Carrot and Apple Salad

Somehow we ended up with a couple of kilograms of carrots and apples hanging around the fridge, and I remembered this classic salad combination. It's fast, fresh, crunchy, and it even keeps for a week in the fridge. I also like it in a sandwich, particularly with blue cheese, although I imagine cheddar would work well, too.

Ingredients

• 2-3 tbsp sesame seeds
• 4 carrots
• 1-2 sharp apples
• a handful of raisins
• juice of half a lemon
• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Dry-fry the sesame seeds until they are golden and fragrant. Shred the carrots using a tower grater. You can shred the apple too, but I prefer it finely diced or julienned, and find the salad is less soggy that way. Combine the lemon juice, vinegar, sugar, salt and olive oil, and crush in the garlic clove, then whisk together until emulsified. Toss the carrots, apples, raisins, sesame seeds and dressing together; serve cold or at room temperature.

Kangaroo Bobotie

This is some real fusion food -- a South African national dish made with the Australian national animal! It turned out pretty well, but it had a sort of colonial feel to it -- something like a shepherd's pie that has been improvised using unexpected local ingredients. Tasty, but I think I prefer mousakka, as this felt a bit protein-heavy and the sweetness made it rather same-y. Maybe I'll play around with the recipe a bit more til I find a version I like. There are hundreds of different variations online!

Apple Turnover

One of my colleagues at work regularly buys enormous decadent pastries for "lunch dessert", from the local patisserie. He let me try a bite of his apple turnover, which was taller than it was wide! It consisted of a puff pastry base, then inch-thick layers of pie apple, custard, and whipped cream, topped at least with a puff pastry hat. It was amazing.

I knew that sitting at home was a bag of extremely cheap apples, which had not turned out very good for eating. I resolved to make apple turnovers to use them up and satisfy my craving for such an awesome dessert. While you could add custard and cream to these, they're more of a simple quick dessert that you can serve hot, with an added side of ice cream. I've written instructions for just two turnovers, but they're easy to make in large batches, as long as you have enough oven trays.

Ingredients

• two eating apples
• 1 tbsp of lemon juice
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• a sheet of ready-made puff pastry

Core, peel and dice the apples, dropping into the lemon juice as you go, to prevent browning. Stir in the sugar and cornflour, then microwave for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the apple has softened and the cornflour has thickened the juices.

Preheat the oven to 200C and lay out a greased or silicone-lined baking tray. Cut the sheet of pastry into two rectangular halves. Lay out one half and spoon half of the apple mixture onto one side of it. Fold the other side over the top and press the edges together all around, so the pastry sticks together. Prick the top a couple of times with a fork. Do the same for the other piece of pastry, with the rest of the mixture.

Bake for 15 minutes or so, until risen, golden and crispy. Serve immediately, with vanilla ice cream.

Pot-Roast Pork with Pears and Apples

Another winter, another conference season of failing to post! And before that, kitchen renovations; and before that, moving house! So, I'll try to get back into posting. Maybe a less ambitious target would be one new recipe a week? At least now that I have so many of my fallbacks posted.

During the move I took the time to reorganise my recipe file, which meant I found some recipes I had set aside meaning to try, but had forgotten about. Most come from the Observer, but British recipes often work poorly here because of the warm climate. Fortunately it's moderately cool at the moment, so I broke out a really gorgeous pot roast originally from Nigel in November 2009. I didn't expect much because the few times I have roasted pork, it's been dry and boring, but this pot roast was a revelation! I also simplified the recipe because in my experience, all that turning and browning at the start is totally pointless. I chucked in some fennel tops (the stalky bits that stay tough no matter what you do) to give the liquor a bit more flavour, and it seemed like a good way to use them up. This serves six with leftovers.

Ingredients

• a couple of medium onions
• 4-6 pears or apples
• 2kg piece of pork on the bone
• 400ml perry or cider
• a couple of bay leaves
• a few sticks of celery or leftover fennel tops (optional)

Set the oven to 200C. Peel, halve, and slice the onions. Core the pears/apples and cut into thick wedges. Pop the pork into a large oven-proof casserole dish (I use a Le Creuset) along with the pears/apples, onion, cider, bay leaves, and fennel tops if using. Cover and roast in the oven for about 90 minutes, or until the pork is cooked. (If it's leg, the meat will still be dark, but will have lost that 'squeaky' uncooked quality.)

You can rest the roast and serve it up, or (my favourite), put the whole thing in the fridge and serve a day later, with the pork cold and shredded, and the cooked apples and onions briefly reheated in the microwave, then seasoned. The pork works excellently with mashed potatoes and braised red cabbage.

Kale and Apple Salad

One thing I'll say about no frost here is that it makes kale a premium, exotic ingredient. Instead of being a huge prickly vegetable so tough you either need to boil it or feed it to a pig, it's packed up like salad and is so tender you can eat it raw. A rather tasty way of doing so is to combine it with some mandolined apple and a handful of chopped dried fruits and nuts (e.g. raisins and almonds, as we did) and dressed simply with lemon juice and olive oil.

You still have to shred it finely, and it takes more of a chew than lettuce, but it's pretty filling, especially with a couple of boiled potatoes to give the sharp salad a contrast. If you want a bit more protein, feel free to shave over some feta, goats' cheese, or even parmesan.

Bangers with Apple Sauce

I really don't think I'll spell out the details on this one. Apple sauce is just a peeled, cored apple, chopped roughly and cooked in a pan for a couple of minutes, until mashable. Then whisk it around with a fork for a minute or so and you're done! Great at the end of the week when you've run out of energy and, apparently, food.

Pork with Waldorf Topping

This is a dish my mum always makes, and I can't remember if it has a 'proper' name. However the topping for the pork is very similar to the ingredients to a Waldorf salad, minus the mayonnaise, so that's what I've named it here. We usually use pork chops, but I really don't know why, as the topping makes it hard to see where the meat, fat and bone are, and they take awhile to cook through. So I think this recipe is best with a long strip of pork loin, and the topping packed tightly around it - a bit like a roast, but with the stuffing on the outside. (Apologies for the poor photograph, I'll try to take a better one next time.)


Ingredients:

• 300g strip of pork loin or fillet
• two slices of bread
• 2 small eating apples
• 3 sticks celery
• 2 generous handfuls of walnut pieces
• salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 190C. Lay the pork out in a baking dish, with a bare smear of vegetable oil underneath it to prevent it sticking. Whiz the bread in a blender to produce breadcrumbs. Dice, or core and finely slice the apples, Finely dice the celery and roughly chop the walnuts, if they are in large pieces. Combine the topping ingredients together, season well, drizzle with olive oil and toss thoroughly. Pack around the pork in the baking dish and roast for 25-35 minutes, until the pork is done to your liking and the topping is crisp.

Sausages with Apple Rings (and photo)

Last time I blogged this, I neglected to include a photo - so here you are :) This time I made a potato-and-sweet-potato mash, and served it all simply with peas. Yum!

English Apple and Blackberry (Birthday) Cake

This started life as a Nigel Slater recipe which I employed to use up the large number of Newton Wonder apples which fell from a tree in our garden. Every day of October, one could pick up 10-15 fallen apples, most in good nick but a few with bruises or pecked by the birds or worms. These latter apples would be used up in delicious cakes and crumbles, or frozen for later. I ended up bringing extra cake to events at college and in to work!

I'm trying to run down the freezer at the moment and I remembered I still had a few frozen apples. I didn't have quite enough for this cake so I went halves with some frozen blackberries, and it worked perfectly. So my advice would be to experiment and try different kinds of fruit; you're bound to make something new and exciting every time. The occasion of the cake today was my lovely fiancee's birthday :)

Ingredients:

• 130g butter
• 130g golden caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 130g plain flour
• 1 large eating apple, cored and sliced
• 100g blackberries
• ground cinnamon
• 2 tbsp demerara sugar

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line the base of a square 20-24cm cake tin with a piece of greaseproof paper large enough to come up past the sides. Cream together the butter and sugar, then add the eggs and again beat well. Sift in the flour and baking powder. Scrape the mixture into the lined tin, and cut off any excess paper from above the sides. Drop the apples and blackberries on top and scatter with a dash of ground cinnamon and the demerara sugar. Bake for 45 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Leave for 10 minutes and then serve warm; eat within 2 days for best flavour.

Sausages with Apple Rings

This is my auto-pilot way of cooking sausages. I often leave them til later in the week, and I like to make sure they're cooked completely through if they've been in the fridge for a few days. Braising ensures they're piping hot throughout, and gives a delicious gravy, which is perfect with fluffy mashed potato & parsnip, and some greens like brocolli, cabbage or peas. With accompaniments, this serves two people who love apple rings!

Ingredients:

• 4-6 high-quality sausages
• 2 small onions
• 2 small eating apples
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 250ml nice cider
• 1 tbsp or capful of cider vinegar

Fry the sausages over a medium heat in a deep frying pan. Don't worry if they explode a bit, or stick to the pan: those nubbly sticky bits will be delicious later. Brown the sausages on all sides, making sure the skin goes from stretchy pink to golden brown. Meanwhile, peel and slice the onions into fine rings (about 1-2mm across). Remove the sausages from the pan, and add the onions, and a little oil if needed. Scrape the nice sticky bits off the bottom as you go. Fry the onions until well-cooked, about 10 minutes, turning occasionally so they don't stick to the pan. Meanwhile, core the apples and slice into thick rings (about six rings per apple, then they tesselate nicely in the pan!). Remove the onions and replace with the apples, frying for two minutes on each side until golden brown. Remove when done.

Now return the onions and sausages to then pan, and add the flour on top, stirring it in to coat the onions. Then pour in the cider and cider vinegar, deglazing any last caramelisation from the bottom of the pan. Cover and cook on a low heat for 15 minutes. (Now is a good time to set your potatoes and greens going.) Then add the apples back to the pan, cover and cook for another five minutes. Season with black pepper and enjoy!