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 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.
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.
Towards the end of the season, broad beans will often grow pods without seeds – the flowers have failed to germinate. I still use these pods – they are great chopped into vegetable fritters or patties, simmered and served with a yoghurt or tomato sauce, or, like today’s recipe, battered and deep fried (SO DELICIOUS). I make a standard batter with plain flour with a little eno or baking soda added to lighten the batter and make it quite crispy.
You don’t have to wait till the end of the broad bean season to make these – they can be made any time you are shelling broad beans. Don’t waste the pods if they are in good condition. If you’ve grown your own beans the pods are likely to be tender during the whole season. If you are buying pods, use your own judgement as to when during the season the pods become too tough. Cut larger pods into smaller pieces.
You will thank me for this idea, it is delicious, and uses parts of the vegetable usually discarded. Always go for no-waste where possible.
I love recipes that are endlessly versatile – dips and spreads that can use a variety of vegetables, bread recipes into which you can knead different flours, herbs, and liquids, soups that take almost anything that you have on your kitchen bench. These sorts of dishes are the lifeblood of the kitchen, using up what you have, what has arrived, what you’ve been given, what has ripened.
A great base for a dip is formed from any combination of feta, yoghurt, cream cheese, ricotta, and/or tahini. Into that puree can go some lightly cooked vegetable and flavourings. Nuts can be added to thicken and flavour the mix. It is endlessly malleable.
Here it is roasted red capsicum, feta, yoghurt and walnuts.
#NigelSlater has a Roast Tomato Salad recipe which is both superb and very easy. It is in #TenderVol1
Halve tomatoes, put in oven proof dish, drizzle liberally with olive oil, season with salt and black pepper, top with thyme leaves.
Bake 45-55 mins 200C oven, until soft and blackening around the edges.
Drizzle quite lightly with balsamic vinegar.
Eat.
I served mine with goats curd, rice, dal and home made pickled nasturtium seeds. Despite being the ultimate fusion meal, it all went very well together.
Years ago I bought a small oven tray from the giant Greek warehouse just west of Adelaide. It has a small lip around it, and I could envision it roasting 2 whole red capsicums, or two eggplants.
And that is how I have used it all these years. Today, two red capsicums are nearly roasted, and will be turned into a dip/spread with feta.
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.
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.
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.
Ghol Takatli Bhaji - Maharashtrian Purslane in Yoghurt
Purslane (Ghol in Marathi, Kulfa in Hindi) grows prolifically in my garden and is a powerhouse of goodness. It grows freely around the world, used mainly by Persians, in India cuisines, and by the Australian indigenous people.
Purslane is perfect in salads or cooked in stir-fries and bhajis. It is a seasonal plant which has a unique tangy taste.
This dish is a Maharastrian style curry usually eaten with steamed rice or rotis. It can be made with Purslane, green Colocasia, sorrel leaves, red amaranth, spinach leaves and other greens. It has a lovely texture with peanuts and channa daal. The dish is typically made with a medium thin yoghurt base.
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.
I still have some batter, so it was Uttapam again (I could make idli or dosa or paniyaram, but it is Uttapam I am craving atm.)
This one has a lot going on in the topping - onion, chilli, tomatoes, zucchini, coriander leaves, and more. Some pics you see in books only put the topping on after the uttapam is cooked. I like to squish it on top of the batter, so when the U gets flipped it cooks as well. Honestly, they are delicious.
The Women’s Weekly cookbooks graced our home in the 80’s and 90’s and some of them are still really good. I do regret handing a lot of them on to friends and family over the years, but I still have a couple. The Biscuit one is good for a few eggless biscuits, something hard to find these days.
These are Australian style biscuits, not the (strange to us) US version of biscuits.
I made these Bran Butter Biscuits because one of the young ones in my life loved oat biscuits when he was really young, and these are close enough for him. They are buttery, but with so little moisture they can be a little dry. Best snacked alongside a cuppa tea with a friend and some good gossip stories. You will eat more than you anticipate – make a double batch if necessary. I have used oat bran in this recipe but you can just as well use wheat bran.
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.
What's for (late) breakfast you ask? These Cheela - Savoury Indian Pancakes. These are made with coarse semolina (cheela can be made with a variety of lentil/grain flours). Plus onion, chilli, ginger, and spices mixed into the batter.
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.
Aaaand, good morning on this stinker of a day. 40C predicted, and winds picking up during the day. Almost the worst combo for bush fires (dry lightening being the worst). All Aussies hold their breath on days like these.
I'll be getting things done this morning and will be as inactive as possible during the afternoon.
Take care if you have hot temps too. Please hydrate.
Some whole mung beans are simmering, for a dal from #PlantBasedIndia by #DrSheilShukla. The aroma, just from the mung beans, is wonderful. I am so sensitive to aromas in the kitchen, it is part of the joy of cooking.
A few things from the weekend cookup. First, Rajma, a kidney bean curry. This was so awesome that I'll make it again soon. Not usually a great fan of kidney beans, this dish might have changed my mind.
I cooked the kidney beans in the #InstantPot, so easy and convenient, and perfectly cooked.
Gujarati Dal, another great dal from this book, made with toor dal. Again, the dal was cooked perfectly in the #InstantPot, to the point of disintegration - just how to cook it for Indian dishes as it develops s silky smooth texture at that point.
I cooked enough toor dal to put some in the freezer.
Once the lentils were cooked, the dish came together pretty easily with a tadka made first, then the lentils added
And finally, as well as plain rice, there was Kothmira rice (Chutney Pulao) which is a stunning rice dish made with peas and a coriander leaves-chilli fresh chutney. This has become a firm favourite.