Category Archives: Side Dishes

Fennel with Walnuts and Oranges

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Happy New Year, everyone!

I hope you had a lovely Christmas with friends and family, a good break, some great food, and a fun New Year’s Eve yesterday! We spent last night at Osteria del Toro in Wellington. Really good cocktails and gorgeous food (at extremely good prices, by the way). Even if the weather was so rotten the fireworks were cancelled!

And now we have 2012 to look forward to. What do you hope for from the year ahead?

I’m going to focus on enjoying life, as it is. Taking good care of myself and my family, eating well (and feeding others well), keeping fit and healthy, and having more fun instead of getting hung up on details! I’ve got a few things to tick off my Thirty By Thirty list (starting tomorrow with a nervous visit to Adrenalin Forest in Porirua), too.

I’m looking forward to conquering new frontiers in my kitchen, but also to preparing simple food with delicious ingredients. Like this salad of Fennel with Walnuts & Oranges.

The recipe comes from The Silver Spoon, one of Italy’s best selling cookbooks. It has quite a focus on authenticity, and while I haven’t cooked from it a lot, anything I have cooked has been delicious, and well worth a repeat effort.

I had blood oranges to hand, so used them instead of the more standard variety. They’re such a creepy fruit! Beautiful orange skin with red speckles of warning, hiding flesh that really does look… bloody. They are perfectly named. Surely, I thought to myself, there are good jokes to be played on children who have never come across blood oranges before.

Enjoy the salad, and there’ll be more posts to follow later in the week. Have a happy 01/01/12!

Fennel with Walnuts & Oranges
from The Silver Spoon. Serves 4.

4 tender, round fennel bulbs, trimmed and thinly sliced
olive oil, to drizzle
salt and pepper, to taste2 oranges
6 shelled walnuts, chopped

Place the fennel slices in a salad bowl, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Peel the oranges and cut off pith, then slice and add to the fennel (I was happy segmenting mine). Add the walnuts, mix and serve.

Couscous with Grapes & Nuts

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My kitchen is in a calm before the storm. The advance Christmas cooking and baking is all out of the way. In another 4 days I’ll be preparing Christmas dinner itself. But in the meantime, we’re snacking on salads and lean barbecued meat. Specially with the weather turning out so nice this week, sharing the kitchen with a hot stove has not been a high priority.

This couscous salad-y dish has been on the menu a couple of times. It requires very little time and energy, and is a nice way to use the gorgeous seedless grapes we’re getting at the moment!

The recipe comes from The Best of Annabel Langbein: Great Food for Busy Lives. I got this book for my birthday this year and I haven’t cooked a lot from it, but whatever I’ve cooked has turned out well. It’s a huge book so it will take me some time to cook my way through it ;)

Chilli Lemon Couscous with Nuts & Grapes
from Annabel Langbein’s Great Food for Busy Lives

Mix together 2 cups boiling water with finely grated rind of 1 lemon, 2 tsp Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce and 1 tsp salt. Add 2 cups couscous and leave to absorb for about 10 minutes. Fluff up with a fork, and mix in 1/2 cup toasted nuts (e.g. pine nuts, pistachios or almonds), 1/2 cup chopped mint or coriander (or a mix), and 1 cup chopped grapes. Serve as is, or if you prefer to heat it first, cover and microwave for 3-4 minutes just before serving.

I hope your lead-up to Christmas is going well and not too stressful!

Making the most of spring & summer produce

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Strawberries were 4 punnets for $5 at my local market this weekend! I’ve been eating them for breakfast, lunch and dessert. I’m even eating them as I write this post. I’ve mainly just been adding them to other things like muesli or ice cream, but I have a few new strawberry recipes to share. This is a salad that makes the most of late spring asparagus and strawberries… eat them while you can! It also looks very festive, it might work as a side dish for a Christmas meal. Enjoy!

Strawberry & Asparagus Salad with Strawberry Dressing
Adapted from a Robyn Martin recipe. Serves 4 as a side salad.

500g fresh asparagus (2 bunches)
2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled
2 spring onions, sliced diagonally
2 shallots, peeled and finely sliced
2 Tbsp vinegar (I used cider; white or red wine vinegar would also be nice)
2 Tbsp olive oil
freshly ground black pepper

Break any woody ends of the asparagus spears, and steam them gently in the microwave or on the stove top until they are JUST tender (I microwave on high for about 1 minute). Place them in a bowl of cold water to refresh, then drain well. Chop spears into 3-4cm pieces and set aside.

Put about ½ a cup of strawberries to one side, and chop the rest into halves (or quarters if they’re monsters). Arrange the chopped asparagus, strawberries, spring onions and shallots on a serving platter.

Whiz the reserved ½ cup of strawberries in a food processor or blender. Gradually add the vinegar and olive oil and blend well. Season to taste. I serve it on the side in a jug, and grind more black pepper over the salad to serve.

Fresh Broad Bean Salad

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A wee salad for Mondays.

I don’t think I ever had broad beans going up. My parents HATED them as kids and they were a vegetable they didn’t want to inflict on the next generation.

I am nothing if not curious. Last year I decided to give them a try, just to see what the (negative) fuss was about.

I’ve just been using the frozen variety. Tipped out of the bag into hot water and steamed gently in their pods, they are pretty average. Not that bad, but kind of grey and a bit too chewy. I think this is what mum and dad were fed, but maybe boiled for 15 minutes longer than that, even.

If you just lightly steam broad beans though, and take them out of their pods, Good Things Happen. I admit, shelling beans is not a fun pastime. It’s a bit time consuming and possibly too fiddly for a weeknight. But it’s worth it once you know the secret: grey broad bean shells are hiding tender, zingy little bright green nuggets of goodness inside.

I think they’re a nice green side (instead of, or mixed with peas, or green beans etc), or I came across this salad recipe last year and have been loving it ever since. In fact, I made it for my parents without really saying what we were eating… and they loved it. Mum even copied out the recipe. I think she’s made it a few times since and has surprised herself by becoming a broad bean fan!

The recipe’s not mine, it’s from Healthy Food Guide, so I won’t reproduce it, but I really recommend it! The recipe can be found here.

Hope your Monday’s been swell :)

Tabbouleh

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Me: OK, think of something to write about tabbouleh.

Me: Gotta make it sound fresh and interesting. OK.

Imaginary Pen: Tap, tap, tap.

[awkward silence]

Me: Well, let me think. It’s a salad. It has a filling cracked wheat component. You can take it to barbecues.

Brain: Yeah, loving all that fresh-and-interesting-ness.

Me: Do you have a better idea?

[awkward silence]

Me: I thought not. Maybe I’ll just let it speak for itself.

Brain: Mondays are hard.

Tabbouleh
Serves 6-ish 

1 cup bulgur/cracked wheat
4 spring onions
1 onion
3 tomatoes
1 cup finely chopped fresh Italian parsley
½ cup chopped mint
¼ cup slivered almonds
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup lemon juice
large pinch chilli powder

Place the bulgur in a heatproof bowl, and pour boiling water over it (enough to cover the wheat). Place a plate or a lid on top and leave it for 15 minutes (like how you prepare couscous, just left for longer). Drain and rinse the wheat in cold water, drain again and set aside to cool.

Prepare the other salad vegetables – finely chop the spring onions and onion, dice the tomatoes and chop the herbs. If you’re using almonds (highly recommended), dry toast them until they’re just fragrant. Mix with the cooled wheat.

Whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice and chilli powder, and season to taste. Toss through the salad to coat and serve.

Side note: while I was thinking of things to write about tabbouleh, I googled it and came across this article on David Lebovitz’s site. Turns out this kind of tabbouleh bears little resemblance to the traditional Lebanese dish. Two thoughts – firstly, this salad is still nice and a dish worthy of being made anyway, secondly, let’s try the traditional Lebanese way next time :)

White Coleslaw

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I’m loving fresh, healthy salads at the moment. We’ve been eating heaps of lovely simple food lately – grilled chicken, fish or meat, fresh or just steamed veges (‘specially asparagus!), and lots of fresh fruit. So salads are Way In.

I’m a bit over the old classic coleslaw with grated carrot and too much dressing (why? why do people use so much?). This white coleslaw is a nice alternative; it has a gorgeous light dressing and I like the styley white and pale green colours.  I’m not sure where the recipe comes from actually, it’s been in my recipe book since forever, so I probably picked it up from Mum. It’s just a simple little salad, enjoy it on a nice fresh spring day!

White Coleslaw
Serves 4-6

300g white cabbage, shredded
1 green capsicum, sliced
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
4 spring onions, sliced
½ Tbsp dijon mustard
1 tsp horseradish mustard
½ tsp tabasco sauce
1 Tbsp white vinegar
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp light mayonnaise
pinch cayenne pepper
chopped fresh dill

Toss the prepared cabbage, capsicum, celery and spring onions together. In a small bowl, mix the mustards with the tabasco and white vinegar. Gradually whisk in the oil, then add the mayonnaise and cayenne (I popped in a bit of wholegrain mustard too). Season and toss the dressing through the salad, adding the dill as you go.

Asparagus with Roasted Tomatoes

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I came across this recipe in Dish magazine last year. I actually cooked it as part of my Christmas dinner last year, it was perfect with the vibrant red and green! It looks impressive and tastes amazing, but it’s pretty easy… it’s hardly a recipe – more like assembly instructions.

I’ve started thinking about what I’ll cook for Christmas dinner this year (I know, spot the obssessive planner). This one will probably make the cut second year running!

Asparagus with Roasted Tomatoes and Mozzarella
Adapted from Dish magazine. Serves 3-4

6-8 vine tomatoes with stalk attached
half a punnet cherry tomatoes
1 bunch asparagus
60g mozzarella
2 Tbsp pesto
fresh basil leaves
sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 200°(c).  Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Place the tomatoes on a lined baking tray, sprinkle over sea salt and ground pepper. Roast them for 10-15 minutes, until their skins start to split, then set aside to cool. I didn’t use cherry tomatoes, but if you’ve got them, it looks nice having tomatoes of different sizes on the plate.

Snap the tough ends off the asparagus. Steam it in salted boiling water until JUST tender; you still want it crisp, not limp and slimy. Drain the asparagus and Dish suggests refreshing it in iced water. Assemble the drained asparagus on a serving platter.

Drain the mozzarella if it’s in whey. I had bought supermarket stuff in the fridge, but for Christmas I would definitely use lovely fresh mozzarella. I might even get off my chuff and make my own. Slice the mozzarella and arrange it over the asparagus. Arrange the roasted tomatoes over the platter too.

If your pesto is really thick, add a little water to loosen it up. Pop spoonfuls of pesto over the mozzarella and tomatoes. Scatter over fresh basil leaves and season with more sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

Yoghurt Rolls

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This is quick wee post on a busy Thursday… I made these little rolls last week and they were so yummy!

Before you read on, I should warn you that these weren’t made by hand. Cringe. I know. Bread purists are crying on the inside. The thing is – I’m not apologising. I love making bread by hand when I get time at the weekends, and it is delicious, but I’m just not home long enough during the week to knead and rise our bread. Ok, you got me. I’m not patient enough either. I still prefer home made bread though, so I use our breadmaker.

If you have a breadmaker, I definitely recommend Alison Holst’s NZ Bread Book. It’s easy to follow and all the ingredients are available in New Zealand, in quantities you can understand. It has heaps of different breads in it – I’ve tried most of the recipes, and I don’t think any have flopped. These yoghurt rolls come from that book, too.

These are cute little rolls that are appropriately chewy. The yoghurt gives them a nice flavour, too. I served them with bbq meats and salads. Noice.

Yoghurt Rolls
from Alison & Simon Holst’s New Zealand Bread Book

3 tsp Surebake yeast
¾ cup plain unsweetened yoghurt
½ cup warm water
2 Tbsp oil (I used rice bran)
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 cups high grade flour

Measure all the ingredients into your breadmaker, in the order the manual says. Set to the dough cycle (If you want a loaf, you could just tell the machine to bake the whole thing at this point).

When it’s done, gently tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface, and divide into 12 portions. Shape the rolls how you like them – I made little round rolls. I placed my rolls in a deep baking dish about the size of a swiss roll tin (sprayed with non-stick spray first), evenly spacing them. Leave them to rise in a warm place for an hour, or until they double in size. After 30 minutes, Alison says you could diagonally slash the top of the rolls with a sharp knife to make the nice splits in the top. I forgot didn’t choose to do so.

When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 200°(c). Brush the rolls with a little milk and bake for 10-15 minutes until they are golden.

Spanish Salad with Smokey Dressing

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Another recipe from that Spanish dinner. I cannot vouch for its Spanish authenticity. I based it loosely on this Laurie Black recipe for a Spanish Pepper Salad. I played around with the dressing, and added black olives, goat’s cheese and prosciutto, but hopefully I’m still allowed to use Spanish in the title.

The resulting salad has lovely smokey, salty flavours which I love, and they’re set against the creamy goat’s cheese and sweet capsicums and tomatoes. Drool. You may note that capsicums (capsica?) are not present in the photograph. That was a sad story. I forgot they were in the oven while I was dealing with my rogue beef empanada dough. Let’s just say the capsicums were more char than grill. But what the hey, I figure that from a menu of 9 new (to me) dishes, a bit of burnt capsicum and a “deconstructed” version of empanadas wasn’t too bad!

Spanish Salad with Smokey Dressing
Serves 4-6 as part of a tapas spread

Vinaigrette:
3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp olive oil
flakey sea salt
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

Salad:
3-4 tomatoes
1 large red capsicum
cos lettuce leaves
1 Tbsp chopped fresh mint
60-80g creamy goat’s cheese, sliced or cubed
50g very thinly slice prosciutto, sliced or diced

To make the vinaigrette, whisk all ingredients together. Adjust the seasoning to taste and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Cut the tomatoes into halves or quarters, whatever you prefer (I find quarters are a little more manageable when it comes to the eating), and cut the capsicum in half. Place the tomatoes and capsicum on a tray or dish lined with baking paper – capsicum skin side up, and tomatoes cut flesh side up. You could drizzle them with a little olive oil if you like; I just popped mine straight in the oven. I think they take about 40 minutes, but keep a close eye on them (see above). Once the tomatoes are looking roasted (like in the photo), and the capsicum skin has started to blister, take them out. While they’re still hot, pop the capsicums in a plastic bag to cool. Then when they’re cool enough to handle, the skins should peel off easily. Slice the capsicum thinly.

You know, if you were in a hurry, you could always buy sliced roasted capsicum from the deli. You could also use semi-dried tomatoes, or I imagine you could find viable alternatives to roasting the tomatoes at a good deli.

Starting with the cos leaves, assemble the salad ingredients on a serving platter, and drizzle with vinaigrette just before serving.

Catalan Tomato Bread and Catalan Spinach

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These are two recipes from my Spanish tapas and paella dinner a couple of weeks ago. These rounded out the ‘something green’ and ‘something carby’ requirements of my menu.  They also ticked an extra box, ‘something Catalan’.

 I mainly came across Catalonia in my linguistics studies. It’s a politically and culturally autonomous part of Spain, and includes Barcelona. The Catalan language has had a somewhat troubled past but seems to be getting a boost from the Government these days – public education is in Catalan, and businesses have to use Catalan as well as Spanish in menus, and posters etc, or they can face fines. Catalan public television broadcasts only in Catalan. It’s also the only official language in Andorra, a tiny little country nestled between Spain and France (thanks, Wikipedia!).

So, back to the dishes. I found this Ray McVinnie recipe for Catalan Tomato Bread – not a recipe for the bread itself, but instructions on rubbing tomatoes on lightly toasted bread, so the bread gets covered in tomato juice and seeds and little bits of flesh. Sure, I thought. That looks nice. But we need more tomatoes. So I made semi-dried tomato bread. The recipe comes from Simon & Alison Holst’s New Zealand Bread Book, which I bought when we got our breadmaker. I really like the book actually, it’s got every kind of bread I can think of, and all their recipes have breadmaker and by hand instructions. So you can make your bread entirely by hand, or get the breadmaker to do the donkey work on the dough before you shape the bread yourself and bake it in the oven, or the breadmaker can do the whole dang thing.

When I’m feeling authentic and virtuous I make the bread all by hand. But that doesn’t happen very often. And it certainly didn’t happen on this day. So Panasonic came to the rescue.

As for the Catalan Spinach, it’s really just steamed spinach with toasted pine nuts and raisins. It doesn’t sound that incredible but it’s funny how such a simple addition can really lift plain spinach and turn it into something special. It was goooooooooood! And healthy. Bonus. 10 Points.

Home Made Catalan Tomato Bread

 Semi-Dried Tomato Bread – from Simon & Alison Holst’s New Zealand Bread Book

3 tsp surebake yeast
1 cup warm water
¼ cup tomato paste
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup wholemeal flour
2 cups high grade flour
¼ cup chopped semi- or sun-dried tomatoes
1 Tbsp chopped fresh basil (optional)

By machine: Measure all the ingredients into your bread machine in the order the manual tells you to. Set to NORMAL cycle, and choose your crust etc, and hit START. Or, you can set it to dough and shape the dough yourself, then bake it (as in the by hand instructions). I have a Panasonic breadmaker and set it to LARGE loaf.

By hand: Measure the yeast, water, tomato paste, sugar, salt, oil and wholemeal flour into a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Cover and leave for 15 minutes in a warm place. Stir in the high grade flour, tomatoes (and the basil if you’re using it). Make a soft dough just firm enough to knead. Knead for 10 minutes, until the dough forms a soft ball that springs back when gently pressed. Turn the dough in 2-3 teaspoons of oil in a clean, dry bowl. Cover with cling film and leave in a warm place for half an hour.

Lightly knead the oiled dough for 1 minute. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, then pat it into a cylinder that will fit in your loaf or bread pan (or shape it round and bake it in a cake pan). Place it into the greased loaf pan and leave it to rise for about 1 hour or until doubled in size. Brush with milk (if you like) and bake at 200°C for about 30 minutes.

 To make it into Catalan Tomato Bread – a Ray McVinnie recipe from Cuisine

1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut in half
1 very ripe tomato (a vine-ripened one if you can), cut in half
extra olive oil and salt, to serve

Slice the bread into 15mm slices and lightly toast. Rub each toast slice with the cut clove of garlic, and then with a tomato half, so that you leave plenty of tomato juice and seeds on the bread. Drizzle with olive oil and serve sprinkled with salt.

Catalan Spinach – from this recipe I found randomly

1 Tbsp olive or avocado oil
1 Tbsp pine nuts
2 Tbsp raisins
1 bunch spinach, washed and stems trimmed
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, and add the pine nuts. Watch them carefully; it’s a fine line between aromatic and burnt. As soon as they smell lovely, add the raisins, and let them plump for 1 minute. Add the spinach. Toss for a minute while the spinach wilts. Splash in the balsamic vinegar and toss for another 30 seconds. Season to taste and serve straight away.