food hits and misses

After a run in with the flu, I've been  bit slack on the cooking front lately. We've been pretty much existing on fish and salad, pasta, and salt and pepper squid. Certainly nothing worth writing up a recipe about. Over the past two days, however, I've gotten back into things, and finally managed to get back to the cookbook challenge.

The theme for the week was apple. Rather than making an apple pie or revisiting apple sorbet, I decided to do something completely different. I found this recipe on a trip to the Fashion Capital, so I'm not even sure that it's in a cookbook. But if it isn't, it should be. It's Frank Camorra's Gambas a la Sidra.



The recipe calls for a casuelita to cook in, but since a trip to Simon Johnson failed to produce one, and I didn't have time to try Essential Ingredient, I decided to use the base of my tagine instead. Since I was making enough to feed four as a main course, I would have loved to have the Le Creuset risotto dish as an option. Not needing to cook the prawns in batches would certainly have sped up the cooking time, that's for sure.

Gambas a la sidra

Olive oil
1/2 clove garlic, chopped
1 tbspn parsley, chopped
4 large prawns
300ml cider

Method

Soak the casuelita overnight. Drain and dry. Slowly heat the casuelita over a low flame. Add the olive oil, parsley and garlic. When the garlic starts to sizzle, add the prawns. Cook each side for around two minutes until just pink. Deglaze with cider, then add enough cider to come just below the top of the prawns. Cook until the cider has reduced by around a third.

So I'm thinking most people hear the word "spice" and instantly think chilli. I am definitely not one of those people. For the most part, I find chilli overpowers other flavours unless used in moderation. Sadly for me, this often means that either Mr Food Hits ends up disappointed through not enough chilli, or I end up giving him half of my food when it's more to his taste than mine. So rather than compromising, I looked for a recipe that emphasised other spices.

Molee, from The Food of India: A Journey for Food Lovers (Food of the World S.) is a creamy fish curry flavoured with turmeric, coriander and cumin, with just the right amount of chilli to suit my palate. It smells divine, and is a great way of getting more fish and less chips on the menu.

Molee

1 tsbpn oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2 small green chillis, finely chopped
2 tspn ground turmeric
1 tspn ground coriander
1 tspn ground cumin
4 cloves
6 curry leaves
400ml coconut milk
1/2 tspn salt
600g fish fillets, skinned
1 tbspn chopped coriander leaves

Method

Heat the oil in a karhai or deep, heavy based frying pan, add the onion and cook for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and chilli and cook for another 5 minutes or until the onion has softened and looks trnaslucent. Add the turmeric, coriander, cumin and cloves and stir-fry with the onion for 2 minutes. Stir in the curry leaves, coconut milk and slat and bring to just below boiling point. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Cut each fish fillet into two or three large pieces and add them to the sauce. Bring the sauce back to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes or until the fish is cooked through and flakes easily. Check the seasoning, add more salt if necessary, then stir in the coriander leaves. Garnish with extra curry leaves.

This week's theme was hearty, which lead to a discussion about what makes a meal hearty. We agreed that some soups are hearty, but not all soups are. I think stews are hearty, and that a stew that can't be described as hearty isn't a very good stew at all. My dining companion in chief disagreed. In the end, neither of us could describe what qualifies. I think this recipe is, he wasn't entirely convinced. Regardless, it's very enjoyable and certainly didn't leave me any room for dessert.

The recipe is from one of my newest books - Vegetarian Slow Cooker: Over 200 Delicious Recipes. I wanted dinner a little bit quicker than that, so cooked it all in my favourite French oven. It worked perfectly well this way, and I probably wouldn't get my slow cooker out unless I needed the oven for something else. I replaced the peanuts with cashews and cashew almond and brazil nut paste, as I prefer their flavour. Since they're not as strongly flavoured as peanuts, I think I'd use half a jalapeno next time, with the added benefit of letting the flavour of the ancho through, too.

All in all, my only quibble with the recipe is the name. Describing something as an "African stew" makes about as much sense as calling ratatouille "European". Still, that's the name the cookbook used, so that's what I'll go with.

African-style Peanut Stew

2 tbspn coconut oil
2 onions, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbspn ginger, minced
1 tsp salt
1 tspn cracked pepper
800g tinned tomatoes, with juice
2 cups vegetable stock
1 sweet potato, cubed
2 dried ancho chillies
1/2 to 1 jalapeno chilli, seeded and coarsely chopped
1/2 cup smooth natural peanut butter
1/4 cup coriander, roughly chopped
1 capsicum, seeded and diced
1/4 cup roasted peanuts

Method

Preheat oven to 190 Celsius. Heat the oil in a large French oven or stockpot. Add onions, celery and carrots and cook, stirring, until softened.

Cook the vegies for around 7 minutes

Add garlic, ginger, slat and pepper, and cook for 1 minute. Add tomatoes with juice and stir well. Add vegetable stock and sweet potato. Place lid on pot and cook for around one hour.

Ready to go in the oven

Meanwhile, soak the ancho peppers in hot water for 30 minutes. Drain, discarding the liquid and stems. Transfer to a blender, and add the jalapeno, peanut paste, coriander, and around 1/2 a cup of the stew liquid. Puree. Add to the pot along with the capsicum, cover and cook for another 15 to 30 minutes until the capsicum is tender and the flavours have melded. Serve over brown rice, garnished with roasted peanuts.

I recently joined a cookbook challenge with the goal of getting some of my very neglected books out of the cupboard and into use. The rules are pretty simple; each week has a theme, the goal is to find a recipe, cook it and blog it by Monday.

The theme for this week is comfort food, which posed a bit of a problem. For me, comfort food doesn't normally appear in a cook book. It's stuff like cheese on toast, or baked potatoes with chilli beans. But then I started thinking about other things that I like to eat on a cold winter day, and decided it would have to be something you can cook in the slow cooker or a Le Creuset. The Le Creuset won in the end, mostly because I wasn't home at the time when I would have needed to get the slow cooker going.

The recipe I chose was Risotto Verde from Tasty Vegetarian (Quick and Easy Series).

Use a good stock or run the rick of getting a really bland risotto. I garnish with parmesan and toasted pine nuts, too.

Risotto verde

1.75 litres vegetable stock
2 tbspn olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 leeks, shredded
225g arborio rice
300 ml dry white wine
4 tbspn chopped mixed herbs
225g baby spinach
3 tbspn natural yoghurt
salt an pepper

Method

Pour the stock into a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer. Menawhile heat the oil in a separate pan. Add the garlic and leeks and saute over a low heat, stirring occasionally for 2 -3 minutes, until softened. Stir in the rice and cook for 2 minutes, stirring until each grain is coated with oil. Pout in half of the wine and a little of the hot stock. Cook over a low heat until all of the liquid has been absorbed. Add the remaining stock and the wine, a little at a time, and cook over a low heat for 25 minutes, or until the rice is creamy. Stir in the chopped mixed herbs and baby spinach. Season to taste with salt and pepper and cook for 2 minutes. Stir in the yoghurt. Garnish and serve immediately.