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.
Here, in honour of Canalside’s surprise Jerusalem artichoke harvest, is a simple recipe. Jerusalem artichokes originated in North America; they were one of the many new foods that reached Europe in the aftermath of Columbus’s 1492 voyage to the Americas. Their name has nothing to do with the Middle-Eastern city. Rather, it reflects the fact that Jerusalem artichokes are botanically related to the sunflower, or girasole in Italian. ‘Jerusalem’ is an approximation of the Italian name. The ‘artichoke’ bit reflects the vague similarity in taste between globe artichokes and our little tubers. In French the name . . . , well, that’s probably enough history.
Jerusalem Artichokes with Cream and Herbs
Serves 4 as a side dish.
Ingredients
500g Jerusalem artichokes
4 shallots, peeled
2 cloves of garlic
150ml crème fraîche
salt and pepper to taste
juice of 1 lemon
150g medium-hard cheese, grated. You could use Emmental, gruyère, Jarlsberg, or Gouda, for instance. Cheddar would work too.
4 sprigs of fresh thyme, or about 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
a handful of parsley, chopped
Preparation
Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Bring a large pan of water to the boil.
Once the water is boiling drop in the Jerusalem artichokes and boil gently for 15 minutes, and drain. This allegedly reduces the tuber’s gas-inducing tendencies.
While the Jerusalem artichokes are cooking cut the shallots lengthwise into boat-shaped pieces. Finely chop the garlic.
Cut the drained Jerusalem artichokes into chunks.
Combine everything aside from the parsley and tip into an ovenproof dish.
Bake for about 30 minutes, until the Jerusalem artichokes are tender. The top should turn an appetising golden colour but keep an eye on it so that it doesn’t burn.
Remove from the oven and top with the chopped parsley and an additional grind or two of pepper.
Recipe adapted from http://www.jarlsberg.com/uk/recipes/jerusalem-atichokes-au-gratin
This is my grandmother’s recipe for potato bread. Anne Griffith, my paternal grandmother, was born on a dairy farm in Wisconsin in 1901. In 1930 she married Clifford Earle, like her a committed Presbyterian. They moved to Chicago, and later to Philadelphia, after my grandfather was ordained. She often made fresh bread. I remember these fluffy, sweet rolls from my childhood.
Anne Earle’s Potato Rolls
I’ll give you this recipe exactly as she wrote it out in her neat handwriting on a small index card.
1 US cup measure is 8 fluid ounces, and 400F is about 200C.
1½ cups water
1 package yeast or 3 tb of yeast
1 c. mashed potatoes
½ c. sugar
2/3 c. shortening
2 eggs—beaten
7 to 7½ cups flour.
Dissolve yeast in water. Mash potatoes, while hot add shortening, sugar & salt. Cool. Add 1 to 2 cups flour, stir in, add yeast, beaten eggs. Sir in remaining flour. Knead until smooth and elastic—8 to 10 minutes. Grease bowl, cover with plastic bag. Refrigerate over night. Shape into rolls, let rise 1½ to 2 hrs. Bake 15. 400°.
This is a great way to use up odds and ends of fresh veg, and leftovers too. You can use more or less whatever you fancy from the list, though I do think some kind of onion is essential. As the egg is poured straight into the roasting dish full of hot veg, you don’t need to fry this frittata at all, but it helps to have a heavy ceramic or cast-iron dish, which retains the heat well. And the eggs should be at room temperature, not cold from the fridge.
Oven-roasted roots frittata
Ingredients
About 600g mixed winter veg, such as onions, carrots, squash or pumpkin, parsnip, celeriac, beetroot, jerusalem artichokes, black spanish radish, potatoes
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
3 tablespoons rapeseed or olive oil
7 large or 8 medium eggs
A handful of mixed herbs, such as curly parsley, chives and thyme, finely chopped
About 20g Parmesan, hard goat’s cheese or other well-flavoured hard cheese, grated
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C/Gas Mark 5. Meanwhile, prepare your chosen veg: peel shallots or onions and quarter or thickly slice; peel carrots and cut into 5mm slices; peel squash or pumpkin, deseed and cut into 2–3cm cubes; peel parsnip, celeriac and beetroot and cut into 1–2cm cubes; cut potatoes into 1–2cm cubes.
Put all the veg into an ovenproof dish, about 23cm square. Add the garlic, oil and plenty of salt and pepper and toss well. Roast for about 40 minutes, stirring halfway through, until the veg are all tender and starting to caramelise in places.
Beat the eggs together with the chopped herbs and some more salt and pepper. Take the dish from the oven, pour the egg evenly over the veg and scatter over the grated cheese. Return to the oven for 10–15 minutes until the egg is all set and the top is starting to colour. If your oven has a grill, you can use that to accelerate the browning of the top.
Leave to cool slightly, then slide the frittata out on to a plate or board. Serve warm or cold. Perfect lunchbox fare…
Thanks to River Cottage
To celebrate Canalside’s excellent potato harvest, as well as my fondness for potatoes, here are some potato-recipes from the eighteenth century.
People in eighteenth-century Britain prepared potatoes in many different ways. These are from Richard Briggs, The New Art of Cookery. First published in 1788, it went through multiple editions and was printed in both the UK and the newly-independent USA. Briggs was an experienced chef, who worked for many years at the Globe Tavern, Fleet Street, and the White Hart Tavern, Holborn, as well as London’s fashionable Temple Coffee House.
Boiled Potatoes
‘Wash them very clean, put them into a sauce-pan, nearly cover them with cold water, put in a little salt, cover them close, and boil them very gently, but look at them often; when the skins begin to break try them with a fork, and if they are done strain the water from them, cover them close to steam for a few minutes, then peel them and put them in a dish, with melted butter in a boat.’
Mashed potatoes
‘After they are boiled and peeled, mash them in a mortar, or on a clean board with a broad knife, and put them into a stew-pan; to two pounds of potatoes put in half a pint of milk, a quarter of a pound of butter, a little salt, put them over a fire, and keep them stirring till the butter is melted, but take care they do not burn to the bottom; put them in a small dish, and with a knife shape them in any form you please.’
Fried Potatoes
‘Pare as many raw potatoes as you will want, cut them in slices as big as a crown piece, flour them, and fry them brown and crisp on both sides in fresh butter; put them in a hot dish, and pour melted butter, sack [you could use sherry] and sugar mixed over them or [serve] them with . . . only a little plain butter in a bowl.’
To conclude, here are a few ideas from Theophilus Lobb’s 1767 Primitive Cookery: or the Kitchen Garden Display’d. He writes that ‘to dress potatoes’
‘some people, when they are boil’d have a sauce ready to pour over them, made with butter, salt, and pepper, others use gravy sauce, others ketchup, and some eat them boiled with only pepper and salt; some cut the large ones in slices, and fry them with onions, others stew them with salt, pepper, ale, or water. It is a common way also to boil them first, and then peel them, and lay them in the dripping-pan under roasting meat. Another way very much used in Wales, is to bake them with herrings, mixed with layers of pepper, vinegar, salt, sweet herbs, and water. Also they cut mutton in slices, and lay them in a pan, and on them potatoes and spices, then another layer of all the same with half a pint of water; this they stew, covering all with cloths round the stew-pan, and account it excellent. The Irish have several ways of eating them: the poor sort eat them with salt only after they are boil’d; others with butter and salt, but most with milk and sugar.’
Saffron gives a beautiful colour and a rich, aromatic flavour to this simple winter salad.
Carrot, Cabbage and Saffron Salad
Ingredients
0.5g saffron (on whole little packet)
50 ml rapeseed oil
1 medium cabbage, coarsely shredded
500g carrots, peeled and coarsely shredded
1 red onion, coarsely shredded
50 ml cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1½ teaspoons salt
black pepper to taste
Preparation
Combine the saffron and oil in a mortar and pestle, and leave to soak for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix the cabbage, carrots and red onion in a bowl.
When the saffron has soaked for 15 minutes use the pestle to crush the saffron into the oil, to release its flavour. Tip the saffron-y oil into a small bowl and whisk in the vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper.
Pour the dressing over the vegetables and, using your hands, vigorously scrunch and squeeze everything together to mix.
Place a plate over the top of the salad and weigh it down a bit by putting a couple of tins, or some kitchen weights, on top. The goal is to press the salad together to encourage the flavours to blend.
Leave it for at least an hour, and then serve.
(Recipe courtesy of Ulrika Andersson.)
‘Ribbons of silky pasta merge marvellously with soft, salty leeks’, writes the Guardian—and so they do.
Pappardelle with Leeks
Serves 2.
Ingredients
3 large leeks
100g butter
10 sprigs of thyme
salt and pepper
250g pappardelle, or other ribbon-shaped pasta
100g gruyère, sliced thin
Preparation
Cut the leeks in half lengthways and then in half the other way. Wash them thoroughly under cold running water.
Melt the butter in a pan and then add the leeks. Let them stew slowly until they are soft and tender.
While they are stewing, remove the leaves from the thyme and add the leaves to the leeks. Season lightly.
Cook the pappardelle in generously salted, boiling water until al dente. Drain, leaving a bit of water to cling to the pasta, and add to the leek pan. Toss the pasta with the buttery leeks.
Scatter the gruyère slices on top, letting them melt in the warmth of the butter and leeks, and serve.
Recipe adapted from Nigel Slater.
Did you know that carrot cake originated in Sweden? At least that’s what Swedes say. The ground cardamom certainly gives a Nordic flavour. This is nice for breakfast.
This recipe is based, very loosely, on cake that is apparently served at Stockholm’s Rosendals Trädgård (http://www.rosendalstradgard.se/in-english/), a botanical garden promoting biodynamic gardening and sustainability.
Ingredients
I apologise for the peculiar mixture of mililiters, grams and the like. I’m currently without access to a kitchen scale.
For the Cake
300 ml plain flour—I used spelt
1 tablespoon ground cardamom
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
250 ml rapeseed oil, or other neutral vegetable oil
250 ml sugar—I used an equal mix of dark muscovado and white
3 eggs
zest of one orange
3 large carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
300 ml chopped walnuts and raisins—any proportion. A mixture of different types of raisin (ordinary, sultana, golden) is nice.
For the Icing
150g cream cheese
50 ml sugar—use vanilla sugar if you have any
½ teaspoon vanilla essence if you’re not using vanilla sugar
zest of half a lemon
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 200C or 180C fan-assisted. Grease a 20cm round cake tin.
Combine the dry ingredients (flour, spices, baking soda, baking powder and salt) in a bowl and mix well.
Whisk the oil sugar together in a large mixing bowl, for about 5 minutes. Obviously, use an electric mixer if you have one.
One at a time, add the eggs, whisking well after each addition. Add the orange rind and whisk for another 5 minutes.
Gently fold in the grated carrot, and then fold in the dry ingredients, also gently.
Stir in the nuts and raisins.
Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 35-45 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool in its tin for 10 minutes then turn out on to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
While the cake is cooling, make the icing by beating together the ingredients until smooth. Once the cake is completely cool, you may ice it on the top.
Celeriac rémoulade, shredded celery-root salad, is a familiar sight in French delis, alongside shredded carrot salad. It’s very easy to make and surprisingly elegant. The fresh, wood-sy taste of the celeriac provides a good contrast to richer flavours, so this goes particularly well with pork, and also lentils.
The only trick is to make sure you use a good mayonnaise. If you have a stick (immersion) blender, then it couldn’t be easier to make some yourself.
Celeriac remoulade
Serves 2-3 as a side dish.
Ingredients
3 tablespoons good mayonnaise
1 tablespoon good mustard. I like to use a grainy variety
3 tablespoons double cream, crème fraîche, or wholemilk yoghurt
3 tablespoons parsley, chopped
1 medium celeriac (about 450g)
juice of half a lemon—and perhaps the other half as well
1-2 tablespoons capers, optional
1-2 tablespoons gherkins, chopped, optional
salt and pepper, to taste
Preparation
Mix together the mayonnaise, mustard, cream or yoghurt, and parsley.
Peel the celeriac, either with a knife or a robust vegetable peeler. Shred it into shreds. The size is up to you—aim for anything between a matchstick and the coarse side of a standard box grater. Toss them with the lemon juice so that they don’t discolour.
Toss with the mayonnaise dressing. Add the capers and/or gherkins, if you wish, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Check to see if you think it would benefit from a bit more lemon juice, or a bit more mustard.
It’s better if you leave it for about 30 minutes, but it’s pretty good just as it is.
Recipe adapted from Nigel Slater.
Warm herb-coated salmon in a winter salad of potatoes, beetroots and sharp greens, with hard-cooked eggs. The fish is cooked in a way that makes it extra-moist.
The recipe has a lot of separate steps but it’s very easy and you can prepare almost everything in advance. The result is delicious and beautiful, so it’s a fine choice if you’re entertaining. The only thing you need to do after your guests arrive is put the fish in the oven 30 minutes before you’d like to eat.
Serve with lots of good bread and a bottle of white wine for a luxurious weekend lunch. When I made it last week we had poached pears for pudding, which rounded things off nicely.
Wild Salmon Salad with Beetroot, Potato, Egg and Mustard Vinaigrette
Serves 4.
A US cup measure is 8 fluid ounces.
Ingredients
For the Salad
500g beetroots, more or less
6 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 lemon, zest grated first
500g potatoes, more or less
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
3 extra-large eggs
½ cup shallots, minced
2 tablespoons dill, minced
1 tablespoon tarragon, minced
¼ cup parsley, minced
1kg salmon fillet in one piece. The recipe calls for wild salmon and if you can find that it is indeed tasty.
200g salad leaves, or more if you like a very leafy salad. Rocket and other sharp-tasting greens are best. In the summer you can use dandelion.
For the Dijon Vinaigrette
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1½ tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
¾ cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 200C.
For the vinaigrette
Whisk the egg yolk in a small bowl with the mustard, vinegar and lemon juice. Slowly whisk in the olive oil. Season to taste. You might not use it all; the extra can be kept in the fridge for at least a week.
For the beetroot
Toss the beetroot with 2 tablespoons of oil and some salt and pepper. Place in a roasting tin with a splash of water, cover with foil, and roast until tender then poked with a fork. How long this takes will depend on the size of your beetroot. Small ones will cook in about 30 minutes; very large ones could take over an hour. When they’re done, let them cool, and then peel them, and cut into bite-sized chunks. Season with 1 tablespoon of oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, and some salt and pepper.
For the potatoes
While the beets are roasting, prepare the potatoes: cut the potatoes into 3cm chunks (approximately), or leave whole if they are tiny. Toss in a roasting tin with one tablespoon oil, the thyme, and some more salt and pepper. Cover with foil and roast for about 30 minutes, or until tender. Leave to cool and then mix them with some salt and 2 tablespoons of the Dijon mustard vinaigrette.
For the eggs
Bring a small pan of water to the boil and carefully lower the eggs into it. Turn the heat to low and simmer for exactly 9 minutes. Remove the eggs and plunge them into cold water to prevent their cooking any further. When they are cool, cut them in half. Season them with a little salt and pepper.
For the salmon
Mix the lemon zest with the shallots, herbs and 2 tablespoons of oil in a small bowl.
Put the fish skin-side down on an oven-proof rack set over a baking tray or roasting tin. Pat a little of the herb mixture onto the non-skin side of the fish, turn over, and pat the remainder onto the skin side. Season with salt and pepper. You can now leave the fish in the fridge until you’re ready to cook it. Just take it out an hour before you’d like to eat, so that it comes to room temperature.
When you are ready to cook the fish: Preheat the oven to 120C and boil a kettle of water. Pour the water into a shallow pan in the bottom of the oven, to create a humid environment in your oven. This will make the fish moist and custard-like. Put the fish, on its rack and tray, into the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes. It’s done when it starts to separate into flakes. The centre should be slightly translucent. Try not to overcook it.
To assemble the salad
Scatter the salad leaves over a large serving platter and drizzle with ¼ cup of vinaigrette. Nestle the beetroot and potatoes amongst the greens. Arrange the eggs on top. You can do all this in advance, so that all remains to be done is add the warm salmon.
Once the salmon is cooked, use your hands to pull the warm salmon into chunks over the salad. Drizzle with another ¼ cup of vinaigrette, season with a squeeze of lemon juice, and serve. The additional vinaigrette can be served at the table in case anyone wants more.
Recipe adapted from Susanne Goin, Sunday Suppers at Luques: Seasonal Recipes from Market to Table (2005).