Goodbye summer, hello autumn

Only a couple more tagines to go.  This week it was butter beans with cherry tomatoes & olives.  I use the jars of Spanish butter beans.  Heat some olive oil and butter in a tagine.  Stir in 4 cloves of crushed garlic, 2 sliced red onions, 1 sliced green chilli.  Add 2 tsp crushed coriander seeds, a knob of grated ginger & a pinch of saffron.  Cover & cook 5 mins.  Add 20 or so cherry tomatoes with 2 tsp each sugar & dried thyme.  Cover & cook until the tomato skins begin to wrinkle, not long.  Toss in the drained butter beans & a handful of black olives.  Squeeze on some lemon juice, cover & cook until the beans & olives are heated through. Sprinkle with parsley & serve with some crusty sourdough & a dollop of thick yoghurt.
Sunday night was a lovely piece of gurnard & an unexpected treat from the market - samphire. Luckily the fishmonger was able to tell us how to cook it.  I cooked the fish with the potatoes a la Hugh.  First roast the potatoes in a roasting dish big enough to hold the fish & when they're nearly done add the fish.  I often do this & serve with a garlicky minty pea puree.  The samphire is easy.  You do need to pick through & remove the woody bits.  The bottoms are quite twiggy & not nice to eat.  Think asparagus of the sea & you will get the idea.  You just boil for 3-4 minutes & toss in butter with black pepper & lemon juice.  Think seafood+lemon.  Don't salt without tasting.  It grows in the salt water.  Keep an eye out for it next year - this was the end of the season.  I think this lot came from the Hawkes Bay somewhere. 
Try this soup with the last of the courgettes & corn.  Heat some olive oil with a knob of butter in a large saucepan & add 2 thinly sliced onions & 400g floury potatoes peeled & diced.  Cover & steam for 10 minutes or so.  Keep an eye on them to ensure the potatoes don't catch.  Add 500g roughly chopped courgettes & the kernels off 2 sweet corn cobs with 2 tsp ground cumin, 2 cloves crushed garlic & cook for a couple of minutes.  Add 5 cups chicken stock, season & bring to the boil.  Simmer 10 minutes ensuring the potatoes & corn are cooked.    Transfer 1/3 of the soup & 1/2 cup basil to a food processor & blend until smooth.  Tip the puree back in the pan & reheat if necessary.  To serve top with a dollop of yoghurt, some extra basil & a drizzle of olive oil.  This is delicious reheated for lunch on a day you happen to be working from home.
It's the new leek season so we had spaghetti with leeks & bacon with chilli crumbs.  Remove the crusts from 3-4 slices of sourdough bread & tear into large crumbs.  Lay on a baking tray & spray lightly with olive oil.  Add 1/2 tsp chilli flakes & 1/2 tsp sea salt.  Mix them well & bake at 180 10-15 minutes.  Keep a close eye & toss occasionally.
Meanwhile heat some olive oil in a pan & add finely sliced onion & leek with a tbsp finely chopped rosemary.  Cook slowly until the alliums are soft.  Stir in 200g crumbly goat's cheese.  Grill a couple of rashers of bacon & chop into the onion mix.  Cook the spaghetti  and put everything together with some grated Parmesan.  Hold back  a few of the crumbs & sprinkle on the top.
As you know, I am very fond of lentils & I got the idea of making a spicy lentil stew from Nigel Slater.  I thought that this would be nice with mashed potatoes, then I found a parsnip in the fridge & thought parsnip & potato mash but that seemed a little insipid & carrot seemed like a colourful addition.  The trick is to cook the potato separately.  So cook the potato in one pot & the parsnips & carrots in another then puree them with a little butter in the food processor & mash the potato with a little warm milk.   Whip them together with a fork, season & add a little grated nutmeg.  There was some spinach in the fridge with the parsnip but not quite enough for two so I added the beetroot leaves.  Remember to always use your beetroot leaves.  I just like them in salad but I now know that they are also good cooked.  Just roughly chop the spinach & beet leaves & put in a dry pan.  The water left from washing the leaves is sufficient.  Cook them down, season - nutmeg is also good here - & stir through a little olive oil or cream if you find some in the fridge.  This meal was my favourite of the week although I did use every pot and pan in the house.  One for the lentils & another for the caramelised onion topping, two for the mash & another for the greens.  I did struggle to fit everything on the hob.  Phoebe would have had something to say about this.  There was more than enough but my plan is to add the left over lentils to the intended left over lamb & quince tagine for a Moroccan shepherd's pie.  The sweet orange mash should be perfect & I think I have some frozen mashed potato to add to it.  Return next week for the thrilling conclusion.

The greens make the meal

I bumped into one of my regular readers at Moore Wilson this week & she recommends the kefte tagine with eggs.  Has anyone tried the others?  What's your favourite to date?  This week was a Spanish influenced tagine of chickpeas & chorizo.  You could use merguez sausages or leave them out altogether & just do the chickpeas.
This is another to do on the stovetop.  In a casserole, saute 2 red onions, cut in half lengthways, halved crossways, & sliced with the grain.  Sounds complicated I know but the dish is simple & you can see in the picture that the lengths of onion look pretty.  Add finely chopped garlic & soften down.  Add one chorizo sliced on the diagonal.  For Takanini residents - they used to have the best chorizo at the Takanini Foodtown deli counter.  Add bay leaves & thyme then toss through a tin of chickpeas & 2 tsp Spanish smoked paprika.  Cover & simmer 10-15 minutes.  Add sage leaves & lemon juice.  Serving suggestions include with Turkish bread & yogurt, or as a side dish with grilled meat.  I served mine with one of these leafy salads.  In case you were wondering, you can eat radish leaves too.
On Sunday I had a hankering to do petit pois a la Francaise and I had a Kipdale chicken in the freezer for a rainy day.  The upshot was a French style roast chicken.  Make tarragon butter by mixing 50g butter, 1 tbsp wholegrain Dijon mustard, 2 tbsp chopped French tarragon, grated zest of a lemon & 2 cloves crushed garlic.  Put half the zested lemon & a tsp of the tarragon butter with some extra tarragon leaves inside the cavity.  Put half the rest of the butter between the skin & the chicken.  This gets messy but is the best thing to do with chicken.  My flatmate in London 30 years ago who was a chef taught me how to do this with the Christmas turkey.  Tuck in the wings & tie the legs together around the parson's nose then truss around the bird to secure the wings against the breast.  Rub the rest of the butter on the top of the chicken.  This will burn a bit but don't worry about that.
Put the chicken in a roasting dish with members of the onion family - 8 baby leeks, 8 spring onions, 4 red onions halved, 8 whole shallots, 2 heads of garlic beheaded a third of the way down and a bunch of baby carrots.  Add 1/2 cup white wine & 1 cup chicken stock.  Roast for 70-80 minutes at 200.  You could make a gravy with the stock & a little creme fraiche at the end.  I just reduced it down. 
To make the peas, halve a small lettuce such as baby cos or little gem & lay in the bottom of a pan.  Add six chopped spring onions, 1 tbsp parsley, a knob of butter, 4 tbsp water (or chicken stock because you got some out of the freezer for the chicken & didn't use it all), and lots of peas.  Add a pinch of sugar.  You can add 2 baby chopped carrots if you have them.  Cover tightly & simmer about 15 minutes, less if you are using frozen peas.  This sounds odd but trust me.  I went to all the trouble above because I wanted to eat this.  Julia Child calls this dish the glory of pea cookery and suggests it should be served as a separate course and eaten with a spoon. She suggests serving the peas with a chilled white wine that's not too dry, or a chilled rose.
Roast chicken for two can be a bit daunting but made good use of our leftovers with a delicious chicken salad.  I did the iceberg lettuce & verjuice aoli salad just adding the shredded cold chicken. And don't forget to make up some more chicken stock.
This week we had Angie O's walnut pesto tossed through spaghetti.  That was delicious. And no effort.
 Forget everything I ever said about Chinese greens.  I have a new method and this is amazing.  It is my version of Allan Fong's Chinese greens.  I just looked him up & he has a website!  Can you believe it - and it has the recipe.  Do it Allan's way or do it mine.  In a pan lightly saute thinly slivered or julienned garlic, ginger & baby carrots.  Chop a bunch of greens - I used baby pak choy & choy sum - on the diagonal & toss into the pan.  Pour in a good slug of gin & cook until the leaves are wilted then pour on some oyster sauce.  I added baby pea pods from the garden & blanched asparagus because it needed to be eaten.  I urge you to try this.  Like the peas, you will plan a whole meal around this dish.

Old, new, walnut, blue

This tagine might just be the best ever edging out the beef & beetroot. This is another poached lamb kefta best done on the stove top.  Mix 450 g minced lamb with 1 finely chopped onion, a bunch of finely chopped flat leaf parsley, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp each ground coriander & cumin, 1/2 tsp cayenne, salt & pepper.  Shape into small meatballs - you'll get about 16.  In a pan, saute 1 roughly chopped onion with 3 cloves crushed garlic, a piece of grated ginger & a thinly sliced red chilli  Add 2 tsp turmeric, some roughly chopped parsley & mint and about 300ml water.  Simmer 10 minutes then carefully add the kefta & poach gently for 10 minutes.  Pour over the juice of a lemon and tuck a second lemon, cut into segments, between the meatballs.  Season with salt & poach a further 10 minutes. Sprinkle with parsley & mint.  Serve with couscous and a soft leafy salad.  This is deliciously lemony & fresh.
One of my favourite stalls at the City Market is Angie O.  At the moment she is doing a walnut pesto.  Try spreading this on a piece of toasted sourdough or French bread, then top with a rocket leaf & a slice of your favourite blue cheese.  We had Bleu d'Auvergne.  This makes a divine weekend lunch.
The weather is very up and down and although winter is over I could not resist this beef & red wine pie with spicy pumpkin mash.  The recipe called for beef shin but the butcher didn't have any & recommended a cross-cut blade steak with lovely glutinous veins of fat running through it.  You want something that loves to be slow cooked.    This is a really simple way to make a casserole because you just add everything straight to the pot without browning first.  In fact, I prepared it in the casserole dish in the morning and went to a movie.  When I got home I just took the casserole out of the fridge, heated the oven & popped it in.  To prepare, combine in your casserole dish 750g beef diced fairly large, 1 large carrot roughly chopped, 1 onion roughly chopped, 4 whole cloves garlic, 1 tbsp chopped garlic, 1 tbsp soy sauce, zest of 1 orange, 2 tbsp tomato paste, 2 whole star anise, 1/2 cup crushed tomatoes, 1 cup red wine, 1 cup beef stock, salt & pepper.  When you're ready to cook, put it into the oven at 150 for around 3 1/2-4 hours.  If the liquid is too thin near then end just remove the lid & cook until the liquid has reduced & is  a bit syrupy.
For the mash cook some pumpkin & Agria potatoes.  For two, I had about 1/4 pumpkin & 1 potato.  Mash with a little butter & cream & season well.  While the veg is cooking slowly, cook  a thinly sliced onion in a little butter or oil and a good pinch of salt, until soft & golden.  Add a clove of crushed garlic & a grating of ginger & 1/4 tsp allspice & cook another 2 minutes.  Stir through the mash.  To assemble spoon the lamb into individual oven proof dishes.  I have some beautiful pottery dishes my mother bought in Thorndon many years ago.  Do any of you remember the Courtyard Cafe on Tinakori Rd & the pottery shop next door?  These dishes served her well for many years and are now doing great service at our house.  Top with the pumpkin mix & cook at 180 until the mash is coloured & a little crisp.
We welcomed an old favourite back to the table.  This is quick and delicious and a good weekday standby although you do have to pick up your prawns on the day or the day before unless you have some in your freezer.  Skin, deseed & decore 1/2 dozen or so good flavourful tomatoes then roughly chop.  Drain them over a bowl for up to an hour so that you are just using the flesh.  Mix them with 1 clove crushed garlic, a handful each chopped flat leaf parsley & basil, 2 small dried bird's eye chillis (or use flakes), crushed, 1/2 dozen pitted kalamata olives, 3 tbsp olive oil.  Set aside.    Saute about 1/2 dozen prawns per person until just cooked then sprinkle over a pinch saffron & 2 more of those chillis.  Add the tomato mix briefly to warm and scrape up the tasty bits on the bottom of the pan.  Cook some spaghetti according to the pack then toss through the tomato and prawn mix.  Serve with a green salad.

Meatballs

For a quick weeknight meal, think about meatballs. They are easy to throw together and if you have batches of your homemade tomato sauce in the freezer you're prepared. We like meatballs baked in tomato sauce with mozzarella on top served with mashed potato & broccoli. This week we are eating the last of our broccoli from the garden. A friend suggested we cut the central florets as they were ready & leave the plants in to allow the side florets to develop. We have got an extra meal off each plant.

To make meatballs first soften a finely chopped onion with garlic, then combine with about 800g lean mince, 1/4 cup fresh white breadcrumbs (I crumb all our unused white bread & freeze so I always have some at the ready), 2tbsp dried oregano, 1/4 tsp ground cumin, 1 tbsp chopped rosemary, 1 egg yolk, salt & pepper, sprinkling of chilli flakes, 1 tbsp grainy mustard. Essential ingredients are mince, breadcrumbs & egg. Everything else is optional - play with the flavours until you get the taste you like.Pat the mixture into meatballs the size you want. I use wet hands as it stops them from sticking to me. If you are making them in the morning you can cover with cling film & refrigerate for a day. Add the meatballs (at room temperature) to a thick bottomed shallow casserole & brown on all sides, in batches if necessary. Cover the meatballs with about 2 cups of tomato sauce, roughly torn basil leaves, broken up mozarella (remember Clevedon buffalo) and grated parmesan. Cook in the oven at 200 for about 20 minutes. Serve with mash & a seasonal green. I always use Agria potatoes for mash (they're such a pretty colour) and I usually mash with olive oil - try infused oils such as garlic or chilli. Or add a tsp of horseradish sauce or grainy mustard. If someone wants cheese, I just provide cheese & a grater at the table & they can add their own.An alternative idea is meatballs with spaghetti. Then I cook the meatballs on a grill tray in the oven on fan grill (175) about 1/2 hour, turning once. Cook the spaghetti according to the packet then mix with your tomato sauce & add the meatballs. Serve with a seasonal salad.Another pasta dish I cooked this week was salmon tagliatelle. This is Peter's birthday dinner - everyone in our family has a birthday dinner, and I also make it for his homecoming meal when he's been away. He's just returned from 10 days in the UK. This feels like a glamorous dish & is so easy. I think there are boundless variations of this around but I learned this off a friend about 20 years ago. First put on your pasta water. Then in a heavy-bottomed pan heat about 300ml cream to almost boiling and add the juice & rind of half a lemon. Add 200g flaked smoked salmon, some black pepper, a pile of grated parmesan. Cook the pasta according to the packet - I use egg tagliatelle which takes about 4 minutes to cook. Divella is my favourite brand. Mix through with the salmon & serve sprinkled with fine-chopped parsley. You may have noticed I add parsley to everything because I love it and it makes even the dullest dish look interesting. Serve with a green salad.

Today at the market I bought some Rewena bread to eat with our soup for lunch. We had some Harira soup from the freezer (see blog entry June 1). It is quite sweet but dense & delicious. We've also been tasting Over the Moon cheeses. Try the triple cream brie & the goats cheeses. They also do cheesemaking courses in Putaruru & I am hoping a fellow cheese-lover may join me on a course one day.
If you want to treat a friend or loved one, buy them a Floriditas cupcake.