

Anna Jones notes that you can use any root vegetables that you like—beetroot or potatoes could be substituted for the carrots, parsnips and swedes.

Turmeric and Lime Leaf Broth with Roasted Roots
Serves 4.

Ingredients

200g carrots, peeled and halved if big
350g parsnips, peeled and quartered
500g swede, peeled and roughly chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
coconut oil
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger root, peeled
1 thumb-sized piece of turmeric root, peeled
1 bunch of coriander
2 large shallots, finely sliced, divided into two portions
1 clove garlic, finely sliced
1 tablespoon coriander seeds, roughly smashed
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 x 400g tin of coconut milk
4 lime leaves

To Serve
200g cooked grains
1 lime, halved

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 220C.

Place the prepared roots into a baking tray with a big pinch of salt and 1 tablespoon of coconut oil. Put in the oven. After 5 minutes remove it and toss everything together. Return it to the oven and roast for about 35 minutes, or until everything is golden. Toss it periodically while it’s roasting.
Meanwhile prepare the broth: first grate the ginger and turmeric.

Cut off the stalks of the coriander and chop these roughly. Keep the leaves to garnish the soup.
Add another tablespoon of coconut oil to a saucepan and heat over medium heat. Add half the shallots and sauté for about 5 minutes, until they begin to brown. Add the grated ginger and turmeric, the chopped coriander stalks, the garlic, coriander seeds and chile. Sauté for a few more minutes.

Add the coconut milk and the lime leaves. Fill the empty tin with water and add this to the pan as well. Season to taste with salt and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes.

While the broth is simmering heat another tablespoon of coconut oil in a sauté pan over high heat. When it’s really hot add the remaining shallot and cook until it’s crispy and golden—but don’t let it burn. Remove the crispy shallots from the pan onto some kitchen paper. Spread them out so they don’t all stick to each other and go soggy.

Once the roots are ready, spoon the grains into four bowls. Place the roasted roots over the grains and ladle the soup over the top. Garnish with the coriander leaves and crispy shallots. Serve with the lime halves for an extra lime kick.

Recipe adapted from Anna Jones, The Modern Cook’s Year (2017).

This main-course salad is based on what I gather is a classic Vietnamese sauce called Nước chấm. It’s a combination of lime juice, a bit of sugar, and fish sauce. It’s sharp, salty and addictive. The recipe combines slices of lightly-cooked steak with a salad of shredded vegetables. You can also make it without the steak, in which case I’d recommend adding some toasted peanuts. You can also make this more hearty still by serving it alongside some cooked rice, or rice noodles.

Vietnamese Beef Salad with Nước chấm
Serves 4

Ingredients

2 red chilli peppers (or to taste)
½ cup fish sauce
1 tablespoon lime zest
⅓ cup fresh lime juice (about 3 limes)
2 tablespoons dark muscovado sugar
2 garlic cloves, grated
1 inch of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
600g rump steak or ¾ cup roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped
½ cucumber
6 carrots, peeled and shredded
½ medium white cabbage, finely shredded
8 spring onions, thinly sliced
1 bunch coriander, coarsely chopped
roasted peanuts (if you’re not using steak)
an additional lime half, for garnish (optional)

Preparation

De-seed and finely chop one chilli pepper. In a small bowl, combine the chopped chilli, fish sauce, lime zest, lime juice, brown sugar, ginger and garlic.

If you’re using the steak, then pour 1/2 of the mixture into a sealable plastic bag and add the steak, if you’re using it. Seal, and leave to marinate at room temperature for at least 30 minutes (or refrigerate for up to 24 hours). Let meat come to room temperature before cooking if necessary.

De-seed the second chilli pepper and slice it finely. Slice the cucumber into thin matchsticks. Toss the sliced chilli, sliced cucumber, shredded carrot and cabbage, spring onions and almost all the coriander together to mix. Keep a little coriander back to garnish the top of the salad.
If you’re not using the steak, simply add the peanuts, pour the dressing over the vegetables, toss, garnish with a little more coriander, and serve.

If you’re using the steak, toss the salad with the remaining dressing and then spread the salad out onto a serving platter and set aside.

When you are ready to eat heat a cast iron pan (or other sturdy frying pan) to very hot and add the steak. Cook for 75 seconds on each side, unless you don’t like your meat rare, in which case cook it for perhaps 2 minutes a side, or however long you favour cooking steak. I like steak very rare . . .

Remove the meat from the pan and let it sit for 3-5 minutes on a cutting board. Then slice the steak very thinly, and place the slices over the top of the salad. Scatter the sliced red chiles and reserved coriander over the top and serve with an additional sliced lime on the side, in case anyone wants more lime.

Recipe adapted from Melissa Clark, New York Times Cooking.