Dill | Canalside Community Food - Part 2

A while ago I tried a recipe for whole broad beans cooked in a tomato sauce, and it was pretty good. It set me thinking whether you could actually cook the normally-discarded pods (husks?) that are left over when you shell broad beans. It turns out you can. I mentioned this to several friends, who variously told me I’d gone nuts, or that it sounded like the sort of thing people eat in Siberia. What can I say? I thought it was pretty good. We ate this with brown rice and a topping of salted yoghurt, and a shredded carrot salad on the side.

If you would like a normal recipe for broad beans, I strongly recommend this one: spaghetti with broad beans, bread crumbs and marjoram.

Broad Bean Stew
Serves 2

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and sliced
Salt and pepper
Leftover husks from about 500g young broad beans (that’s about 300g of broad-bean husks)
Juice of half a lemon
2-3 tablespoons fresh herbs (I used lemon thyme, sage, and dill)
½ cup water

Preparation
Heat the olive oil over low heat and add the sliced onion and a pinch of salt. Cook for 10 minutes, until the onion is soft but not brown.
Meanwhile assess the broad bean husks. You want bright, green, fresh-looking ones. Discard any that look discoloured. Remove any stringy bits along the sides, rather as you’d remove the strings from off the sides of runner beans. Cut the husks into 1-inch pieces.
Add the broad beans to the onions, stir, and cook for a minute.
Add the water, stir, cover, and simmer gently for about 15 minutes, or until the husks are tender. Top up with more water if it seems to be drying out.
Once the husks are tender, add the fresh herbs and lemon juice, and season with freshly-ground black pepper.
If you wish, you can also mix in some cooked broad beans, to make a double-broad-bean stew.
Serve on brown rice with a topping of salted yoghurt mixed with preserved lemon (if you happen to have any to hand).

Still got that salsify from a week or so ago hanging about in your fridge? These strange, shaggy parsnip-lookalikes have a mild, delicate flavour that is sometimes compared to oysters. Here is a simple way to prepare them. Serve them as a side in place of potatoes; they’re much lighter but very satisfying.

Salsify with Butter and Herbs

Ingredients
Salsify
Lemon juice
Butter
Fresh herbs, such as parsley, chives or dill, chopped
Salt and pepper

Preparation
Fill a bowl with cold water and add a tablespoon or so of lemon juice. This ‘acidulated water’ will stop the salsify from turning brown once it’s peeled. Bring a pot of water to the boil.
Peel the salsify and trim off the ends. As you proceed, drop the peeled parsnips into the acidulated water.
Drop the peeled salsify into the boiling water, turn down the heat a little, and simmer for 7-12 minutes, or until tender when pierced with a fork.
Drain and cut into 1-inch chunks. Dress with butter and herbs. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

If you’re a Saturday collector, you’ll be getting the last of the broad beans – why not try them in this recipe?!

I’ve had this recipe waiting in the sidelines for a while, expecting it to take ages but it turned out to be super easy! The fritters turned out pretty tastey and all that veg helped make me feel a little better about the deep fat frying… The recipe I got this from has instructions for homemade labneh, but I swapped that for  lemon minted yoghurt. Since I had the frier out I decided to go all out and make courgette fritters, deep fried brie and onion rings as well, not a healthy night! Note the recipe is scalable for smaller shares but i’d keep the spice measures fairly high to avoid them getting lost in the frier.

Chilli broad bean fritters with homemade labneh

Ingredients:
Fritters:
600g broad beans (or 1¼kg in their pods), skinned to reduce bitterness (I didn’t bother and can’t say I noticed)
small bunch mint, roughly chopped
small bunch parsley, roughly chopped
small bunch dill, roughly chopped
1 tbsp self-raising flour, plus a little for dusting
1 red chilli (deseeded if you don’t like it too hot), roughly chopped
zest 1 lemon
2 small garlic cloves
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground allspice
½ tsp sumac

Yoghurt:
1/4 a bunch of fresh mint , (7.5g)
1/2 lemon, (juice and any remaining zest after fritters)
4 tablespoons natural yoghurt (Alpro-style alternative will work great too)

Method:
Fritters:
To make the fritters, put the ingredients in a food processor, season and blend until smooth. Using 2 dessertspoons, scoop and shape the mixture into 16 quenelle shapes – or roll with floured hands. Place on a plate and chill for at least 1 hr, or cover loosely with cling film and chill for 24 hrs. (I chilled in freezer for 1h, they weren’t quite sticky enough but I managed by squeezing them hard with my hands).

When you’re ready to serve, heat at least 6cm oil in a wide, deep pan (or put a deep fat frier on 190°C). The oil is ready when a piece of bread dropped into the oil sizzles and turns brown within 30-40 secs (if the oil is too cool, the fritters will fall apart). Dust the fritters with a little flour and roll around the plate to coat the outside. Carefully lower 4-6 into the pan at a time and cook in batches, for 5-6 mins, until deep golden brown. Drain on a plate lined with kitchen paper and sprinkle with salt. Put the fritters in the oven on low heat while you cook the next batch.

Yoghurt:
Mix yoghurt, mint and lemon, adding salt and pepper to taste.

If you fancy them, courgette fritters or onion rings just need some batter making up in a bowl, about 50/50 self-raising flour (to get good bubbly batter) and water to a pancake batter consistency, add salt and pepper (and dill if you like) for a better taste. Chop courgette into sticks and onion into rings, rub them in a plate of flour (coat fully) then dip in the batter then into the frier. Fry until golden (1-3 minutes) then remove and drain, making sure to add salt and pepper whilst they’re fresh out of the frier! (This makes a BIG difference).

From: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/chilli-broad-bean-fritters-homemade-labneh

‘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).

Grilled mackerel with cucumber-fennel relish, boiled potatoes, and, perhaps some steamed fresh spinach: between two people you can have this on the table in 25 minutes from turning on the grill. It makes a lovely Saturday night supper. Grill the fish whole for 8-12 minutes per side.

The relish or salsa has a crisp, assertive sharpness that contrasts well with the rich oiliness of the mackerel. It would be good with grilled trout, as well. The recipe makes enough for four generous servings. The key is to cut the vegetable into very small pieces; it’s this that gives its charm. ‘Dicing’ is cutting into cubes—but you can also simply chop the cucumber and fennel very fine, if producing tiny cubes seems too fiddly.

Cucumber-Fennel Relish

Ingredients
1 cucumber, cut into 3mm dice
1 small fennel bulb, cut into 3mm dice
¾ cup chopped fresh dill
zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
¾ teaspoon Demerara sugar
¾ teaspoon salt, or to taste
½ teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

Preparation
Combine all the ingredients and taste for seasoning. Add more salt, pepper, sugar or vinegar/lemon juice if you wish—this should be quite sharp.

This is a satisfying and very quick lunch salad. At least it’s quick if you have a hard-cooked egg to hand. It doesn’t require much in the way of equipment either. This week, you can follow it with the strawberries for an indulgent lunch for one.

Grated Courgette and Egg Salad
Serves 1.

Ingredients

2 small courgettes (a mixture of yellow and green is pretty)
1 hard-cooked egg
a small handful of dill
2 teaspoons rapeseed oil
juice of half a lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

Cut the end off the courgettes, and using the coarse side of a grater, grate the courgettes into a bowl. Gently grate hard-cooked egg into the same bowl. The egg might crumble a bit but that’s ok.

Remove the tough stems from the dill and chop the delicate fronds, coarse or fine, as you prefer. Add the dill to the bowl. Toss about to mix.

Drizzle the oil on top, and then squeeze the lemon over the salad. Season with salt and pepper to taste, toss again, and eat from the same bowl.

14th June 2018

Layers of sliced potatoes, onion, and salmon baked with egg, cream and fresh dill make a memorable meal. Serve with a green salad.

This is a classic Swedish recipe, invented to use up leftover salmon. I don’t think we suffer from this problem, but in fact you can use any sort of salmon you like—uncooked fresh salmon, leftover cooked salmon, smoked salmon, probably even tinned salmon—or a mixture. You can think of this as a Swedish lasagne, with potatoes instead of pasta.