Someone said the other day that preserved lemons were out of fashion. They might be, but not in my kitchen. It is harder to find really good ones, tho, so it is a boon to make your own.
Some dishes need a tangy dressing – salads appreciate it, and Brussels Sprouts really pick themselves up when they come within cooee of a tangy dressing.
We roast Brussels Sprouts and serve with a dressing with preserved lemons and spring onions. If it is the season, we toss in cumquat juice and peel. This salad is AMAZING.
Today I have a variation on sautéed or stir fried okra for you. It is a dish heavy with coriander leaves that lightens the deep flavours of onion, ginger and garlic. It is delicious – something that can accompany other Indian dishes, or can be eaten as a delicious mid-afternoon snack.
7 mai 2005 - Kool Shen en concert à Bagneux, je photographie les balances, les discussions et puis le live, en côté de scène. Un privilège de bosser pour un mag à qui on donne ces accès.
May 7th, 2005 - Kool Shen plays in Bagneux, I'm here for the soundchecks, the discussions and then the concert, from the side of the stage. A privilege to work for a magazine that gets this access.
Rasam – I cannot say enough about this wonderful Tamil dish that wakens the digestive system and enlivens the palate. We have quite a number of different recipes. Today’s pic is one that includes some toor dal, is flavoured with tomato and uses lemon as its tart/sour flavour.
We love our salads and often they are made using whatever is on the kitchen bench. Here it was snake beans (simmered till tender), quarter of a fennel bulb, a couple of radishes, quarter of an onion, fresh dill, some daikon radish shaved thinly, and 4 or 5 spring onions. They are scattered with nigella seeds.
At these times we like to add a delicious dressing. Once you have a few dressing recipes under your belt they can be thrown together very quickly. This one is a yoghurt based dressing that is gorgeous for salads like this. It can be spread over the vegetables, or the veg can be dipped into the dressing.
I adore dishes that can be made in 10 mins or under. This is an easy pasta dish – delicious – that is the perfect week night dish. It is great for lunches too, if you are at home. Put the pasta on to cook, dice the avocado, make a herb-garlic oil, mix all together and serve.
I am not much of a breakfast eater, and in general prefer the savoury options common in Northern and Eastern Europe, and those of India and S.E. Asia, to the sweet and sickly options of the West English speaking countries. Don’t get me wrong, I love a true French croissant with jam, and sometimes pancakes with honey (or sugar and lemon juice). I even have a large container full of my overnight oats mix on standby for mornings when I am super hungry as there is no other cereal in the house. But mostly we either skip the morning meal or prefer something more savoury. Even the overnight oats is unsweetened beyond the dried fruit and dried citrus that it contains.
Breakfast Rice and Raisin Porridge
This breakfast, however, is a little sweet – it has raisins in it – but is rice based, so that is a plus. It is for the days that I do crave some sweetness. Rice is ground to a coarse mix then cooked with the dried fruit. Cinnamon is added to bring a warm sweetness to the dish. You can sweeten it more with your sweetener of choice – I’ve always loved Golden Syrup. It is also great with spiced glazed apples or poached oranges and vanilla ricotta.
Rice porridge is mostly made for breakfast but in this house, it can be eaten at any time of the day. It is a great Winter dessert when your cupboards are bare. Rice and raisins – there isn’t anything more simple. Top with cream and fruit.
This dish can also be made savoury – omit the raisins and cook with Indian spices. Gorgeous. Use spices that you might use for Upma. Top with cashew nuts sauteed in ghee.
One of the most wonderful tastes on this planet is the tangy spice, chilli and tamarind mix of Indian street food. It is glorious, addictive, and quite mind blowing. The flavours have a party in your mouth. No, truly! If you are doubting me, head off to your nearest good Indian restaurant and try Pani Puri, or Samosa Chaat – any chaat for that matter – and even Rasam will give you a sample of the hot and sour tastes that make up Indian food.
This recipe from #Ottolenghi's #PlentyMore takes the notion of the hot, sour, salty and sweet flavour mix and stuffs it inside a potato cake made from mashed potatoes. It mimics the Aloo Tika and Potato Cutlet snacks of India, Podimas recipes of South India, and more recently I saw a fabulous BALL of mashed potato full of North Indian street-food flavours.
Poha! Just with chillies, spices, curry leaves. A simple dish.
Poha (aka pohe, aval, pauwa, sira, chira, chivda, avalakki, and other names) is Indian flattened rice.
Rice is parboiled before flattening so that it doesn't require a lot of cooking.
It is particularly delicious and can be used for savoury and (more rarely) sweet dishes.
This isn't the real thing, or not quite the real thing. I make it with 3 ingredients - pasta, butter, parmesan - gloriously mixed together. For other recipes you almost need a chef's training to get the consistency right. I just mix the butter and parmesan with the pasta and a little pasta water.
This gorgeous and quick pasta dish of 3 ingredients – so unusual in today’s current fashion of long ingredient lists - is often called Fettuccine Alfredo, although it’s original name was Fettuccine al Burro.
Traditionally this dish did not include cream – the sauce was an emulsion between butter and parmesan. However, of course, the American version is made with cream, butter and cheese. Choose which ever version you prefer. But look for simple recipes, not ones that have, say, cornflour in it 😶
It is said that in the 1020’s Alfredo, a restaurateur, was trying to find a dish that his pregnant wife, who had lost her appetite, would eat. He added cheese to a simple pasta-and-butter dish and she loved it. When he introduced it to his restaurant it became popular around the world.
Apparently taken in September of 2020. Just a step or two into the pandemic. Slowly trying to find our footing; never really did. Learned a lot about ourselves and our mental health needs.
Just now in March 2024, feeling like we're ready to spread our #wings.
The problem with food fashions is that really useful ingredients get put aside, left behind, left on the shelf. Remember cream cheese? If you are of a certain age you will recall the cream cheese dips. I had a particularly flavoursome one that involved chilli sauce, a jar of sweet and sour vegetables and loads of coriander leaves. It was quick, easy and magnificent.
But over time, cream cheese has lost its appeal in the food world. It is pretty much ignored in place of feta, ricotta, cream, tahini, avocado and other creamy and fashionable ingredients. In our kitchen, however, cream cheese still has its place on the refrigerator shelf amongst these other beautiful ingredients.
It isn’t a dip today, but the recipe is for a spread that we are making with cream cheese. It is so easy it is hardly a recipe. It is cream cheese mixed with orange juice and pecan nuts. Yum. Add some grated zest as well.
Use the spread on crackers, or on slices of fruit. If you would like to use it as a dip, simply whip it until it becomes lighter.
#FromtheArchives -
"A Discussion Paper on Potential Global Warming": Imperial Oil (Canadian subsidiary of #Exxon) acknowledges in 1990, "the scientific basis for the so-called greenhouse effect was well established decades ago" #FossilFuels#GlobalWarming
I think every country person of my era grew up eating junket as cows were aplenty and therefore milk was abundant. How easy to make a dessert with a couple of cups of milk, a junket tablet and some sugar? Easy, mostly healthy, cheap.
When I made this, it was decades since I ate junket and, to be honest, I didn’t know if the supermarket would still stock the tablets. But they did, to everyone’s surprise! Junket is a little like custard, a little like flan filling, a little like sweet tofu, but it is none of these. It is a milk-based dessert, made with vegetable rennet, usually sweetened and flavoured. Here I topped it with some macerated strawberries and passionfruit.
Did you know that junket actually used be served to the sick in hospitals? It is nutritious and easy to digest, so it was perfect hospital food. Why have so many hospitals changed to unhealthy desserts these days?
The name of junket comes from the fact that it used to be made in a rush basket, the Medieval Latin word for which is iuncāta, the French jonquette and the Middle English jonket.
#FromTheArchives: Will glow-in-the-dark materials someday light our cities?
Substances that persistently luminesce are already used in some bike lanes, and in the future could be applied to sidewalks, streets and buildings — saving energy and reducing urban heat.
These are some of the most delicious fritters that we have made. The soft bite of the cauliflower with the spices is a warming mouthful that you won’t forget quickly. Here we have served them with yoghurt with short mung sprouts and herbs.
They are the sort of fritter you can have for a meal, as a snack (make them smaller), or packed in a lunch or picnic box. Or shove them into some pitta bread with hummus and tomato for a great afternoon filler with a cuppa tea.
They keep a couple of days in the fridge (think – after school snack), and are best eaten either at room temperature or heated slightly in a warm oven. The batter will also keep a couple of days in the fridge if you want to cook on demand.
These are not your usual fritters. These are packed with cauliflower and spiced with cinnamon, cumin and turmeric. As a dipping sauce, they are served with a spiked Greek yoghurt.
Of course, I have switched out the eggs in the recipe for my usual egg replacer in fritters – 1 Tblspn chickpea flour, 1 Tbslpn or a bit less of cream and about 0.25 plain or lemon eno per egg.
“I think the biggest lesson of prison history is how prisons keep failing us and yet we keep using them anyway. We’ve always had an overly optimistic idea about what they could accomplish, but we kind of are OK with it when they’re just barely doing what they’re supposed to do, or even when they massively fail.” —Sociologist Ashley Rubin
When rice forms a major part of a cuisine then there are infinite recipes using rice. Contrast this with cuisines in which it isn’t so important.
When growing up, rice was used mainly for rice pudding and an even rarer rice salad. Apart from that it was unusual to have rice with a meal. I guess my mother bought rice only when she wanted to make a pudding – whereas I keep the pantry stocked with several different types of rice. Sticky rice, black and/or red rice, basmati, short grain rice, risotto rice and perhaps pongal rice are fairly standard pantry items.
These days I love rice cooked with spices and a vegetable or with lentils. It forms a great addition to any meal, especially Indian meals. It is also a great way to use up any vegetables sitting at the bottom of the fridge on a Friday night – prior to doing the next week’s shopping.
Peas Pulao or Matar Pulao is a popular dish which is made especially during the cooler months in northern parts of India.
It can be made in a pressure cooker or rice cooker as well as stove top.