Strange Fruit

Summer fruit, like summer, lasted well into autumn this year but when we had farewelled the last of the plums it was time to welcome the autumn comers.  This year we added dragon fruit to the list.  I had never seen this before, but like many new things, as soon as I discovered it I encountered it everywhere.  The first time I saw it at Moore Wilson I had to buy one and remembering my earlier error with persimmon, where I didn't realise that they should be eaten firm, I looked up what to do.
Luckily I found a helpful video on You Tube.  I was slightly bemused that I was watching an instructional video on how to eat an item of fruit!  Later that week I unintentionally turned the television to one of those cooking competitions where a group of contestants had to make a dessert using a specific set of items & one of those items was dragon fruit.  And then later in the same week I tuned in to Come Dine with Me to see a contestant there serve a fruit salad containing dragon fruit.  This must be the fruit of 2013.  Try one when you get the opportunity.  I really like it.
If you like puff pastry, try this delicious tart which we had first with tomatoes & then used up the rest of the pastry & ricotta with a broccoli version. You could make your own but I would buy a really good puff pastry - we like Paneton.  As an aside try their spinach & feta Danish.  One pack of pastry will make two tarts.  Roll out half the pack about 4mm thick & cut out a 30cm circle.  Put the pastry on a prepared baking tray & refrigerate while you make the filling.  Put 275g ricotta & an egg into a bowl & mix well to combine.  Spread this mixture over the pastry base leaving a 2cm border.  Fold in the border to form a rim.  Bake at 200 for 12 minutes.
Remove from the oven & arrange 200g halved cherry tomatoes cut side up over the tart.  In the summer, look out for Curious Croppers.  They should be available in Moore Wilson later this year. If you are using broccoli, blanch for 3 mins before arranging small florets on the tart.  Drizzle with a little oil & bake a further 10 minutes.  Nestle some torn mozzarella in among the tomatoes & cook a further 2 mins.  Spoon over some basil pesto, scatter with fresh oregano, season with salt & pepper and enjoy.
We have been enjoying little treats.  Phoebe gave Peter some amazing coloured pasta for his birthday.  She prepared it for us with a simple carbonara sauce (sans pancetta) and I do think this was the best way to enjoy the subtle flavours of the pasta.  In a mixing bowl large enough to accommodate the pasta, lightly beat 2 eggs with 3tbsp grated Parmesan & 1 tbsp grated pecorino, finely chopped parsley, salt & pepper.  When the pasta is cooked according to the instructions on the pack, drain it & add to the bowl & toss until mixed through.  Serve immediately because the sauce isn't hot to start & it will cool quickly.  If you want to add pancetta cook it while the pasta water is boiling, in a little butter & olive oil to which you add a splash or white wine & reduce.  Add the pancetta to the pasta at the end.
We had an outstanding crop of broccoli this year.  Those green caterpillars enjoyed it too & we had a struggle keeping them down but a visitor recommended a garlic spray which helped. We celebrated the first of the crop with roast chicken served with broccoli & carrots from the garden.  The first picking of any new crop always seems the best one.  I had wanted to serve this with my cranberry/crabapple sauce - remember cranbapple.  However the crabapples which appeared to be a bumper crop were all rotten in the core.  So disappointing.  I had already bought the cranberries so I made a cranberry sauce that was outstandingly simple.
Tip a packet of fresh cranberries in a pot with the juice of two oranges.  Bring to the boil & simmer until the cranberries start to pop. Just get it to a consistency you like then add 1/2 the amount of sugar to the cranberries & stir till the sugar has dissolved.  Pour into clean jars.  This will keep in the fridge a couple of weeks.  I was so astounded by its simplicity & wonder that I bought another pack of cranberries & tossed it in the freezer for Christmas. We ate the sauce with the chicken, the left over chicken pilaf, potatoes & in fact everything I could think of where sauce might be appropriate.
The broccoli recipe of the season has however been Hugh's variation on pasta with greens - pasta with broccoli.  This takes no time to throw together on a week night & there is something amazing about how all the little broccoli bits cling to the pasta.  The chilli gives just the right degree of heat and it is a most satisfying meal.  I also highly recommend the original version and we do this with whatever greens we have to hand.  Frequently rainbow chard, because it just grows & grows & we need to eat at least one chard recipe most weeks.
Another find to showcase chard is a simple dish with butter beans.  If I can, I buy Navarrrico beans but they are expensive & hard to come by so tinned will do.  My only comment is I use the liquid from the jar & drain the tinned beans & add a little vegetable stock.  Tip a jar or tin of beans into a pan with the liquid from the jar or stock.  Add a pinch of salt, bring to the boil and simmer for a few minutes then add a 1/2 dozen or more quartered cherry tomatoes to the pan with a knob of butter, a splash of white wine vinegar, a squeeze of tomato paste & a generous splash of Tabasco or other hot sauce.  Mash a few of the beans with a potato masher & stir it all through.  This will make the dish creamier.  Bring back to the boil & simmer 10 mins or so until creamy & delicious.  Then stir through some shredded greens.  Spinach only needs a minute, chard two or three minutes & cabbage or kale around five.  You could stop here and serve just like this as a side dish but if you want this to be dinner, sprinkle with fresh breadcrumbs and some grated cheese and bake at 180 until the cheese is golden.
Lastly one of my followers gifted us a subscription to the New York Times (thank you)  and I happened upon a recipe for the best ever mushrooms on toast.  This may seem extravagant but I urge you to try it.  These may be the best mushrooms you ever eat.  As I am writing this I am recalling this meal and I can feel mushrooms on toast coming on for lunch tomorrow.  The New York Times food section has some of the best recipes of any newspaper. (I think this recipe is available outside the subscription but if you have trouble with the link give me a yell & I will send you the recipe.)

Courgettes every day

Over the long hot dry that has been Wellington's summer this year we have been feasting from the garden.  Along with lettuces, spring onions, radishes and rainbow chard, we have had a bumper crop of courgettes.  We have had green & yellow courgettes and some wonderful scallopini.  I didn't know that as the scallopini grow they change from bright yellow to a rich creamy colour.
Very fresh radishes it turns out are delicious buttered and dipped in salt.  This turned up in a book of Parisian cooking as something to have with an aperitif, and also appeared in Hugh's veg.  Basically, spread a little of your very best butter - we are currently eating Lewis Rd - on a radish & sprinkle with a pinch of very best sea salt.
We have struggled to keep up with the courgettes and at times were eating them every day.  Luckily, there are so many good things to do with a courgette.  For an excellent fettuccine dish, gently fry 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic with a finely chopped onion & 4 thickly sliced courgettes until the onion is soft.  Add a pinch of saffron threads that have been soaking in 1/4 cup water for 15 mins or so - add the water as well.  Add 4 diced tomatoes and 200ml cream.  Stir this mixture through cooked fettuccine with 200g crumbled goat's feta and a handful of torn basil leaves.  Top with grated Parmesan.
Try a warm chickpea salad filled with summer veg.  This is a bit of an assembly job.  Start by softening a finely sliced red onion with 1 tsp cumin seeds in a pan.  Put in a large bowl with 2 tbsp olive oil and 3 tbsp white wine vinegar.   Rinse & drain 2 tins of chick peas & heat through in a pan of boiling water then drain & add to the bowl.  Cook 2 cobs of corn & scrape the kernels into the bowl - I have a gadget that does this really efficiently and is also good if you have braces or have just had your wisdom teeth extracted and can't gnaw it straight from the cob.  Steam or blanch some green beans & add to the bowl along with 1/2 cup pitted green olives, thinly sliced deseeded red chilli, 1 cup flat leaf parsley (remember I don't eat coriander but you might like to).  Toss to combine, season & sprinkle on some crumbled goat's cheese.  Some crusty sourdough would be nice with this to soak up the dressing on the plate at the end.
To really celebrate a glut of summer vegetables what about a Spanish vegetable stew - a menestra.  I used a few leaves of chard, a large handful of green beans, 2 courgettes, 100g green beans.  I would have added asparagus if they had been around. Strip the leaves from the chard & chop the stalks into 5 cm pieces, halve the beans, slice the courgettes lengthways into stubby sticks.  Bring a large pan of water to the boil & cook the vegetables separately for the appropriate amount of time.  Lift them out with a slotted spoon & refresh under cold water then set aside.  About 5 minutes for the beans, three for the chard stalks (not leaves), courgettes.  Reserve the cooking water.  Heat some olive oil in a cazuela or wide shallow pan and soften a thinly sliced onion & garlic clove.  Stir in 25g plain flour. Gradually stir in about 500ml of the cooking water & 1/2 tsp caster sugar.  Bring to the boil & simmer a couple of minutes.
Stir 150g peas & the chard leaves into the sauce & cook 3 minutes or so then stir in all the cooked vegetables to heat through.  You could have this as a light mid-week meal or as a side with fish.  Either way, it is a delicious way of serving summer greens.
When one courgette is hiding under the leaves & becomes marrow-like before you discover it, try stuffing it with a rice mixture.  I cooked up about 150g lamb mince with onion, garlic & 1 tsp each of cinnamon & cumin.  I mixed through about 1 cup homemade tomato sauce & 1/2 cup cooked rice.  Halve 2 marrow-like courgettes & scrape out the seeds.  Lay in a baking dish where they fit snugly and fill with the mince mixture.  Bake at 180 about 1/2 an hour until the courgettes are tender. 

Golden Weather

Wellington has had an outstanding summer and we have eaten outside more than usual.  This has been very conducive to summer dining and we have had lots of salady things and summer vegetables.  The garden has really enjoyed the sun and we have been racing to catch the courgettes before they escaped to marrowdom.
Summer feels right for Spanish cooking and we remembered a while back, on Rick Stein's series on Spain, he made an intriguing Catalan pasta dish which we've been meaning to try for ages.  Catalan use Fideua noodles which are short thin pieces of dried pasta similar in thickness and texture to spaghettini.  We found something called fadennudeln, which is German but which fitted Rick's description.  You could just use spaghettini & break it up.  Whatever you decide, have a go.
The recipe said to make a fish stock with tomato passata but we actually had some tomato sauce we wanted to use up so we improvised a bit and just used that, diluted with some light chicken stock.  I would make the fish stock next time if I had the time.
In the paella pan (if you don't have one use a regular slope sided pan), fry 2 cloves of thinly sliced garlic.  Keep a close eye on it because garlic burns easily and you are looking for golden rather than charred.  As soon as it colours scoop it out & set aside.  Add 150g of the noodles and fry them in the garlicky oil  until they are golden.  Again you are looking for light golden rather than dark.  Stir in 500g of the tomatoey stock or stocky tomato sauce, a little salt & the fried garlic.  Bring to the boil, then reduce & simmer 9 minutes or so until all the liquid has evaporated.  Remove from the heat, cover with an opened out newspaper and leave to rest.  When Rick did this all the pasta strands pointed upwards but that didn't happen for us.
While the pasta is resting cook the seafood.  We had squid and prawns which worked well.  You'll want to have them prepared before you start the pasta so maybe I should have mentioned this at the top of the page.  You should always read the whole recipe before you start.  Don't you hate it when you're halfway through cooking tonight's dinner when it says "now put in the fridge overnight"?
Use 75g-100g each of peeled prawns and sliced squid.  Heat a little olive oil in another pan, add the squid & prawns over a high heat for 1-1 1/2 minutes until just cooked but nicely caremelised.  Season with a little salt and serve alongside the pasta.  To serve the pasta, dot with aioli (which the Spanish call alioli).  If you don't like seafood you could probably sautee some chicken thighs cut into quite small pieces.
Now that the aubergine season is in full swing we have been making aubergine stacks with chicken and cheese.  We were inspired to this by a delicious meal we ate at the house of one of you.  I don't know if this is what you did but this is our method.  Slice two chicken breasts into thinner slices and flatten the thicker slices by bashing between cling film.  You want thin escalopes of chicken that will sit on a slice of aubergine.  Brush the chicken pieces with oil & white wine vinegar & season.  Fan grill at 200 for about 15 minutes turning once.
Slice an aubergine lengthwise and brush with olive oil.  Grill on a ribbed hot plate or heavy bottomed pan 2-3 mins each side  then finish off with 5 mins under the fan grill.  Grill thick slices of haloumi.  Heat through a small quantity of that homemade tomato sauce you always keep in the freezer.  To assemble, lay a slice of aubergine on the plate, top with a slice of chicken, a slice of haloumi, some torn basil leaves and top with a splodge of tomato sauce.   I think you could be flexible here and think about trying different cheeses & herbs.  Maybe try oregano with the haloumi & mozarella with basil.  You'd probably have to pop the assembled stack under the grill to melt the mozarella.  Or try paneer with coriander.
Last Sunday I made an outstanding vegan pudding I had been meaning to try.  This was inspired by a recipe from the raw food people in Auckland, Little Bird.  I don't actually subscribe to the raw food philosophy any more than I embrace veganism or gluten free for its own sake, but I will champion any meal prepared with good quality ingredients that tastes great.  These chocolate ganache tarts certainly measure up.  This is the version we saw on River Cottage Veg.  I used cashews instead of pecans - cheaper.  I used Blue Coconut oil, Green & Black organic fairly traded cocoa and I substituted the maple syrup for the agave nectar.  Actual maple syrup not maple flavoured syrup!  I also made individual tarts using muffin pans and a couple of extras served in a dish as mousse.  Think about freezing & serving as ice cream.  Note that you must serve this really chilled - at room temperature you may taste the avocado.  It will taste less sweet when chilled so sweeten to a little sweeter than your taste prior to chilling.  It is really rich so think about mini servings.  It is truly delicious so hungry people may eat two but people who overfilled on mains won't manage it even if they think they want to.
On a final note, over the next month we are hosting visitors from foreign parts  - the UK & Canada.  What shall I feed them?  Any suggestions for meals which show off what we produce in New Zealand and are summery?