Tag: Ingredient: Chilli

i salt and pepper my mango

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Story time.

The weather in Wellington has been particularly extreme over the last couple of days. It’s no time for skirts or dresses. Luckily I’ve got a super awesome bright red jumpsuit with power shoulders, gold buttons and palazzo pant legs. Don’t try and construct an image of what that might look like, just believe me on the “super awesome” claim. Especially when it’s worn with a turquoise scarf. Said jumpsuit has all the delightful flippiness of a skirt, with all the reassuring practicality of pants. On most days. Today the breeze rendered the crotchal-region fabric near-pointless as it continuously inflated my trouser legs so they looked like spooning hot air balloons. No major biggie though, were it not for my rapidly-sinking stockings. They would not stay up. There came a point where they were making their way towards my ankles just as my pant-legs were flying upwards. Taking advantage of the quiet side street I was walking through, I hiked up my stockings back to where they belong, around my waist. Doing the job properly, I was getting quite into it – lunging and wiggling and really luxuriating in the hoisting action till they were back up on my hips again. Finished, I look up, and see an elderly person, holding a video camera. Pointing straight at me.

The camera wasn’t sinister; I got the impression they were optimistically filming the nearby thoroughfare in case the wind caused anything strange to happen, so they could then pass it on to the humourous segment of a late-night news show so they could gain fame and riches. I…could well be that segment filler. Needless to say, my tights started sagging again immediately, but I didn’t hike them up till I was round the corner. I have my dignity.

I have come to the conclusion that I’ll never be intimidatingly cool, or even just intimidating and/or cool (either of which would’ve come in handy SO MANY TIMES in my life) but on the other hand…at least I’ve got some stories to tell. And you never need feel nervous about saying hello to me. Unless you’ve got a video camera and I’ve been lavishly adjusting my undergarments.

Also not intimidating: the recipes I have for you today. One, a simplified version of a beautiful Yotam Ottolenghi recipe – rice, mangoes, coconut, peanuts, chilli, mint – and the other, a little dish I came up with involving roasted cauliflower and whole spices and almonds.

I say simplified because I had so many moments of “well I can’t find that so I’ll use this” and “that’s a bit expensive, I’ll use this instead” and also I’m in bed and don’t have the mental capacity to get out of bed and find the Plenty cookbook. So this is my adaptation. A truly lazy dinner. You’re essentially cooking some rice and stirring stuff into it. But, as with any recipe of that tricksy and handsome man Ottolenghi, there’s so much beauty and freshness and bold flavour that it’s only you who need know how easy it really is.

Rice Salad with Mango, Coconut and Peanuts

Adapted from Ottolenghi’s Plenty.

  • 1/2 cup basmati rice
  • 1/2 cup long grain brown rice (OR just one cup basmati)
  • 1 tablespoon rice bran or peanut oil
  • 1/2 a ripe, but firm mango
  • 1 red capsicum
  • 1/3 cup peanuts
  • 1 red onion or a bunch of spring onions, finely sliced
  • 1 red chilli, finely sliced, or 2 teaspoons sambal oelek (which is what I used)
  • 1/2 cup shredded coconut or dessicated (but preferably shredded) (but I only had dessicated, so)
  • A handful each of mint and coriander

In a large pan with a lid, heat the rice grains in the oil for a minute or two, stirring a little to stop it burning. Tip in 2 1/2 cups water and a pinch of salt, bring to the boil then lower the heat, clamp on the lid, and leave slowly cooking away for about 15 minutes (although check for done-ness at 10). Allow to cool a little and tip into a bowl.

Roast the peanuts till darkened in the oven – it takes a little while but don’t ignore them. Fry the spring onions or red onion till crispy, thinly slice the capsicum and dice the mango flesh. Toast the coconut in a pan or spread it out on a baking sheet and use the same heat of the oven that you cooked the peanuts in, either way you want it to be light brown in colour.

Mix everything into the rice – carefully – and divide between two plates. Top with the herbs.

The right mix of raw and hot here – you’ve got the cooling, slippery, elusively fragrant mango and crisp juicy capsicum rubbing shoulders with almost-crunchy coconut, nutty (duh!) peanuts and the red chilli’s bite. Rice itself tastes beautiful – I don’t really appreciate it enough being a pasta fiend – but it really suits hanging out with these ingredients. Obviously it’s better if you can find shredded coconut but I promise the cheapest dessicated stuff will have its place once you toast the heck out of it. Cheers, Ottolenghi.

As for my recipe, Roasted Cauliflower with Toasted Whole Spices and Almonds it’s even lazier. Stick as many cauliflower florets as you like on a baking tray and roast them at a high heat – I went for 230 C, which is 450 F, till tinged thoroughly with brown. Towards the end – or even immediately after you turn off the heat on the oven – roast 1/4 cup whole almonds for five – ten minutes, till slightly darkened. In a pan, heat 1 teaspoon each of cumin seeds, coriander seeds, nigella seeds, and fennel seeds if you’ve got them. The two essentials are coriander and cumin, so play round if you like. Only do it for a minute or so, then remove from heat, stir in a shake of ground cinnamon and a pinch of salt, and tip onto a chopping board along with the almonds. Chop everything roughly (I’m not expecting much to happen here with the spices, just agitate them a little with the blade, it’s the nuts getting chopped that’s the main thing.) Arrange the cauliflower florets on a plate, drizzle with sesame oil, and sprinkle over all the nuts and seeds. Eat.

Viewed in close up, the seeds and nuts look all earthy and magical and like they should have the words “GAME OF THRONES” superimposed over the top (maybe just in my mind. How often can I use “it’s so late at night and I’m tired” as an excuse? All the times!)

More importantly, it’s delicious – all that heating and roasting and toasting brings out everything good about the ingredients. Coriander seeds have this addicting lemony-bitter-numbing quality while cumin seeds are more pungent and warm (it’s also possible my spices are ancient) while cauliflower cooked in this way is nut-ular and crisp and its flavours are echoed pleasingly in the chopped almonds.

The weekend happened, it was good in places and intense in others. Had people over spontaneously on Friday night to farewell some lovely but impermanent Swedes that we’d become friends with, on Saturday Tim and I had a necessary coffee at Customs and exercised our democratic right to vote; later in the day we gathered with the sort of people you need round when the outcome of lots of people exercising said right unfolds. The night became the morning but somehow we had the energy to plough on with weekend-y activities, buying vegetables and having cider with Kate and one of us witnessing a much needed win from the Wellington Phoenix (clue: it was Tim) all finishing up by making the meal that I’m presenting to you now.

Title via: I’ve read sneering things about her, I’ve read hyperbolic things about her, but when Arular was released it was one of the most exciting albums ever to interest my ears and I’ve been into M.I.A’s music ever since. Sunshowers from that album is where today’s title gets itself from.

Music lately:

Over at The Corner there’s a two-part post on favourite Flying Nun songs (Flying Nun being an important New Zealand record label) which not only presented me with some brilliant writing but also plenty of unheard new-old goodness to listen to. Including Garageland’s Struck.

The Marvelettes, Mr Postman; I love how chilled and restrained and yet disciplined and sharp the singing is on this track.

Next time: Whatever it is, I haven’t made it yet. It could be another practical dinner, it could be a link to a video of “frowning girl adjusts pantyhose in public: The remix!” which could possibly do considerably more for my hopes to write a cookbook than actually working on developing recipes and so on.

 

hot like fire…take you higher

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Given that the spiciest thing I was fed as a kid was Chinese takeaways….and considering chili can burn your face off like flaming magma…and also taking into account that the widespread availability of ready-made Thai curry pastes and the like happened locally well after my formative years…it’s unsurprising that it’s only in the last few years that I’ve got into hot spicy food.

Spooning chillies! Is what I thought when I uploaded this photo to the computer. That third one’s really getting into it. Giving the middle one a right old affectionate nuzzle.

Now, it’s got to the point where I near-on crave chilli – the tingly burn it brings to the corners of my mouth and the back of my throat, the fresh, almost lemony flavour of its crisp flesh. With this big talk I’m surprised I wasn’t crawling into the frame of the photo myself to spoon those chilies. What can I say. I’m a spicy convert. My latest chilli venture was to make Nahm Jim from a page I’d ripped out of a magazine  – unfortunately I missed the author’s name, but I am certainly grateful to them.

What is Nahm Jim? A flavour-ly balanced Thai sauce or dressing, which in this recipe harnesses the bright, colourful flavours of red chilli, coriander and lime, and rides them like a capable mule into the salty intensity of fish sauce and caramel fudge sweetness of palm sugar. It all becomes quite the drinkable finished product, which you can pour over things, mix into things, or use it like I did, to marinate things.

Red Chilli Nahm Jim

  • 1 1/2 long red chillies, seeds removed, finely chopped (I used 3)
  • 1 small red chilli, finely chopped (I didn’t use one)
  • 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
  • 4cm coriander stem with root attached, well washed and finely chopped (note: I just used the stem)
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons palm sugar (note: I ate so much palm sugar, it’s delicious)
  • Juice from about five limes 

Using a mortar and pestle, bash the chili, garlic, coriander and 1 tsp salt to a paste. This really didn’t happen for me, it was more just bashed up stuff, but it still worked. Use a food processor or just chop everything superfine by hand if you don’t have the equipment. Work in the palm sugar, then add the fish sauce and lime juice. Check the flavour balance, add more of something if necessary and refrigerate in an airtight container.

So a chili’s heat depends a lot on its size and colour. Big = mild, and red is milder than green, and therefore if you’re just getting into it, use the biggest red ones you can find, make sure all the heat-packing seeds are scraped out of its lengthy belly, and don’t whatever you do touch your face after dealing with them. I rubbed my nose after chopping up these ones and it was burning away for ages. It was a cold night, so it actually worked in my favour, but in the eyes is not so fun. That said, I wussed out of using the small chilli and upped the big chilli quantity – the sauce was gorgeous, don’t get me wrong – but in the end it wasn’t quite hot enough, so more fool me.

Who just puts noodles on the table? This fool.

I had a very appealing idea for marinating chicken in a mixture of this Nahm Jim and coconut milk, but a look at our bank balance meant it wasn’t really a chicken-buying kind of week. Instead I turned to that full-of-potential and megacheap foodstuff that is tofu, to make Coconut Nahm Jim Tofu and Rice Noodles.

My method went like so: slice up one block of firm tofu as you please (I chopped it into pretty diamond shapes which really just look like crooked squares, defeating the purpose completely) and place it in a small container (like a leftover plastic takeout one) and spoon over about half of your Nahm Jim. Or indeed any chilli sauce you like and have handy. Leave for as long as possible – I marinated mine for over 24 hours, on recommendation of Ally – and then about an hour before you cook it, like say when you come home from work, tip in half a can of coconut milk and let it marinate further. Heat up a little oil in a frying pan, spoon the tofu out of the container and into the pan, and let it sizzle away. I like my tofu to be either crunchily crisp, or super tender, and think this recipe suits it being on the tender side, but you do as you please. The residual coconut milk will bubble up and evaporate, and it’ll smell amazing. Remove from heat when you’re satisfied with the tofu’s level of cooked-ness. Meanwhile cook up some rice noodles, drain them, tip in any leftover marinade from the container, a little more coconut milk from the rest in the can, and some salt. Serve drizzled with sesame oil, the remaining Nahm Jim, coriander and sesame seeds.

I love tofu heaps and this may or may not convince you to also, but it’s a pretty simple dinner that looks and tastes good. Not to mention, doesn’t cost a whole lot. Tofu is so cheap and ridiculously filling, making it a pal to our bank balance. The Nahm Jim and coconut really soaks into its spongy surface during its marinading stage, and the sugars in both elements smell gorgeous when they hit the hot pan and start caramelising. While it’s perfect straight from the hot element, if you let it sit for a while the slippery rice noodles absorb the coconut milk and become even more luscious and silky-textured. Mint would be a nice substitute for coriander if you’ve got it – nothing like a bit of green sprinklage to make a plate of food look more professional. Oh, and you could feel free to spoon the uncooked tofu into a salad or something straight from the marinade – it tastes amazing as is.

Introducing The List:

I’m a very determined and ambitious person. Not that I’m used to things going my way. I am in fact extremely used to things going decidedly not my way. But in order to help me help myself to get more things going my way (if that makes sense) I’ve made a big to-do list, inspired by friends, all outstanding in the field of excellence, who have all previously created their own.

It’s all very well and good to be determined and ambitious, but it’s very very well and good to write stuff down so I don’t forget things, and so I can be accountable to my own brain, which flings around ideas like a pinball machine. I’ve already started writing it (and you can read my list here) and I’ve got till the end of Sunday to finalise it, and from there, till June 30 2012 to complete the tasks. I’m looking for some more things to add to it, so feel free to make suggestions (I’m talking kinda broad thematic things, not like, say, “Oi Peter Gallagher, resolve to pluck your eyebrows!” because that’s just not helpful.) Yes, I’m pretty serious when I say “get a book deal”, I don’t want this to sound like the tagline to a Justin Bieber movie but I dream bigtime big and I think I can make all these things happen, if I work at it. If I could keep our room tidy for a month though, that would honestly (I can’t emphasise my hopelessness) be almost as much of an achievement. And now that it’s written down on this list, I am going to make it happen. Hopefully. Wait, no! DEFINITELY. What would Leslie Knope Do? Is what I’ll remind myself when things look uncertain.

Oh yeah, and Snacks the Goldfish is now nearly two weeks into her new life with us and thriving. I like to amuse her/annoy Tim by singing to her whenever I get home from work and walk in the room. I can tell you with certainty that yelling “who let the dogs out!” and then pointing expectantly will not elicit a response of “who, who, who, who” from either Snacks or Tim.

Title via: the always sadly-late Aaliyah, shortlived R’n’B perfection, with Hot Like Fire.

Music lately:

Who do you love? I love Bo Diddley, you blazer of trails and creator of amazing guitar rhythms.

Nature Boy, Nat King Cole. We found a record of his at the Waiuku Bookfair that turned out to be the same one my grandparents on my dad’s side used to blast all the time. Nice to be able to remember them while listening to his beautiful, restrained singing.

Next time: I still have that poached pear sorbet idea under my skull, but there’s no way that can happen until we eat more of the existing ice cream…

stone cold soba as a matter of fact

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Note: I’ve been mucking round with fonts and things, Blogger’s formatting is a bit of a nightmare and it has all gone horribly wrong. I ended up having to put my old font back but stupid blogger won’t seem to let me get rid of all these weird gaps between the photos and the text. Shoulda left well alone! Maybe the .com went to my head…

Yes, again. Like you’ve never been obsessed with a plate shaped like an autumn leaf before.
 
I was recently reading Wayfaring Chocolate, one of my favourite food blogs, and its writer/custodian Hannah acknowledged her considerable fear of spiders, and how she hilariously freaked out at the sight of one in her room before realising it was in fact a sock that she’d owned for years, with spiders printed on it. In this spirit of laughing with, not at, I’d like to disclose how massively scared I am of…pelicans. Now as I said last time, I’m honestly pretty scared of many things, to the point of it not being particularly hilarious (I’m talking panic attacks) but people tend to find this specific fear funny. And well they might. When Tim and I were in Europe earlier this year we went to three different zoos and every time, I had to get Tim to be on lookout for them and whenever they were on the horizon, he’d tell me which direction to not look in order to avoid accidentally seeing their scary eyes and death-beaks.
 
If you’d read our little blog while we were traveling you’ll know how much I wanted to see a capybara. At one point, when it was starting to look unlikely, I said loudly “wouldn’t it be just my luck if the capybara and the pelicans were in the same enclosure” to kind of try and tempt fate or something, but no luck. There were just horrible shuddery pelicans (if anything, it’s like fate misheard me and was like “okay, gotcha, so you want heaps of pelicans and no capybara, right?)
 
In case you’re wondering what’s the deal, well solidarity, for one thing. And it’s a blog! I share without hurdles, I share without filters! (Don’t worry, this is actually me filtering.) And in case you’re wondering what’s the deal with pelicans, I had a spine-freezingly scary nightmare about them. And from that night forth, I’ve tried to keep my distance and avoid eye contact with them.
 

Anyway: Noodles. I love them. Cold, hot, spicy, salty, satay-y, wide, thin, whatever. In this case, intertwined with vegetables and with a hot and sour sauce coating each cold strand of soba. The always-important Nigella Lawson has this cool salad in Nigella Express which uses tom yam paste in the dressing, which uses the flavours of soup that you’d normally use said paste in, but in a concentrated manner. I took that dressing and instead dressed grainy buckwheat soba noodles and steamed vegetables with it. It only turned out the way it has because of what I had in the fridge and freezer (not a lot, to be honest) – you could use any number of things to make it SO much better than mine. Like broccoli, avocado, carrots, rocket, zucchini, mushrooms and so on. You could also swap it for any other noodles you’ve got hanging round – rice sticks, ramen, somen…I wouldn’t choose udon for this, since it suits a more solid bitey strand, but really as long as you’ve got the dressing, you’re all good.

I know I said it’d be Banana Pudding Ice Cream this time, but I only ended up making it late last night, and it wasn’t properly frozen this morning. So no photos, and therefore no blog post. I can tell you though, having ploughed into it with a spoon several times, that it is amazingly good and will be worth the wait.
Soba Noodles with Steamed Vegetables and Hot and Sour Dressing
(adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe)

 
Serves as many as you provide for. I’d hazard a guess that this dressing can deliver for noodles for between 1-4 people, any more than that and start increasing quantities.
Ingredients:
Soba noodles
Selection of vegetables – I used frozen peas, frozen soybeans, cavolo nero, and one smoked capsicum because that’s all I could cobble together.
Coriander or mint, sesame seeds, sesame oil etc to serve.
Dressing:
1-2 teaspoons tom yam paste (depending on your taste)
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons rice vinegar, lemon juice or lime juice (I had a lime – yuss!)
1 teaspoon honey or sugar
Good pinch of salt, or a splash of soy sauce

Whisk together the dressing ingredients in a large bowl.

Cook the noodles according to packet instructions. While you’re boiling the water for the noodles, fit either a metal colander or a steamer over the top of the pot you’re cooking them in and put in it any of your vegetables that need cooking (like…peas yes, avocado, no) and allow them to steam away.

 
Once the noodles have had their time, tip the colander of vegetables into the bowl of dressing, drain the noodles under running cold water in the same colander (well, this works if you used a colander – if you have a steamer just drain them separately.)

 
Tip the noodles into the bowl as well and carefully mix it all together to incorporate the vegetables and the dressing. Divide between the plates of people you’re serving. Top with coriander and/or mint, and sesame seeds if you like.
 


Super spicy and sharp and awesome. Taste to see if you need any more of a particular ingredient – don’t feel constrained to the (admittedly already vague) parameters I gave you. You might find you want more heat, more salt, or that you want it to be oilier. Tim and I had this for dinner on Monday night and it was damn wonderful, the slightly softened greens leaning into the noodles as they twirled round my fork, and the strong buckwheat flavour of said noodles being ably challenged by the hot, limey dressing soaking into them. We then had it for lunch today, and apart from the already annoying peas (they just don’t stick to your fork) losing their bright colour overnight, it was just as good on day two.
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Title via: Elton John’s The Bitch Is Back. That’s right I love Elton John. If you click through the footage of him singing this on Top of the Pops in 1974 is grainy, but very fun (like soba noodles, incidentally.)
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 Music lately:
 
Somehow, even with the internet making everything accessible and instant, I hadn’t thought to look up Missing You from the Set It Off soundtrack, which would make it…15 years since I’ve heard it? It’s emotional, it’s harmony-tastic, it’s got CHAKA KHAN. Closely rivaled by En Vogue’s equally dramatic Don’t Let Go (Love) from the same album, for ‘best song ever from a movie or anything ever’.

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Next time: That Ice Cream.

since folks here to an absurd degree seem fixated on your verdigris

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After a brief survey of four people (one of which was myself) I’d like to make the sweeping generalisation that Brussels sprouts are a bit like Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West: green, and misunderstood. So misunderstood. None of us could remember ever eating them in our childhood, but there was definitely the feeling that it was not a vegetable to welcome with open arms. Yes, plenty of people here in New Zealand must’ve eaten them, overboiled and sulphuric balls of punishment on the dinnerplate, but I can only hypothesise, or whatever comes at this stage of a scientific study, that pop culture has influenced a lot of my suspicion. Same reason I made my own earrings out of shells and beads and then wore them, sincerely. The Baby Sitters Club. I’m not saying that series of books is everyone’s reason for disliking on impact the Brussels Sprout, but I’m pretty sure it’s my reason. (Not that I can, admittedly, name a specific example, but I know it’s there.)

Anyway, I saw this recipe in Plenty, my Yotam Ottolenghi cookbook, called “Brussels Sprouts and Tofu”. And I thought, oh really? A plucky move, pitting two generally disliked ingredients against each other in one dish and working to stop the competition between them to see which can make the eater unhappy first. Now I love tofu, but this is not a sexy recipe title. Yet its bold simplicity appealed to me, as did the fact that brussels sprouts were very, very cheap at the vege market.
And if anyone knows how to de-misunderstand brussels sprouts, it’s Yotam Ottolenghi. He who pairs eggs with yoghurt and chilli and garlic with more garlic.
Interestingly the ingredients are very simple – the three main givers of flavour are chilli, sesame oil and soy sauce. For me, what seems important is the cooking methods: for the sprouts, you fry them till they’re browned and scorched in places. For the tofu, you marinate it while you’re getting everything else ready, then fry it up till the marinade is caramelised. You could probably do this to any kind of food and it would taste good, but here the ingredients really open up, come alive, I want to say snuggle into the flavour but that feels wrong…anyway, the sprouts become crunchy and juicy, their peppery flavour amplified by the smoky scorching. The tofu is salty and dense, with a crisp edge, its mildness subverted by the chilli.
This isn’t just ‘not bad…for Brussels sprouts and tofu’, any food would hope to taste this good! I served it on soba noodles, but it would be great on rice or alongside something else, or just as is. If tofu is nay your thing, the sprouts on their own would also make a fantastic side dish to a bigger meal. Seriously, I had to stop myself eating them all before returning them to the saucepan with the tofu. They’re good. At last.
Brussels Sprouts and Tofu

Adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty. There are mushrooms in the original recipe but as Tim’s unfortunately not a fan I thought it’d be a bit harsh to leave them in along with everything else.

2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons sesame oil (I reduced this to 1…sesame oil is expensive!)
1 teaspoon rice vinegar (I didn’t have any, used balsamic vinegar, worked a treat)
1 tablespoon maple syrup (I only had golden syrup, likewise was great)
150g firm tofu
500g Brussel sprouts
Mint, coriander, sesame seeds and (optional) toasted pumpkin seeds to serve

Whisk together the chilli sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar and syrup, then chop the tofu into cubes and add them to the bowl. Set aside while you get on with the next step.

Trim the bases off the brussel sprouts and remove any flappy excess leaves. This’ll probably take a while. I slightly misunderstood the instructions on how to slice them but I don’t think it matters – Ottolenghi requests thick slices from top to bottom but I just sliced them roughly into quarters.


Heat about 2 tablespoons plain oil in a pan, and once it’s properly hot, add half the sprouts and a little salt. It’s good to turn them round so that a flat surface is touching the bottom of the pan, but it’s no biggie. Leave them for a couple of minutes – don’t stir them if you can help it, but they won’t take long to cook through. When the sides touching the pan are a deep brown, set them aside and repeat with the rest of the sprouts. Remove them all from the pan, and carefully – using tongs is good – transfer the pieces of tofu from the bowl of marinade to a single layer in the hot pan. The marinade may splutter and sizzle a little at this point. Reduce the heat, cook the tofu for about two minutes a side till caramelised and crisp.

Remove the pan from the heat and immediately throw in the rest of the marinade, plus the sprouts. You’re supposed to garnish it with coriander, but I had none, and only a tiny bit of mint – so in the interest of visual interest, I toasted some pumpkin seeds and scattered them across – pretty and delicious.
By the way, my parents got a kitten. A tiny, tiny, outrageously cute kitten who they’ve named Poppy. Looook at her with her enormous blue eyes and tiny tail. As you may remember, the recently late Rupert left my parents a one-cat family, and the remaining cat Roger isn’t as impressed by newcomer Poppy as everyone else seems to be. Look, is it morally dubious that I’m suddenly filled with motivation to plan a trip home? I’m narrowing my eyes suspiciously even as I type the question; I think the answer’s yes…but Poppy’s so cute that I can’t feel that bad about it.
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Title via: The aforementioned misunderstood character Elphaba, as played by the amazing Idina Menzel in the musical Wicked, singing The Wizard and I. Sigh.
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Music lately:
Karaoke, by the Good Fun – it is both good, and fun. I heard this song a long time ago but this official recording has scrubbed it up well. Like the Brussel sprouts recipe, this can rest on its own laurels…it isn’t just ‘not bad, for young guys.’

Marvin Gaye, How Sweet It Is. It’s always a good time.
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Next time: I found an amazing recipe for black sesame brownies, but I’m not entiiiirely happy with how they turned out – may have to re-try and then report back.

like collard greens and whole eggs I got soul

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Last time I said I was going to be posting a recipe for Snickerdoodles next. Oh, how I lied. Because instead I became distracted by this inconceivably good recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi.



I’m sure I’ve told this story a squillion times already and, depending on your mood, it may go some way to illustrate how nauseatingly/adorably (take your pick!) zany/useless (also take your pick here!) Tim and I are, but here goes anyway. In the summer of 2007/2008 we went grocery shopping. At first we looked at the cartons of a dozen eggs. Not enough for us! So we looked at the trays of 20. And there, on a clearance trolley beside the trays, was a plastic wrapped, many layered stack of egg trays. Tim, being handier with mathematics than I am, worked out that even though 80 eggs was kind of a lot to get through, the saving on cost per egg compared to the single tray or dozen carton was so tremendously significant – especially considering they were free range eggs – that we’d be completely unintelligent not to buy the huge tray. Of 80 eggs. Congratulating ourselves on such a bargain, we left the supermarket.
When we got home, a cursory glance at the label revealed the reason this multitude of eggs was so reasonably priced. According to the use by date, we had just under 10 days to eat all 80. Somehow we made it happen and with protein coursing through our veins came out the other side with not one egg wasted. The reason I bring this up is that, on a free weekend, to use up some of said eggs I made Nigella’s Strawberry Ice Cream and Chocolate Mousse Cake from Forever Summer and How To Be A Domestic Goddess respectively. These two recipes saw me successfully separate 18 eggs in a single day.
But while I can coolly part yolk from white eighteen times over and turn them into such delicate treats as mousse and ice cream, I have always been terrible at poaching eggs. It kinda sucks.
Luckily, thanks to this immensely delicious recipe I found in Ottolenghi’s book Plenty, poached eggs can sit down, because these baked eggs eclipse any ambition I have to be a decent poacher.


It’s so gorgeous. The first shamefully conservative thought that crossed my mind was “eggs and yoghurt? AND green stuff?” but I’m glad I squashed that thought down. Here is the recipe to recreate it yourself, even if – maybe especially if – you think you’re not the sort of person who could veer away from plain eggs on toast.

Baked Eggs with Yoghurt and Chilli

Adapted slightly from Ottolenghi’s Plenty

4 eggs
300g rocket (although I’d recommend curly kale)
2 tablespoons olive oil
150g Greek yoghurt
1 garlic clove, crushed
A generous knob butter
1 red chilli, finely sliced, or 1 spoonful sambal oelek
A pinch smoked paprika

Set your oven to 150 C. Heat the oil in a large pan, and gently cook your greens till they wilt a little.

Tip this into a small oven dish – I used an old pie plate – and make four indentations in your greens so that the eggs have a place to go. Carefully crack an egg into each space – being careful not to break the yolk – and bake for about 10 – 15 minutes. Don’t overcook, but make sure the egg whites are no longer translucent. The very low heat means you don’t have to stress about this too much.

While they’re cooking, mix the yoghurt and garlic together and set aside. Melt the butter in a pan (the same one you cooked the greens in if you like) and add the chilli, paprika, and let it cook away till the butter foams a little.

Spoon the yoghurt and the butter over the eggs. Serve on toast or just as is.

The thick, luscious garlicky yoghurt and the almost chewy greens, gorgeously verdant against the golden eggs, which yield to the fork’s prod, the salty-hot butter merging with the rich, slowly spilling yolks and coating the astringent leaves…it’s really something.


Ottolenghi says to use rocket as the green stuff but I definitely recommend curly kale, if you can get hold of it – its crisp leaves stand up to the heat, without getting all limp and watery and gross. While it might be a bit harder to find, it’s no more expensive than spinach, and it’s not one of those stupid leafy green vegetables that perishes floppily in the fridge the day after you buy it. Kale is built to last. If you wanted to make this dairy-free, you could just use olive oil instead of the butter and I bet tahini would be so, so good instead of yoghurt. Assuming you’re more likely to have tahini than yoghurt, that is.


On that note, does anyone have any particularly reliable tips for poaching eggs? Mine is to pay someone in a cafe to do it for you.
It was so, so dark when I got out of bed this morning, and the sky had barely lightened its shade to something daylight-resembling when I left for work. I’m surprised at how glum it made me feel. I will have to keep that in check, I mean if I’m feeling this way in early June, the bleak midwinter July mornings will probably be greeted with a howl. Unless I can get up early enough and make myself this for breakfast every morning. Might be time to look for another clearance tray of eggs…
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Title via: Southernplayalistikcadillacmusic by the tremendous Outkast from their album of the same name.
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Music lately:

Honestly…I haven’t had enough time to listen to anything much since my last post, which possibly indicates that time was used badly. I’ve been listening quite a bit to the Godspell soundtrack and cast recording for what it’s worth, which could be seen by some as still a bad way of using time. I’m clearly the only person in New Zealand who likes to listen to it, because whenever I go to a music store there’s usually at least five copies of it in their second-hand clearance section.
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Next time:

Probably definitely the snickerdoodles…and I will endeavour to listen to something other than Godspell. Victor Garber was just so dreamy back then.

take it all with a belly full of salt

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We don’t eat a ton of meat, it has been gradually receding from out meals, like the tide or someone’s hairline, to the point where we probably only eat it once a week – if that. I don’t know why. I mean, it has got more expensive, but it’s not as though I made a proper stand or decision at any point. Analysis aside, if the right recipe comes along I’ll make it, so today I’m serving up pork belly, care of a fantastic recipe by local epicure Martin Bosley. I found it many miles off the ground, in the pages of an inflight magazine – tore it out, tucked it in my handbag, and dreamed about it till I landed back in Wellington again. I love near-on everything that the terrific, radiant, humble pig offers up – bacon, sausages, ham, ribs – but pork belly is particularly special (admittedly, “particularly special” is what I’d be saying if I was talking about bacon or ribs here too) with its tooth-yieldingly, saltily sticky and fatty wondrousness.

Please excuse (sigh, again) the atrocious photos. Thought I knew my camera, but concede I’m no good at taking pictures when it’s dark. Next week’s will be better, I promise.
This recipe is extremely straightforward. The only real difficulty is when you have to faff around turning the heavy, boiling-hot pork over partway through cooking – use a couple of pairs of tongs, some oven mitts, and take care. I didn’t use oven mitts, and a splash from the bubbling toffee-like heat of the marinade leaping from the roasting dish and landing on the tender inner flesh of my wrist is like…almost enough to make me vegetarian. The ingredients feel easy enough to get hold of – I didn’t have any star anise so used fennel seeds instead, figuring they’d give that licorice twist flavour, although admittedly without looking anywhere near as pretty. If you don’t have an orange you could probably use bottled juice, a lemon, tamarind or even some vinegar for a different sour vibe.

Martin Bosley’s Pork Belly

Cheers to (surprise!) Martin Bosley for the recipe.

2kg pork belly
120g honey
3 T oyster sauce
1 orange
4 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 red chilli
4 whole star anise
salt and pepper

Wash the pork belly, place in a deep roasting dish. Mix together the honey, oyster sauce, juice and zest from the orange, and garlic in a bowl. Chop the chilli and add to the marinade along with the star anise and a little salt and pepper. Scrape the bowl of marinade over the pork with a spatula, turning it over so it’s properly covered. Refrigerate for at least an hour, overnight if you can.

When you’re ready to cook it, take it out of the fridge and set your oven to 180 C/350 F. Roast for 90 minutes, turning over occasionally. Slice and serve with steamed rice.
There is a lot of honey in this recipe but it’s not like you’re having pudding for dinner here – the honey caramelises in the oven, bubbling and hissing into the juicy fat from the pork and salty, pungent oyster sauce to create a fairly magical, darkly sweet and savoury flavour. Even though the recipe is simple, everything about the pork is worked with here – the honey and orange points up its sweetness, while the oyster sauce emphasises its saltiness and the anise and chilli distract from its richness. Brilliant.
Edit: I used free range pork and definitely recommend it, if you have the means.
Leftovers can be turned into a comforting noodle soup with stock, greens, broccoli, chilli, soba noodles (or any that you like of course), soy sauce, mint, and so on.
It has been a bit of a weird time in Wellington lately, making a soothing noodle-strewn broth entirely appropriate. What with the grimly embarrassing and regrettably expensive Wellywood sign apparently an unstoppable idea, plus our branch of the Real Groovy music shop and the Grow From Here garden centre – both practically Tim’s and my neighbours and places that we’d spent a lot of time – shutting down. Hopefully something happy eventually comes from these doors closing. This morning the big story was that the Wellington Phoenix football team were going to be relocating to Auckland. I flag after 20 minutes of a game and I was dismayed, so imagine how Tim, obsessed as he is, reacted. Luckily the whole story seems to be an out-of-control rumour and completely untrue. Unfortunately, the Wellywood sign is not. One thing that can be counted on though, is The Food Show – Tim and I went on Sunday and while there were noticeably less exhibitors this time round it was still an extremely fun time with bargain-ly prices and nibbles a-plenty. But no Ray McVinnie! Practically needed smelling salts when I found out he wasn’t doing a cooking demonstration. Luckily there was plenty of wine to sample…
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Title via: Chris Knox, local wonder, flexing his wordsmithery in A Song To Welcome The Onset Of Maturity from 1995’s Songs of Me and You.
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Music lately:

Doubly sad news came over the weekend – first that Jeff Conaway had died, and then Gil Scott-Heron too. I love Scott-Heron’s music and poetry – the world has lost any beautiful strong words and musical greatness he was sure to have continued to contribute. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised remains amazing. Jeff Conaway, despite evidently having a decent enough voice to tour with the Broadway production of Grease, wasn’t really given much to go on with song-wise in the film itself, which is a shame. RIP to them both.

On a mildly happier note, the song Nothing To Lose by The Adults rules.
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Next time: As with the last blog post, I got another cake recipe from my childhood – turns out it’s vegan, which’ll make a nice contrast to all this porkiness.

like eating glass

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I was supposed to have this blog post sorted last night, but by 7.30pm I was a loose-jawed, slumpy mess and didn’t really have what it took to stage a decent blog-comeback. However, I managed to at least get dinner done – the following recipe for Glass Noodles and Edamame – whilst bearing the increasingly shackle-like load of jetlag that I can’t seem to shake. I don’t want to complain about it as such, (oh poor me, I travelled so much and now I’m just too fatigued for words), I just want to draw your attention to the fact that I did make it at all despite wearing a heavy cloak of semi-somnolence, and therefore you should be able to make it on any given day. That said, I understand if exhaustion and unmotivation of the non-travel variety is part of your day-to-day routine. I’m not the only person ever to feel sleepy, or worse, sleepy in the middle of cooking something involving a little concentration, causing you to collapse to your knees into a bowl of soaking noodles and cry ceilingward, What have I doooooooooone?

But this is do-able. Plus, it comes from the Ottolenghi cookbook Plenty, which Tim got me for my birthday. We’d actually also reserved ourselves a table for an evening at Ottolenghi the restaurant on the day after my birthday. (The day of was all booked out. A month in advance.) It was such a cool night. They made a huge fuss of us having come all the way from New Zealand, gave us prime seats, our waiter was genuinely friendly, our food was genuinely amazing. It was also wildly expensive but it’s not the kind of place we go often…or ever. So we put the price in the back of our minds while we feasted on tender shredded brisket, cheese-stuffed zucchini flowers (the first time either of us had tried them), barley with asparagus and radicchio, so many beautiful flavours, followed by a plain but perfect vanilla cheese cake carrying crunchy, sugary, caramelised macadamias. I’d been a fan of Yotam Ottolenghi’s for a while now, and I found it hard not to grin throughout our meal.

Plenty allows me to recreate those beautiful flavours and combinations at home. It’s a completely vegetarian cookbook, with no pudding recipes (yet I love it still) and when I saw the following recipe for Glass Noodles with Edamame Beans, I could see it was one of those dishes that largely relies on your cupboard being stocked up, as opposed to any skill, and therefore is ideal for the first meal after a month away. There’s a little heating and chopping involved, and then suddenly you’ve got this gorgeous piled-up pile of salty-sweet noodles and edamame beans that taste so nutty and creamy they betray the fact that they are actually a vegetable.

I know glass noodles as vermicelli or rice noodles, but kept the name because it sounds kinda pretty. However I removed the “Warm” from the start of the title – maybe I read too many Baby-Sitter’s Club book scenes of Kristy Thomas describing the SMS cafeteria lunch offerings – but whenever I see the word “Warm” in a title (and it does appear a bit, you know, “Warm Salad of Lamb and bla bla bla” etc) I always mentally add the word “socks” afterwards. Warm…socks. Not cool, but there it is. I get frozen edamame beans – soybeans – at the supermarket up on Torrens Terrace or in Moore Wilson (if you’re in Wellington) but if they’re too hard to find, this would still rule with frozen peas as a substitute. That said, my ancient Aunt Daisy cookbook has a recipe for “Soya Bean Rissoles” (easily digestible seems to be their selling point) so they can’t be that obscure, right?

Glass Noodles and Edamame Beans

From Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty

  • 200g glass (rice, vermicelli) noodles
  • 2 T sunflower, rice bran or other plain oil
  • 3 garlic cloves, finely diced
  • 300g podded, cooked edamame beans
  • 3 spring onions
  • 1 fresh red chilli, chopped finely
  • 3 T chopped coriander, plus more to serve
  • 3 T shredded mint leaves
  • 3 T toasted sesame seeds

Sauce

  • 2 T grated galangal or fresh root ginger
  • Juice of 4 limes or 1 – 2 big lemons
  • 3 T peanut or rice bran oil
  • 2 T palm sugar, crushed or 1 T dark brown sugar
  • 2 tsp tamarind pulp or paste
  • 1 tsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp fine sea salt

Soak the noodles in a bowl of hot water for five minutes, or until soft. If, like mine, they don’t soften up right away, tip them into a pot with a bit more water and simmer for a bit. Don’t let them get too soft and collapsing though. Drain.

Whisk together the sauce ingredients in a small bowl.

Heat the sunflower or rice bran oil in a large frying pan or wok, and add the garlic. When it starts to go lightly golden and smell amazing, remove the pan from the heat and add the sauce and the noodles. Gently stir together, so that you incorporate the sauce but don’t crush the noodles, then add the edamame beans, plus the spring onion, chilli, coriander and mint.

Divide between plates or pile onto a platter and scatter over the remaining beans, sesame seeds and coriander.

Notes: I used sambal oelek instead of chilli, lemon instead of lime, and brown sugar instead of palm – and I just didn’t have any coriander or tamarind. My cupboard is pretty well stocked but I’ve been away for a month and wasn’t going to spend heaps on a few ingredients when I could wait till the vege market this Sunday and get them for cheap. I also didn’t use mint because it grows up on the roof at my place and it was raining and freezing and windy and I just didn’t want to go outside to get it.

Please scuse the photos by the way – now that the late-afternoon darkness is a daily occurrence, I really need to remember how to take decent night-time photos.

Even though I wish we were still traveling and doing things like this:

…on a cold and rain-soaked evening I’m so happy to be back in the kitchen, and this is just the recipe to welcome me back to it. The flavours of chilli, ginger, garlic and soy lift the bland, slippery noodles into something substantial and the beans not only look gorgeous, their pistachio-like taste makes this fairly cheap dinner taste luxurious as. As Ottolenghi suggests, you could double the soy content by adding tofu to make it more of a meal, but I loved it as is.

Actually this isn’t even my greatest jet lag achievement. I did manage – somehow – to make caramel ice cream at Mum and Dad’s place on our first day back in the country, and I helped with the feijoa and apple crumble that went with it. Have you ever separated 6 eggs on 2 hours’ sleep? I don’t recommend it, but my drive to make everyone ice cream overrode my drive to be sensible. We did have a great weekend at home, landing at 5.30am only to be whisked up to the Manukau Heads to see Dad’s band Apostrophe play at a school fundraiser. Despite calling to mind something that Coco Solid once mentioned about the particular awkwardness of performing in the daytime, it was my first time seeing the band play and it was very cool. I don’t think it was just the jetlag that made the songs sound so good – between absorbing all those Dad-penned tunes and seeing Mum make up a bread and butter pudding on the spot with bits of leftover hot cross bun and bread rolls, I left for Wellington with a bit of a “my parents are awesome” glow. We managed to see heaps of family on our short time at home which was so great, even if the later it got in the afternoon the less sense we made.

Just checked the clock and it’s 9.20pm which is the latest night I’ve had yet since we got back on Saturday morning – yuss.

Title via: Bloc Party’s Like Eating Glass from Silent Alarm. I remember when they were all new and exciting and now they’re just…a bit old and exciting. When Kele Okerere sings “it’s so cold in this house” it’s like you can see the puff of air coming from his mouth.

Music lately:

I haven’t had time to listen to much since I’ve been back but of course there’s Apostrophe, my dad’s band – they have so many good songs but to be fair, I really can’t judge ’em unbiasedly, anyway the only thing of theirs online is their single The Skeptic, check it out.

Next time: I’ve got a day off on Friday and I’m going to be baking SO many things. Or at least, more than one thing. I’ve missed baking. There might also be a moment-by-moment recount of how I felt during Wicked. I will also be catching up on all the food blogs on Friday, looking forward to all the pending inspiration.

 

blaze a blaze galangalangalang

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I’ve been feeling sorta dispirited the last couple of months, a bit “mehhhh”, like time is sliding by so fast and I haven’t been able to get a grip on the days and suddenly it’s August and, I don’t know, maybe this strikes a chord or maybe it makes no sense whatsoever.

I think, hypothesizingingly, this could have something to do with the fact that I have made almost no stews or casseroles or soups this winter. Nigella’s Slow Food chapter in that seminal text How To Eat has been unstained with ingredients, there’s been no brisket becoming meltingly soft as it cooks in stock over time, forcing you to wait for it, or kumara simmering with spices and all those other romantic things that you think about when you are, well, hungry and frozen. I guess I’ve just been busier lately, had more going on…anyway I’m trying. I made Nigella’s Beef with Stout and Prunes for the first time in more than a year over the weekend and it was SO good. Luckily in Wellington it’s winter for about 85% of the year anyway so even though it’s nearly September, there’s still plenty of scope for making up for lost time foodwise.
Me: I’m going to make Penang Beef Shin Curry for dinner tonight.
Tim: Woohoo!
Later

Me: I’ve decided to use tofu instead of beef.
Tim: Woohoo..?
Luckily, Tim does like tofu. Actually, I take back that ‘luckily’. It’s not some great magnanimous concession to like tofu, the sort of thing you discuss later with starry eyes (“he doesn’t complain when I cook tofu and he puts the toilet seat down! What a catch!”) It ain’t luck. Tofu just tastes good. At least, when I cook it. Witness: tofu balls!
This not-beef Penang Curry was a recipe I found in an old Cuisine magazine – July 2004 – and while using tofu makes it significantly faster, it still has that involved, pestle-and-mortar, simmer-till-tender vibe going on. The list of ingredients might look a bit stressful, and I guess I’m lucky I live in Wellington where stuff is a bit nearer to my fingertips, but it’s not so bad -suss out your local markets, check out the local Asian Supermarkets, explore your neighbourhood or even the next ‘hood over…or just improvise with what you have. Shallots can become spring onions, dried chillis can be fresh glossy ones, and the gently fragrant galangal of my blog post title could just be plain ginger…but you might want to call it “Penang-ish” curry instead, I guess I should, too considering how much I’ve changed it up already.
Penang Tofu Curry

Adapted from Cuisine, July 2004

Penang Curry Paste

4 long dried chillies, deseeded and soaked in hot water for 20 minutes
Pinch salt
3 shallots, peeled and chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
2 teaspoons chopped coriander root and stalk
1 tablespoon chopped galangal
1 tablespoon chopped lemongrass stalk
A little grated fresh nutmeg
3 tablespoons natural peanuts, boiled for 25 mins, drained and cooled (I have to admit…I didn’t boil them for 25 minutes. Maybe five. And I didn’t let them sit round and cool either.)

Either blitz everything in a food processor, adding the peanuts last and pulsing to a roughly textured mixture, or go hands-on with a pestle and mortar. I did the latter, not because I’m all superior but because sometimes in my backwards mind, bashing away at herbs with a ceramic thingy is easier on my nerves than washing the food processor after using it. Either way, refrigerate until you need it.

2 square ‘fillets’ of fresh, firm tofu, sliced (or as much as you want, really)
1 can coconut milk
2 tablespoons grated palm sugar
3 tablespoons fish sauce (I used soy sauce instead – you could too, to make it vegan)
2 cups loosely packed spinach leaves
4 kaffir lime leaves, torn in half
1 small, hot chilli, cut in half
2 tablespoons Thai basil leaves (didn’t have any of this)
5cm fresh ginger, peeled and cut into thin batons (I just used more galangal)
1/4 cup coriander leaves

Bring half the coconut milk to the boil in a heavy saucepan. Reduce heat and add the curry paste, stirring as it cooks. Add the palm sugar, the fish sauce, and the tofu slices. Simmer for a few minutes, then stir in the spinach, lime leaves, galangal, chilli and basil. Serve in bowls with the coriander on top, over hot rice. This served two, but all you’d need is more tofu and more coconut milk to feed four.
Soul-restoring stuff – the gentle coconut flavour harshed up by the roundhouse kicky of the chilli, fragrant with the delicately gingery galangal, the incredibly good-smelling lemongrass and lime leaves and the coriander, all of which is absorbed into the fresh, delicious tofu. If you like what you see, maybe try making triple the curry paste, covering it with some oil and refrigerating it for the next time you need some midwinter zing.
Okay, I’d just like to point out that I initially typed “zingage” instead of just ‘zing’, and it didn’t get a little red spellcheck underline…weird. Sitting here typing, I can tell you that “flavour”, “harshed”, and “chilli” all are spelled wrong according to the red lines underneath them, but “zingage”, as in what I imagine to be “possesses zing” is apparently a legit word? Weirdage!
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Title via: M.I.A’s very cool song Galang from her album Arular…gah I love this woman’s music. And also her dancing. Even if you start listening to Galang and feel like this scoop of spluttery, slangy excellence is not your thing, the constant dancing, graphic art, and colourful jackets in her music video are awesome (as is the harmonising towards the end).
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Music lately:

I bought Liz Callaway’s Passage of Time online recently and it took soooo long to arrive, finally landing on my desk last week. Have been thrashing it ever since. Youtube is painfully lacking in Liz Callaway tracks but here’s a recording of her singing Make Someone Happy/Something Wonderful from this album – devastatingly good stuff.

Speaking of devastatingly good, Neil Young’s Tonight’s The Night from the album of the same name. I heard a song from this album on the radio over the weekend and it reminded me how much I love this collection of songs. My favourite album of his, hands-down.

Still speaking of devastatingly good, check out the late, wonderful Lena Horne’s take on Rocky Racoon with the musical assistance of Gabor Szabo. Over on our blog 100s and 1000s, Tim and I shared our thoughts on some of the good Beatles covers out there, and Mum commented asking if anyone had every covered Rocky Racoon. Well here it is. And I only wish we’d found it sooner. Cheers Mum!
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Next time: Apart from wanting to slow down and make more old-timey casseroles, I’ve also had the urge to make some cookies but haven’t had the time or energy. When you don’t have the energy for cookies you know it’s time for some stern self-talk. Find the energy, Laura! Make the time!

what if the octopus, the flounder and the cod think we’re rather odd

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I’ve said it before here, that despite living in a country both surrounded and infiltrated by water, Tim and I just don’t eat a lot of fish. It’s not like it is that hard to come by, we just…don’t. (Yeah, cool story, bro.)

But – hold on to your hats – sometimes we just do.
Last Sunday night I made ceviche, a dish where raw fish is cured – and ultimately cooked without heat – through the mystical magic of citrus juice. Nigella Lawson has this recipe in Nigella Express where you chop the fish up small so that it only takes about ten minutes for the juice to ‘cook’ it – like a photograph developing before your eyes. Nigella suggests serving it on rounds of toasted bread or with tortilla chips but not having either, I piled the cooked-but-raw fish on top of lettuce, with crisp celery, juicy tomato slices, and soft chunks of avocado.
We loved it. But if fish that doesn’t look like fish-fingers makes you nervous, well, this might not change your mind. But don’t feel bad – I love fish fingers, I’m sure we had them at least once or twice a week for dinner when I was growing up. They have their place.
Chopped Ceviche


250g skinless and boneless black cod or monkfish fillet (or any fish that suits being eaten raw – I used red cod, it was the cheapest.)
1/2 a teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon Maldon sea salt or a small pinch table salt
80mls lime juice (I basically went with the juice of three limes, I don’t see this measurement as sacred)
3 spring onions, finely chopped
1 green chilli, deseeded and chopped (I used red)
Bunch of coriander, chopped

Chop the fish finely into tiny dice. Place it in a shallow wide dish (I used a silicon caketin) and sprinkle with the oregano and salt and pour over the lime juice. Leave for eight minutes, shaking the dish occasionally or moving the fish around gently with a spatula to make sure it’s all mixed in. The fish should go from pinkish and pearly to a definite opaque white. It must be fun to watch with something like salmon.

Drain the fish, and mix in the spring onions, chilli and coriander. Then you’re done!


So, you could serve these as Nigella suggests, on top of grilled bread or with tortilla chips. Or you could have it in a wrap, or make a superfresh salad like I did – for raw fish, it is surprisingly practical stuff.


As you can probably tell by the solitary sprig on top of the salad, our coriander plant is more ‘gasping’ than ‘flourishing’.
The fish is soft-textured and intensely flavoured by the lime. The zinging lime and creamy avocado cool down the hot chilli and the lettuce, I don’t know, makes it better for you and gives a bit of crunch. Is anyone out there passionate about lettuce? I could eat a bowlful of avocados but lettuce I’m neither here nor there on. It’s filler material, it tastes fine but there’s things I’d rather eat, like cheese on toast.
Anyway, this ceviche was so good that we made it again for dinner this week. It’s so fast and while the fish is busily morphing (or evolving, for you rogue Pokemon fans out there) you can busy yourself getting the accompaniments ready. It’s fresh and light, and while it would be perfect in the middle of summer, the heat of the chilli and the eye-opening flavours are just right in winter if you’re getting a little over stews and mash potato (hey, it happens.)
Hopefully this all makes sense, because I’m feeling a little weary. On Saturday we stayed up till 5am dancing, not something we do that often, but it was a fun night – it was our temporary flatmate’s birthday (our actual flatmate is on holiday in Canada) and as well as nestling into some haunts we already knew, we discovered some more, met some awesome people, and between Tim and myself, even found 80 cents on the ground (is that sad? If so: whatever.) We’re lucky in Wellington – if the agenda of the night is buying expensive yet tiny drinks, then at least there are plenty of exceptionally good-looking settings to do it in.
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Title via: Um, Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Actually, forget that “um.” This film is flawless. Angela Lansbury is one of the most bodacious babes on earth, and don’t think I’m trying to be ironic when I say that. She’s an awesome lady. You thought you liked the zero-gravity fight scene in Inception? Wait till you see Angela and David Tomlinson’s underwater dance in Beautiful Briny Sea. Now those are effects that are special.
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Music lately:
Tim and I have started re-watching The Wire from Season 1. Everyone talks about The Wire and how great it is and I have already plenty of times so I won’t add to that here. It has been described as “slow-moving” and “worth the effort” but in rewatching, it feels fast-paced, the roles and connections between each character are easier to remember, and hints of things that transpire later in the season are easier to pick up on. Which is probably not so comforting if you’re 25 minutes in thinking “wait, who’s the good guys here? Is this going to wrap up soon?” The theme tune is Tom Waits’ Way Down In The Hole, sung in the first season by The Blind Boys of Alabama. They know a thing or two about how to deliver a tune well – this is typically brilliant stuff from them. I like how the intro keeps you waiting a little longer than you’re used to.
Audra McDonald’s take on Gershwin’s Someone To Watch Over Me. (In a nice segue, McDonald totally resembles Wendy Grantham, who shines as Shardeen in Season 1 of The Wire) As well as being a fantastic actress, any song is lucky to be sung by her beautiful, beautiful soprano voice.
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Next time: I’ve been baking hardout this weekend so there’s plenty to choose from for next time. I realise there’s been some space between blog posts lately – will try to counteract that by following this one up a bit more snappily!

here comes the brand new flava in your ear

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While I’m usually as inspired by Cuisine magazine and its contents as the next person, the July issue that arrived in the mailbox a few days ago seemed to make me want to cook even more than I usually do. Be aware: this is some high-level longing. Inside its pages is an interview with Yotam Ottolenghi, who, apart from having an extremely cool name, has developed a small empire of eateries in the UK (the name Ottolenghi is really built to carry an empire, I’m not sure mine is) and penned a cookbook here and there too. He has a new one out called Plenty, of which a sampling of recipes were featured in Cuisine. From this one alone I think I would, at the very least, go make puppy-dog eyes at Plenty in a bookshop and stroke its elegant cover thoughtfully. (Hello, at $70 – sure, it’s probably worth actually buying, but at this stage the only headway I can afford is to make significant eye contact with it.)

The thing that attracted me to this recipe was not just that I magically had all the ingredients – (except the green chilli but I made up for this by adding a daring spoonful of chilli paste to the sauce; I substituted kumara for butternut because that’s what I had) – but that the combination of flavours seemed so new and yet so obviously meant to be together. I’d never had cardamom like this before or poured tahini over kumara. I wanted to try it, and immediately.

Roasted Kumara with Lime, Yoghurt Tahini Sauce and Chilli

Adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi from his book Plenty, in the July Cuisine magazine.

2 whole limes
4 Tablespoons olive oil1 large kumara, or enough to make about 900g (or of course, butternut)2 tablespoons cardamom pods
1 teaspoon ground allspice100g plain, Greek-style yoghurt
30g tahini
1 green chilli, thinly slicedcoriander leaves
Sea salt
Preheat oven to 210 C. Trim the tops and tails off the limes, stand on a chopping board and carefully slice off the peel and pith (a bit like this recipe here). Quarter the limes from top to bottom, and cut each quarter into thiin slices (basically – you want really thin slices of lime. The instructions are a little fiddly.) Place the slices in a small bowl, sprinkle with a little sea salt and pour over one tablespoon of the olive oil. If you have a really, really nice olive oil this is the place to use it.

Cut the butternut or kumara into slices about 1cm thick. Lay them on a baking tray. Grind the cardamom pods in a pestle and mortar (or you could probably use a food processor or something) so the seeds are extracted, and then discard the greenish pods (this took forever! The recipe does not mention this fact!) and continue to work them into a rough powder. Add the allspice and remaining oil (I used only about a tablespoon or so) and brush over the slices, sprinkle with a little salt and place in the oven for 15 minutes or until tender. Remove from the oven.
Meanwhile, whisk together the yoghurt, tahini, a tablespoon of lime juice squeezed from one of the slices chopped earlier, 2 tablespoons of water and a pinch of sea salt. To serve, arrange the slightly cooled slices of butternut or kumara on a plate, drizzle with the yoghurt sauce, spoon over the lime slices and scatter the coriander and chilli over the top.

These flavours together were so stunning. After one mouthful I involuntarily cried “Damn this is good!” and defied anyone within my empire (Tim) not to agree with me. Luckily he liked it too.

Here’s what this plate is serving you: the soft, satiny, caramelised slices of sweet kumara, roasted with lemony, tongue-numbing cardamom and cooled with earthy, nutty, tangy yoghurt and tahini sauce. The wince-inducing sharpness of the limes is somehow softened during their brief olive oil and salt spa session, leaving only pure, juicy lime flavour. You know what perky lift the coriander brings, that’s why it’s so popular. The chilli that I added into the sauce brought a little necessary dark heat. We had this with rice and it was a small but perfect dinner for two. You could leave out the yoghurt and make this completely vegan or serve it alongside a gingery roasted chicken or sesame and soy-marinated steak. It’s something special all right. So special I wheeled out alllllll those adjectives.

Speaking of adjectives…

On Monday Tim and I were fortunate enough to see Wanda Jackson performing live at the San Francisco Bath House. At 75 years of age her voice is as menacing as it ever was and she put on an amazing show, revisiting old favourites (Let’s Have A Party – hooo!) and new zingers, with stories of how she got to be where she is. Afterwards she appeared on the floor and waited patiently to sign photos for everyone, Tim and myself included – we got squeezed to the back by some understandably, but undeniably pushy folk so she looked a little dazed by the time our turn rolled round, but was still friendly. She’s often mentioned in conjunction with dating Elvis and for Jack White producing her next album but far from being defined by the men in her life she appeared on stage as who she is – an incredibly talented, powerful, gracious woman.

In my last post I mentioned the All Whites’ exciting trajectory in the FIFA World Cup – Tim and I got up and trudged to the pub in the freezing cold at 2am Thursday night to witness their final game of the tournament against Paraguay. While they didn’t win they definitely didn’t lose either – they remain one of the few unbeaten teams of the whole shebang and truly, when you compare the amount of times that Paraguay could have scored, but didn’t, and our few chances at a goal, it was a fairly astonishing game. ___________________________________________________

Title via: Craig Mack’s superfine Flava In Ya Ear from Project: Funk Da World.
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Music lately:

Wanda Jackson’s devastatingly good Shakin’ All Over, produced by Jack White for Third Man Records. On Monday night Jackson was wearing this white, heavily fringed sweatshirt (it reminded me a little of a pink sweater I used to have as a kid with a giant purple fringed V-shape across the front, I called it my “Barbie Goes West” outfit because I was cool like that) which she used to great effect in performing this song. I love it!

Devo’s new-ish song Fresh from their album Something For Everybody. I do love a song that exercises its right to multiple tempos and both Fresh and Shakin’ All Over do this staggeringly well.
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Next time: I did promise pavlova and it is on its way, but I also made some seriously enticing homespun marshmallows today and they might well jump the queue. In other news Tim and I have embarked on a side-project together, a little site largely devoted to music called 100s and 1000s, check it out if you’d like to…