Spiralizer Week: Day Three: Avocado-Basil Zucchini Noodles with Chilli-Lime Prawns and Corn

Wow, what a mouthful. In both senses! I really liked the cold sauce for this dish. It was interesting how it affected the texture of the zucchini noodles. The prawns were OK, but not that great; I think I'd rather serve this with some jerk chicken or fried fish. The corn was luscious, and I liked how its heat softened the zucchini noodles just a tad. For some reason, this is the only dish in months that has provoked my lovely SO to spontaneously exclaim how much he liked it. So -- a win!

Ingredients

• juice of one lime
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 ripe avocado, skinned and stone removed
• 1/4 cup yoghurt
• 12 basil leaves
• 1/2 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 corn on the cob
• 2-3 zucchinis, spiralized into noodles
• seasoned, barbecued fish or chicken, to serve

Method

Whiz the lime juice, salt, pepper, avocado, yoghurt, basil and garlic together in a blender. Barbecue or grill the corn until golden and tender. Cut the kernels from the corn and then mix with the sauce and zucchini noodles. Would serve really well with some freshly barbecued chicken or fish.

Stuffed Zucchini or Pumpkin Flowers

I made these just before I left for a trip to the US, abandoning my veggie garden just as it was bursting into flower. Fortunately there were far more pumpkin flowers than we could ever keep alive to turn into pumpkins, and making these was surprisingly simple. I have no idea where you would get them in Australia if you're not growing them yourself. If you do have a vegetable garden, it's worth growing a pumpkin vine just for the flowers. They're incredibly hardy vines with surprisingly good tolerance for heat, and will happily produce flowers from late spring all the way to early autumn. I've had less success with courgettes, although their flowers do work a tiny bit better for this, because the base of the flower (where it joins the stem) is less likely to be bitter.

Ingredients:

• 12 courgette or pumpkin flowers, picked just before they split and open
• 100-200g ricotta
• generous handfuls of basil
• zest of 1/3rd a lemon
• salt and pepper
• an egg, lightly beaten
• a couple of slices of bread, blitzed to breadcrumbs
• olive oil

Clean the flowers of any insects and dirt. Finely shred the basil and combine with the ricotta, then season to taste with salt and pepper. Combine the basil and lemon zest with the ricotta. Make a small hole in each flower, usually wherever they are about to split lengthwise first. Stuff each flower with ricotta, then press the flower petals back together. Dip in egg, then breadcrumbs to coat. Either bake for 12-15 minutes at 200C or deep fry for 2-3 minutes (in batches), depending on how decadent you're feeling.

Lazy Stuffed Peppers with Gorgonzola

Peppers are coming into season as the weather properly warms up, so I started looking around for recipes to use up the inevitable giant cheap bags at the market. I found this rather fiddly recipe that had an interesting flavour combination I hadn't tried before. I knew I couldn't be bothered with all that string nonsense, and doubly so when we found a big $1 bag of sweet pointed peppers just beginning to wrinkle into overripe territory. So we skipped all that stuffing malarky, and just bbq'd the peppers into tender, charred strips, made the stuffing separately and laid it over the top. Lovely!

Ingredients:

• 6 pointed or 4 bell peppers
• 50g pine nuts
• 2 garlic cloves
• 140g long grain rice
• 350g vegetable stock
• 4 spring onions
• 2 tomatoes
• handful each of parsley and basil
• 150g gorgonzola

Slice the peppers lengthwise and remove all the pith and seeds, but leave the stems on. If you are using large round bell peppers, slice them into thirds so that each piece can lie flat on the bbq. BBQ or grill for 5-20 minutes, skin-side-down, until the flesh is sweet and the edges are charred (the cooking time will depend strongly on the thickness and ripeness of the peppers, and the heat of your grill or bbq).

Meanwhile, dry-fry the pine nuts until golden, then set aside. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan and crush in the garlic, then tip in the rice thirty seconds after it starts to sizzle. Stir, fry for a further thirty seconds, then pour in the stock; cover and simmer until the rice is cooked. Finely dice the spring onions and herbs, and dice the tomatoes, then stir into the rice, replacing the lid to let everything wilt a little, and the flavours mingle.

When the peppers are done, place them on a serving plate, skin-side-down. Dice the Gorgonzola and stir it, and two-thirds of the pine nuts, through the rice, but don't completely combine the cheese; allow little pockets to remain. Tip the stuffing onto the peppers and scatter with the remaining pine nuts, and a few torn leaves of basil.

Cauliflower and Cashew Salad (with Pork Chop)

I can't remember where I picked up this recipe but it's one of my favourite ways of eating cauliflower. By being extremely careful not to overcook it, you can preserve its earthy, mealy flavour and freshen it with a spike of lemon juice and mustard. I love to pair it with soaked raisins for sweetness, toasted cashews for a sort of smokiness, and serve it with a freshly-grilled pork chop, only just done and dripping with hot juices. A dollop of mash is purely optional (as is the chop, for vegetarians).

Ingredients:

• Half a head of a large or a whole small cauliflower
• A generous handful of raisins
• A generous handful of cashews
• juice of a lemon
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp dijon mustard
• a small bunch of basil

Break the cauliflower into small florets and pop them in a steamer; steam for four minutes, then test every minute until just barely done, and remove from the heat immediately. They will continue to cook in their own heat. Soak the raisins in a little hot water. Toast the cashews over a low heat until brittle and crunchy. Combine the remaining ingredients and shake to form a dressing. Wash and tear the basil into a salad bowl. Drain the raisins and combine with everything else in the bowl; toss gently and serve while still warm.

Purple Salad (and Potato Rosti)

It's the end of the week and the fridge needs clearing out, so it's time to reinvent old recipes by substituting almost all of the ingredients! I also had a go at making a potato rosti, but the edges of my pan were too tall, so it was impossible to detach and flip cleanly. We'll buy a good skillet and sometime I'll put a recipe for rosti up.

Ingredients:

• 3 medium or 4 small beetroot
• a big handful of green beans
• 1-2 ripe avocados
• a few handfuls of salad leaves
• a generous handful of basil (chives would work too)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 4 tbsp white wine or cider vinegar
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 4 tbsp crème fraîche
• 1 tsp dijon mustard
• 1 tsp grain mustard

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Scrub, top and tail the beetroot and slice into wedges; peel if the skin is tough. Brush with olive oil and roast for an hour, until soft, sweet and caramelised. Top the green beans, halve and steam until green but not overdone: they will continue to cook after you remove them from the steamer. Peel and stone the avocadoes, and slice into wedges. Blend half of the basil and the rest of the ingredients in a food processor to make a thick dressing; taste and season.

When the beetroot are cooked, fold them gently with the beans, avocados and salad dressing until slightly but not totally combined (or everything will be bright magenta!). Serve immediately.

BBQ Snapper with Basil, Lime and Chilli

Back to the old butcher today - and they had a couple of huge snapper fillets for sale! Bit of a treat, so we picked them up along with the rest of our purchases, and I marinaded them before popping them on the barbie. We also had Sophie's pots, and the still-cheap-and-awesome-corn-on-the-cob.

Ingredients:

• one lime
• half a chilli
• a small bunch of basil
• a spring onion
• two large snapper fillets
• olive oil

Using a sharp knife, peeler, or zester, remove the zest from the lime and finely chop, along with the chilli, basil and spring onion. Coat the fillets with the mixture and drizzle over a little olive oil, and squeeze over the juice from half of the lime. Leave for at least half an hour, up to three hours (chill if the room is warm). BBQ for 4-5 minutes per side, until seared golden, and cooked all the way through.

10th Anniversary Dinner: Melon, Mozzarella and Basil Salad

Ten wonderful years with my lovely partner :) How better to celebrate than to cook a really delicious meal, pop a bottle of bubbly and watch The Muppets :)

This is a starter I'd been thinking about making since I saw a delicious honeydew melon for sale in the market at the weekend. It's super-simple.

Ingredients:

• half a good, ripe melon
• a tub of tiny bocconcini
• a few large, fragrant basil leaves
• very good olive oil

Spoon out the melon into small balls with a small ice cream scoop, a melon baller - or in my case, a spoon. Arrange with a few balls of bocconcini on a couple of basil leaves. Just before serving, drizzle with olive oil.

Honey and Soy Chicken Drumsticks

Super-husband actually made this on Monday, but I was so zonked from gliding that I forgot to take a photo. Fortunately he made loads, so we had more cold tonight, with some corn bread slathered in mayonnaise and a quick salad made of roasted peppers, torn basil and olive oil. The chicken was simply skinned, marinaded in soy sauce and honey, with a tsp of chilli flakes for a couple of hours, then bbq'd for about 20 minutes until cooked through. For the last five minutes, baste on a little more honey and then sprinkle over sesame seeds. (Or if you are a very funny man, uncooked quinoa...!)

Sticky Spare Ribs with Watermelon Salad

Saturday we went out for a huge birthday lunch for my cousin at a lovely winery. I had a massive slab of pork belly, which was totally yum, and then a giant Bombe Alaska, sprinkled with popping candy, which made for a very cool multi-sensory dessert! One of the sides during the meal really shined for me - a simple salad of cubed watermelon, torn basil, and feta cheese. I replicated it at home; it was hard to guess the dressing but in the end I went for the juice of half a lemon, between two people, and that was exactly right. Just a tiny touch of acidity to balance the sweetness of the watermelon.

At the local butcher's, I picked up a short rack of spare ribs, which we BBQd for five minutes a side, and basted frequently with sweet barbecue sauce, until totally caramelised and sticky. Plain white rice was all we needed to complete the meal, cooked as usual in a 2:1 water:rice ratio. I'm glad we went for a 40k cycle ride or it would all have been a bit too decadent!

Cannellini and Coppa salad

I followed this one from Nigel, and was a little disappointed. The flavours just didn't quite mesh the way I expected them to. It's possible that we added way too much spinach, but his portion sizes were just tiny, and I knew we'd be hungry, so I added eight handfuls instead of four. Or maybe we should have used watercress instead, which would have had a lot more flavour. I also found that the olives were so big that we ended up eating them individually, and they rather overwhelmed the subtle cannelloni and herbs. I've added a few suggestions to modify the original recipe, especially the dressing, which was much weaker than it should have been. I think the whole thing would work better with tomatoes instead of olives; maybe I'll try that in future. Oh and croutons are very good with this, preferably toasted with garlic since there's none in the dressing.

Ingredients:

This does NOT look like the version in Kitchen Diaries.

• a tin of cannellini beans
• a bag of mixed spinach, watercress and other flavourful leaves
• a large handful of basil leaves
• 75g thinly sliced coppa or prosciutto
• a handful of black olives, pitted and quartered, or, a handful of cherry tomatoes, pitted and quartered
• 6 tbsp olive oil
• 4 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp dijon mustard
• 1 tsp grain mustard
• 2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

Drain the beans, wash and spin the salad and basil leaves, and shake up all the dressing ingredients. Nigel suggests marinading the olives in the dressing but I found it made absolutely no difference since olives are so strongly-flavoured anyway. I'd just toss the whole lot together and top with croutons. Should be better with the mods :)

Rice Paper Rolls

I was amazed to find that I hadn't yet blogged this recipe, as it's become such a family favourite over the last few years. It's a meal best prepared by two or three people, as there are many stages that can be performed in parallel. After a couple of times making it, you'll find it takes less than an hour, and it's also a lot of fun!

Rice paper can be purchased in Asian grocery stores - usually one pack is enough for eight people, and costs only a few pounds / dollars. The rolls end up being about as long as half the diameter of the rice paper, so if you want small ones, buy small rice paper; large, buy large!

You can use whatever dipping sauce you like; I often use satay, but hoisin, plum or even just a little light soy sauce would all work perfectly. The filling ingredients can also be varied easily, and you don't need to make all of them the same. We often serve these rolls with hameul pajeon in a kind of Pan-Asian feast, but they work equally well with steamed rice or a light Asian-style salad, or just alone (and preferably, a bit smaller than shown here) as starters.

Instead of giving a guide to making an exact number of rolls (impossible!), I give examples of fillings, which you can use in equal volumes and just scale how much you cook depending on how many people you have. Don't feel like you need to include all of the ingredients, just pick the flavours you feel like using. The ones in the picture use carrot, cucumber, rice noodles, tonkatsu, mint and coriander.

Filling ingredients:

• fresh herbs: mint, coriander, basil
• cool crisp shredded vegetables: carrot, cucumber, lettuce
• protein: tonkatsu, cold shredded beef, crispy duck, cold lemon chicken, deep-fried marinaded tofu, fresh tofu, tamagoyaki (sweet Japanese omelette), cooked shitake mushrooms, cooked prawns
• carbs: cold rice, cold coconut rice, cold sweet rice, thick azuki bean paste, cooked rice noodles, fried rice noodles

You will also need:

• a stack of dry rice paper rounds
• hot water (boil a kettle and leave for at least 30 seconds)
• a frying pan, deep enough to take some hot water and wide enough to easily place in and remove the rice paper
• soft tongs, a wide slotted spatula, or asbestos fingers
• two large, clean, flat plates

Start by preparing all of your ingredients - wash and pick leaves from herbs, shred the vegetables, cook your protein and ready your carbs. It's helpful to arrange these in small bowls or plates around the work surface where you will be making the rolls. Prepare any dipping sauces ahead; chill if needed.

Pour hot water into your frying pan and place a single rice paper round in it. Leave for 30 seconds or so, until malleable, then remove using the tongs, spatula, or just your fingers. If it tears easily as you remove it, you have left it in too long, so discard and leave the next one in for less time. If it is not easily flexible and malleable, put it back in. If the water goes cold, discard it and refresh with new hot water. If you run out of water, top it up! It's really nice to have one person readying rice paper and one or two others filling the rolls.

Place the ready rice paper round on one of the plates and add your fillings. I found this beautiful guide to rolling them perfectly, so check it out if you're not sure how much to add or how to roll. When it's all rolled up, place on the other plate. If you need to wait before serving them, make sure to sprinkle them with water and cover with cling film, or cover with a very damp teatowel, so that they don't dry out. They will last several hours unserved, but if you refrigerate them over night, the rice paper has a tendency to stick to itself, so they may tear as you pull them apart. If you really needed to keep them and not let them tear, you could put cling film between each one, but it's a bit of a waste of plastic :) Just eat them and enjoy!

Pan-fried Emperor Fillets with Honey and Basil

The seafood here is very nice, although there don't seem to be many independent fishmongers around my area, and a lot of what you get in the supermarkets has been frozen. One thing that really threw us is that salmon is an expensive delicacy here, as opposed to being a cheap 'default' fish like it is in the UK. On the other hand there are lots of fish we would consider exotic readily available from any fish counter. One such is the emperor; I tried finding out exactly what species it is but haven't figured it out so far. The fillets are about 10cm long and less than 1cm thick, so pan-fry beautifully.

I first cooked this with my new heavy-based frying pan about a week after we had arrived, and was so excited, I forgot to take a photo before demolishing the plate! So this time I've recorded the results. We served these simply with mashed royal purple potatoes (a lovely variety you can get here, but any will do) and some steamed vegetables.

Ingredients:

• 1-2 emperor fillets per person
• a few tbsp of flour
• salt and pepper
• olive oil
• 2 tbsp honey
• a generous handful of basil

Check over the fillets for any spare bones etc. Season the flour and thoroughly coat the fillets, then shake off any excess. Heat a few tbsp of oil in a heavy-based non-stick frying pan until moderately hot and beginning to shimmer, but not smoke. Err on the side of less oil rather than more. Carefully add the fish fillets and fry until golden, turning once. Remove the fillets from the pan, turn off the heat, then add the honey and basil. Mix together with any remaining oil, warming the honey and basil mixture, until it just begins to pop and simmer. Remove from the heat and drizzle over the fish, serving with your poatotes and vegetables.

Trout with Honeyed Almonds

The SO is finally back from the US, so I took the day off to catch up - we missed our 9th anniversary together by two days so this was lovely recompense. We wandered into town on an amazingly warm spring day, enjoying the sun in sandals and shirtsleeves. From the as-always excellent market, we picked up enough food for the next few days, including two trout from the fishmonger, a rare treat for a midweek supper. They were so fresh they looked almost alive, and when washing them it felt like they were trying to jump out of our hands!

Almonds are a classic accompaniment to trout; here I add a couple of extra ingredients which I recalled went well in the past. Don't neglect the basil; it really does add another dimension of flavour. This would work well served with pasta with a little crème fraîche, or wild rice, or even just a crusty loaf of bread. But after the sun went down, the day became a little cooler, and we decided to split a baked potato to keep ourselves warm. Any greens will do but we used the last of the chard, cooked for minutes in its own juices and pillow-soft.

Ingredients:

• Two whole trout, heads and tail-fins removed if desired
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 thin slices of butter
• plain flour
• 100g flaked almonds
• 2 tbsp honey
• juice of half a lemon
• a medium bunch of basil, stalks removed

Clean the trout thoroughly, then dip it in a tray of plain flour and shake off the excess. Heat one of the slices of butter and the tbsp of olive oil in a heavy-based non-stick frying pan, stirring to combine them as the butter melts. When the butter is just popping, lay the two trout in the pan. Fry over a gentle heat for 7 minutes per side, or until the flesh is cooked and falling off the bone.

When the trout are done, place on plates with your accompaniments. Wipe out the non-stick pan with kitchen roll, then drop in the other slice of butter. When this has melted, add the almonds and sautee until they are golden-brown. Meanwhile, combine the honey and lemon juice throughly in a bowl. Pout this mixture over the almonds and switch the heat off. Throw in the basil leaves and stir, allowing the liquid to reduce by about a third. Then pour over the trout, and serve immediately. A glass of white wine would not go amiss :)