Meera Sodha’s Fresh India won the Observer Food Monthly’s 2017 ‘best new cookbook’ award. Cook this and you’ll appreciate why. She recommends serving with ‘a fiery pickle, hot chapattis and yogurt, or with dal and rice’.
Savoy Cabbage, Black Kale and Potato Subji (Savoy Aloo Gobhi)
Serves 4 to 6 as part of a main course.
Ingredients
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
3 tablespoons rapeseed oil
15 curry leaves
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
800g potatoes, cut into 1-inch chunks
200g savoy cabbage, finely shredded
200g black kale, finely shredded
1¼ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon chilli powder
¾ teaspoon ground turmeric
Preparation
Lightly grind the coriander and cumin seeds with a pestle and mortar. Put the oil into a large lidded frying pan over a medium heat and, when hot, add the curry leaves and mustard seeds. When they crackle, add the onion. Cook for around 10 minutes, until golden and sweet, stirring occasionally.
Add the crushed coriander and cumin, followed by the potatoes. Cook for 10-15 minutes, turning every now and then until crispy. Add a couple of tablespoons of water, cover with the lid and cook for a further 5 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and no longer resist the point of a knife.
Finally, add the shredded cabbage and black kale to the pan with a couple of tablespoons of water and stir-fry for 3 minutes. Add the salt, chilli and turmeric, mix well, cover with the lid, reduce the heat to low and cook for another 4 minutes, or until the cabbage and black kale have wilted. Enjoy!
(Recipe adapted from Meera Sodha, Fresh India.)
Roasted vegetables dotted with cheerful, green pesto. Delicious for a mid-week dinner. It’s nice served with brown rice, or any other grain you might have lying about, but it’s good on its own as well. I suspect it would be tasty tossed onto pasta.
Roasted Anything with Anything Pesto
Serves 2
Ingredients
Roast Vegetables
A mixture of root vegetables and/or pumpkin. For two people one of those little Canalside squashes, 2 medium potatoes, and 4 large carrots would be fine, for instance.
shell of a squeezed-out lemon, if you happen to keep such things around.
Olive oil to drizzle
Salt and pepper to taste
Any twigs of thyme or rosemary that you happen to have to hand
1 whole head of garlic, unpeeled
Anything Pesto
1 handful of packaged pumpkin or melon seeds, or pine nuts, or almonds, or a mixture. I think you could add sunflower seeds, as well.
1 bunch of any fresh herbs. A mixture is fine and the quantity isn’t crucial. I used a blend of parsley and a little dill.
any feathery carrot tops
Olive oil
1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
Red pepper flakes, to taste (optional)
Optional Toppings
Capers
hard cheese, grated or chopped into little cubes
Home-made roasted squash seeds (see below)
Yoghurt
Preparation
For the Roast Vegetables
Preheat the oven to 220C.
Scrub the root vegetables and peel them if you prefer them unpeeled. Cut them into bite-sized pieces. Ditto the squash or pumpkin, if you are using it. After you cut it open remove the seeds and set them aside for use in the pesto.
Place all the vegetables in a roasting tin and toss them together with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Slice the lemon shell into thin shreds and add this to the tray. Scatter any thyme or rosemary over the top. Place the unpeeled whole head of garlic in the tray as well.
Put the tray in the oven and roast for 30-45 minutes, until the vegetables are tender when you poke them with a fork. Toss them periodically so that they roast evenly.
For the Squash or Pumpkin Seed Garnish (if used)
Once you’ve put the vegetables in the oven you can prepare the fresh pumpkin seeds. Wash them carefully and pick out the seeds from the tangle of pumpkin fibres. Place the cleaned seeds on a baking tray and put them in the oven as well. Roast them for 10-15 minutes, tossing occasionally. They should begin to turn golden. At that point take the tray out of the oven and toss the seeds with a little more olive oil and salt. Put them back in the oven for another 3-5 minutes. They should now be crisp and toasted. Set them aside to cool. Nibble a few while you prepare the pesto.
For the Nuts or Seeds for the Pesto
Place the nuts or packaged seeds on a baking tray and put them in the oven to toast. Check them after about 3 minutes as pine nuts in particular burn easily. Once they start to turn golden remove them from the oven and set them aside to cool.
For the Anything Pesto
Blend the herbs and carrot tops (should you have any) in a hand-held blender, or, if you are feeling energetic, pound them a bit at a time in a mortar and pestle.
Add about the toasted nuts/seeds, and blend/pound some more to make a thick, herby paste.
Find the roasted head of garlic and squeeze out the now-tender garlic from each clove. Add this to the pesto and blend. Thin the pesto with olive oil until it reaches the consistency you like.
Grate in the zest of the lemon. Juice the lemon and add some juice to the pesto, along with some salt and pepper. Add a pinch of pepper flakes if you like.
Now taste it: does it need more lemon juice? More salt? More oil? Adjust the flavours and consistency until you are pleased with the result.
To Serve
Arrange the roasted vegetables on a platter. Dot or pour the pesto over the top and garnish as desired with capers, cheese, or your home-made roasted pumpkin seeds. Serve, if you like, with a bowl of salted yoghurt on the side.
You can serve this together with rice or another grain if you like. Perhaps you have some leftover rice in the freezer?
(Recipe adapted from Anna Jones, The Guardian.)
This rich and buttery sauce is loosely based on a classic recipe from Marcella Hazen. The carrot adds a touch of sweetness. This is easy and flavoursome.
Buttery Tomato Sauce
Enough for 4 servings of pasta
Ingredients
1 medium onion
1 large carrot
2 400g tins of tomatoes
5 tablespoons butter
Salt to taste
Preparation
Peel the onion and cut it into 8 pieces. Peel the carrot and cut it into 1-inch lengths.
Melt the butter in a saucepan and then add all the other ingredients, including the liquid from the tomato tins. Add a pinch or two of salt.
Bring to a simmer and adjust heat so that the sauce is simmering very gently. Cook, uncovered, for about 45 minutes. Stir it occasionally to make sure it isn’t sticking at the bottom. The tomatoes should have dissolved into a smooth, thick sauce; you can mash them with the back of a spoon to encourage them. The onion and carrot should be soft and infused with a rich, tomato flavour. Taste it to see if you’d like more salt. Some recipes advise removing the onion and carrot, but I think they’re very tasty and make a nice addition to the meal. Of course, if you’d like a smooth sauce feel free to remove them.
To serve, cook as much pasta as you’d like, and drain it. Then add the pasta to the pan with the sauce and toss them together to blend. Let it cook over low heat for a minute or two to allow the flavours to meld, and then serve.
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.
Laxpudding (Salmon and Potato Pudding)
Serves 4-6.
Ingredients
For the Pudding
1kg potatoes
2 onion, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon butter
450g salmon, cut into bite-sized pieces (you can use a mixture of different types of salmon).
50g fresh dill, finely chopped
3 eggs
300ml milk
120ml double or whipping cream
½ tsp salt
freshly ground pepper, to taste (if you have white pepper here is a good opportunity to use it).
Decorations for the Top
100g butter (optional)
additional sprigs of fresh dill
thin slices of lemon
Preparation
Put the potatoes in cold water and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer gently until they are just tender. Drain. When they are cool enough to handle peel them (unless you like the peel), and slice them thin. Set aside while you prepare the other ingredients.
Heat the oven to 200C and butter an ovenproof dish. Something on the order of 25cm x 35cm is about right but there’s no need to be precise.
Sauté the onion in the butter until it softens, without browning. Set aside.
Mix the salmon with the dill and set aside as well.
Whisk the eggs, milk, cream, salt and pepper together.
Now assemble the pudding: put a third of the potatoes at the bottom of the pan. Spread half the onions over the potatoes, and top these with half the salmon and dill. Make another potato layer. Top this with the remaining onions, and then the remaining salmon and dill. Finish with a final layer of potatoes.
Pour the eggy mixture over the salmon pudding.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until the pudding feels firm and the crust is nicely browned.
To serve, first decide if you wish to use the additional butter drizzle. If you do—and it’s traditional—melt the butter in a small pan until it starts to turn a hazelnut brown colour and smells nutty and tempting. Pour this over the baked pudding. Garnish artfully with sprigs of dill and slices of lemon. Serve cut into squares.
(Recipe courtesy of Ulrika Andersson, Swedish Collegium of Advanced Studies, Uppsala.)
Colombian ajiaco is a miracle of soups. It’s luxurious, convivial and fresh. The basic idea is this: a bowl of rich chicken broth with lots of potatoes and chunks of sweetcorn, personalised with sliced avocado, capers, a tomato-coriander salsa and cream, followed by another bowl, or two. Do try it.
A Sort of Ajiaco
Proper aijaco requires some ingredients we lack, so this is a Leamington approximation. I think it’s delicious but apologies to all Colombians.
Ingredients
the stock
1 whole chicken, or chicken pieces, of about 1.6 kilos in weight, but you needn’t be precise.
1 large onion, chopped fine
4 litres of water
1 tablespoon salt
6 whole peppercorns
the additional soup ingredients
4 potatoes, cut into chunks — the Canalside potatoes we’re currently getting are ideal as they are the mealy variety that disintigrate when you boil them. That’s what you want here.
3 potatoes, cut into thinnish slices—ideally, use waxy potatoes of the sort that will not disintegrate when you boil them. Real ajiaco uses different varieties of potato but even if you use only one the result will be delicious.
200g runner beans, sliced in to 1-inch chunks
2-3 ears sweetcorn, shucked (i.e. husk and silk removed) and cut into 3 chunks
the delightful extras
2 avocados, cut into slices
1/4 cup capers
1/2 cup double cream (I suppose you could use single cream)
tomato-coriander salsa
4 tomatoes, chopped into small cubes
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1/2 cup fresh coriander, chopped fine
1 green or red chilli
salt to taste
Preparation
Put the soup ingredients into a large pot for which you have a lid. Cover and bring to the boil. Once it begins boiling turn the heat down so that it simmers gently. Cook for 75 minutes.Meanwhile prepare the other components. Put the avocadoes and capers in two attractive little dishes and place the cream in a jug. Then prepare the salsa: put the tomato, onion and coriander into a little serving bowl and mix. Cut off the end of the chilli and the slice it in half. If you don’t want the salsa to be too hot remove the seeds, and then mince the chilli into tiny bits. Mix it into the salsa and add salt to taste. Let it mellow while you finish the soup.
After the soup has been cooking for about an hour and a quarter the chicken should be tender and the broth rich and flavourful. If for any reason the chicken still seems a bit rubbery or under-cooked, let the soup simmer for another 15 minutes or so. Fish out the chicken and let it cool a little. Once you’re able to handle it, remove the meat from the bones, and, if you like, shred it a bit into bite-sized pieces. Return the meat to the pot and bring the soup back to the boil.
Add the chunks of potato and cook for 20 minutes. The potato should disintegrate. If chunks still remain give the whole thing a little mash with a potato masher to encourage them to break apart.
Add the sliced potatoes and runner beans nd cook for another 10-15 minutes, until they are tender.
Add the chunks of corn and cook for 5 final minutes. Check to see if it needs more salt or pepper.
To serve: bring the soup to the table and give each diner a bowl brimming with chicken, sliced potatoes and runner beans, topped by a piece of corn on the cob. Pass around the little bowls of avocado, capers, and the salsa, and the jug of cream. Each diner can adorn their bowl with whatever they fancy.
This is superb! Potatoes in a silky sauce of onions and green peppers—the slow cooking works a kind of alchemy, transforming the simple ingredients into something really wonderful. Serve this as part of an array of tapas-style dishes, or on its own with some steamed green beans dressed with olive oil and basil, or perhaps quartered hard-cooked eggs arrayed atop a platter of sliced tomatoes, and drizzled with olive oil and shredded basil.
Patatas a lo Pobre [Poor Man’s Potatoes]
Serves 4
Ingredients
15 tablespoons olive oil (you might not need it all)
3 large onions, sliced fine
5 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
2 green peppers, cut in half, de-seeded, and roughly chopped
4 bay leaves
1kg potatoes
salt and pepper
Preparation
Heat 4 tablespoons of oil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Once it’s hot add the onions, sprinkle with a pinch of salt, and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 20-30 minutes, stirring regularly so that the onions don’t burn, until the onions have collapsed into a golden, sweet-smelling, tangled mass. Add the garlic, peppers and bay leaves, and continue to cook over low heat for another 15-20 minutes. Add a bit more oil if at any point the mixture starts to stick.
Meanwhile, prepare the potatoes: cut them into thick chip shapes. Put them in a sieve and sprinkle them with a little salt. Leave them aside until the onion mixture is ready.
Now add another 4 tablespoons of oil to the onions and turn up the heat a little bit to warm the oil. Once the onions are bubbling happily add the potatoes, stir, and again reduce the heat to low. Simmer until the potatoes are soft, between 20 and 35 minutes. Season with pepper and serve. It’s also delicious cold, with a hard-cooked egg, for lunch the next day.
(Recipe adapted from Sam and Sam Clarke, Moro: The Cookbook (2003).)
Take a Kilo of Onions . . . .
This week’s recipes are based on onions and anchovies. If you’ve accumulated a collection of Canalside onions over the last months, here is a fine use for them.
Onions Two Ways
1 kg onions
1/4 cup olive oil
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
Peel the onions and cut them into thin slices. Heat the olive oil in a large pan. Once it is warm, add the onions, the bay leaf and the sprigs of thyme.
Cook over very low heat for about one hour and twenty minutes, stirring occasionally. Keep an eye on it so that it doesn’t catch at the bottom of the pan, but it doesn’t need a lot of attention. It is ready when the sliced onions have been transformed into a soft, tender, oniony mass. Remove and discard the bay leaf and the sprigs of thyme.
Now you have a choice: would you like to make a FRENCH ONION TART or an VENETIAN PASTA SAUCE?
French Onion Tart (Pissaladière)
your cooked onions
1 pinch powdered cloves
salt and pepper (to taste)
1 21-cm partially-baked pastry case (home-made or bought)
16 black olives
8 anchovy fillets (you can omit these if you prefer; in that case use more olives)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Mix the cloves, salt and pepper into your cooked onions. Spread them into the pastry case and arrange the olives and anchovies (if you’re using them) over the top in a nice pattern. Drizzle with the olive oil.
Bake for 15 minutes, or until it’s bubbling hot. Take it out of the oven, let it cool a little, and eat. It’s good cold too.
(Recipe adapted from Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.)
Pasta with Onions and Anchovies (Bigoli in Salsa)
your cooked onions
1-2 tins of anchovies (to taste)
1 packet of pasta of the spaghetti-type (spaghetti, bucatini or, ideally bigoli)
freshly-ground black pepper
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
Drain the anchovies and rinse them to remove any excess salt. Chop the anchovies into small pieces and mix them into the hot, cooked onions. Give the whole thing a good mash to ensure that the anchovies are thoroughly incorporated into the onion sauce.
Cook the pasta to your taste and drain, MAKING SURE TO SAVE A CUP OF THE COOKING WATER.
Mix the cooked pasta with the hot onion-anchovy sauce and add some of the saved cooking water to give the dish the consistency you like. You will probably not need to use all the water. Season with freshly-ground black pepper.
Garnish with the fresh parsley and serve.
(Recipe courtesy of Chiara Croff.)
This week’s share contained generous quantities of lettuce and peas again and if you can bear to use the delicious peas in a cooked dish (I never can) you might like to try this recipe for pea and lettuce soup – ideal for anyone who struggles to get through lots of lettuce! I’ve forgotten where this came from, so I can’t credit it to anyone, but there are loads of similar recipes online if you wanted a different variation.
Lettuce, pea and mint soup:
300g green lettuce, shredded
1 medium onion, finely sliced (at this time of year I’d use spring onions instead!)
300g peas
50g butter
750ml hot veg stock
small handful fresh mint
50ml single cream – some recipes suggest using creme fraiche instead, added as a dollop on top to serve
Fry the onion until soft.
Add the peas and stock. Simmer for 5 minutes.
Add the lettuce and mint. Cook for a further 2 minutes.
Add the cream. Blend until smooth.
Season well with salt and pepper.
Below, please find:
Perfect Creamy Cauliflower Soup
Cauliflower & Pea Cream Soup
Toasted sandwich filling
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From Jo Wheeler, here are a couple of soup recipes using cauliflower, both taken from ‘Fit For Life’ by Harvey & Marilyn Diamond. She says they’re both really nice, and she adds, “Sorry if the recipes look quite lengthy – it’s mostly herbs & stuff, so don’t be too daunted!”
Perfect Creamy Cauliflower Soup
2 Tbspns butter
1 Tbspn olive oil
1 med onion – chopped
6-8 spring onions – chopped
1 clove garlic – chopped
2 stalks celery – chopped
2 med cauliflower (hooray!) – cored & coarsely chopped
1/2 tspn sea salt
1/2 tspn curry powder (optional)
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tspn dried thyme
1 tspn dried basil
1 tspn dried marjoram or savoury
6 cups water (though I find I often need to add more later on)
2 Tbspns light miso or 2 tspns veg bouillon
Freshly grated nutmeg to taste (optional)
In large pan, melt butter & add oil. Add onion, spring onions, garlic, celery & cauliflower. Then add seasonings, mix well & cook uncovered over med heat for seversal mins – stir frequently.
Add water & miso (or bouillon), bring to boil & simmer, covered, over med heat for 15 mins or until cauli is tender.
Puree until smooth, adding nutmeg if desired.
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Cauliflower & Pea Cream Soup.
5 cups water
1 med onion – chopped
1 stalk celery – chopped
2 spring onions – chopped
1 med cauliflower – cored & chopped into 1″ florets
1 teaspn sea salt (optional)
1 Tbspn white miso or 1 teaspn veg bouillon
2 cups fresh or frozen peas
1 teaspn dried dill (or 2 Tbspns fresh)
1 Tbspn fresh parsley -chopped
1 teaspn dried basil
1/4 teaspn dried sage
1/4 cup fresh coriander
2 teaspns butter
In large pan, bring water to boil. Add onion, celery, spring onions, califlower, salt & miso/bouillon. Return to boil & simmer, covered, for 10 mins. Add peas & herbs, return to boil & simmer for further 10 mins. Puree until smooth & add butter when reheating. Adjust seasonings.
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Jo says, “Mashed cauliflower also makes a surprisingly delicious toasted sandwich filling (honestly!!) but it doesn’t use very much of it at a time. Just steam some, then mash it with some mayo, dijon mustard, finely chopped celery & season to taste. Top with alfalfa, grated carrot, shredded lettuce etc & toast the whole sandwich in a sandwich toaster (buttered side out!) Yum!! (My kids LOVE these)
You could also just stuff in a regular sandwich, wrap, or pita & omit the toasting bit.”