Quick(er) Zucchini and Potato Fritters

Juggling work and the daycare drop-off is tiring, and when I get home I'm less than inspired to cook. I have tried saving myself some hassle by ordering a vegetable box online, but was really disappointed with the first one I tried. Even though it's the middle of summer, I was given loads of potatoes, onions, and carrots, and only small amounts of interesting veg. (What do you do with eight mushrooms? EIGHT!)

Amongst my kilogram of potatoes was a single zucchini. What to do, what to do... fritters! But I couldn't face cooking the potatoes, mashing them, etc etc. And I vaguely recalled totally failing to make a swiss dish involving frying raw potatoes. So I figured someone else must have gone through this before. And someone had! So here's something loosely based on their ideas -- the main thing to mimic was thoroughly squeezing the liquid out of the potato (not so much the zucchini, surprisingly) before you start.

Ingredients

• 2 medium potatoes
• 1 zucchini
• 4 spring onions
• 50-75g feta cheese
• 1-2 tbsp flour
• 1 tsp paprika
• a handful of finely-chopped herbs, especially mint and parsley
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Grate the potatoes using a tower grater. Put in a colander or sieve and squeeze the liquid out: I find using my hands is the best way to do it. Shred the zucchini in the same way. Finely dice the spring onions and crumble the feta cheese. Combine all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Fry dollops of the mixture in olive oil, pushing down with a spatula to make them no more than 1cm thick, so the potato cooks well; fry 3-4 minutes each side, until golden and cooked through.

Seafood Chowder

I got back from Boston with a craving for MORE CHOWDER. I really should have a go at making a cob loaf to serve this in, but homemade breadmaker sourdough will have to suffice until the weather is cool enough to switch the oven on. This is also not as heart-attack-inducing as a proper Boston seafood chowder and can be eaten as lunch or dinner without pre-charging the defibrillator. If you want to up the ante, double the flour, reduce the stock to the absolute minimum that covers the vegetables, and top up with double the listed amount of the thickest cream you can find, just before serving. I can never make just enough for two so this (with bread) will do for four people.

Ingredients:

• 1 onion or leek
• 100g lardons OR smoked fish
• 1 medium carrot
• 1 stick celery
• 3 potatoes
• a bay leaf
• 1 tbsp flour
• 750ml litre chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 corn cobs, or a tin of sweet corn
• 500g marinara mix (a mix of white fish, salmon, squid, peeled prawns, and mussels)
• 200ml thickened or double cream
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• a bunch of fresh parsley

Method:
Peel or clean and finely chop the onion or leek. Fry in a deep pan in a little butter or olive oil until translucent and soft. If using the lardons, add at the same time as the onions, so they cook and turn golden. (Don't add smoked fish at this stage!) Meanwhile, dice the carrot, celery and potatoes (no need to peel them). Add the vegetables and the bay leaf to the cooked onions, stir in the flour, then pour over the stock; bring up to a simmer and then allow the vegetables to cook to just past al dente -- about 10-12 minutes. If you like your potato to be falling apart, cook a little longer. Slice the corn off the cob (or drain the tin) and add, along with the marinara mix, and the smoked fish if using. Bring back up to temperature and allow to cook through, a matter of minutes for the fish and the corn. (Be particularly careful not to boil any squid in the marinara mix for more than 30 seconds, or it will go tough!) Once the fish is cooked through, stir in the cream and bring back up to temperature, but do not allow the chowder to boil. Serve in a cob or in bowls, scattered over with finely chopped parsley.

Sali Murghi (Chicken and Apricot Curry with Matchstick Potatoes)

Happy New Year!

I have no good excuses for not posting. I was lazy at the end of November, in the US for most of December, and then ate nothing but BBQ and leftover Christmas ham during the holiday break. Yesterday saw the seventh-hottest day ever recorded in Perth, so all I could face was the usual Thai beef salad, thrown together from whatever salad vegetables I had, plus half a bag of fresh beansprouts and a big bunch of mint, for extra cooling effect. Nice to use a post-BBQ extra T-bone steak as well; never have I had such deliciously chilled and soft beef.

Anyway! Last year, just before I left for the States, a surprise present arrived from a friend in the UK: Rick Stein's India, a really fantastic compilation of Indian recipes from all over the subcontinent. On Sunday I decided to try out one of the more challenging looking recipes, sali murghi, or chicken and apricot curry with potato straws. The ingredients list is moderately long, but of course the spices are essential. We found that they combined beautifully with the apricots and other vegetables to form a thick and sweet-sour sauce that complemented the chicken and potatoes perfectly. From a single chicken, there was easily enough for six people, or for us, two dinners and two lunches. (We had the second dinner with perfect pilaf rice and quick-friend coconut vegetables.)

Ingredients
For the matchstick potatoes (sali):

• 250g of Chat (or other chipping/new) potatoes, julienned and soaked in cold water for at least 15 minutes
• a deep fryer or heavy-based pan full of vegetable oil for deep frying
• salt

For the curry:

• vegetable oil
• 8 black peppercorns
• 6 cloves
• 3 green cardamom pods, lightly bruised with a rolling pin
• 2 dried chillies
• 4cm piece of cinnamon stick
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 100g tomatoes (about 1 large, or 2 small), finely chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• a thumb of ginger, finely grated
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1.5 tsp ground cumin
• 1.5 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 chicken, jointed into 8 pieces (get the butcher to do it!)
• 2 tsp jaggery, palm sugar, or brown sugar
• 150g dred apricots
• 3 tbsp white wine vinegar
• handful of fresh coriander, leaves torn off

Bruise the whole spices in a mortar and pestle and fry in a large casserole / Le Creuset for a minute until fragrant. Add the onion, turn the heat down, and fry for 10 min until softened and golden. Stir in the tomatoes, salt, ginger, garlic, cumin, coriander and turmeric, and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the chicken pieces to the pan and turn in the spce mixture, then add the sugar, apricots and vinegar.

(At this point, Stein suggests adding enough water to cover; if you do this, you will likely need to remove the cooked chicken and then vigorously boil down/reduce the sauce for ~10 minutes at the end, unless perhaps you remove the lid, but then the chicken may cook unevenly. I suggest instead adding 200ml of water, covering, and turning over the chicken pieces a few times until they are cooked, and leaving the lid off for the last 15 minutes of cook time.)

Bring to the boil, lower the heat, cover the pan and simmer for 30-40 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce is reduced. Meanwhile, drain the potatoes, dry in a colander, and deep-fry at 180C for 2-3 minutes per batch until crisp and golden. Drain on kitchen paper and season with salt, then use to top to the finished curry, along with the coriander leaves.

Mega Veggie Breakfast: Hash Browns

I prefer to shop once a week, since I just don't have much time in the evenings, and the challenge of extending the same shop through the week often prompts me to try different meals in order to use up the food while it's at its best. However, I also like starting my weekend with a proper cooked breakfast, rather than the bowls of cereal we have through the week. Sometimes it's toast, often it's pancakes or waffles, but every so often I want a proper English breakfast.

This week, I had the craving, but hadn't really done anything to justify pigging out on... well, pig. Also, the fridge was at Peak Bareness. So, I put together this Mega Veggie Breakfast :) The dregs of buttermilk were enough for pancakes from The Joy of Cooking, beans came from a tin, avocados I'd left ripening on the counter all week finally got sliced, there were leftover fried mushrooms from dinner, I poached eggs in the microwave (only one explosion), and made my first home-made hash browns. I used this recipe, modifying it for the two golf-ball size potatoes I had left in the fridge. Despite the tiny amount of potato, it made four hash browns - enough for two people as part of this breakfast. So you'll really make loads if you follow their instructions and use six medium potatoes!

Ingredients

• 6 medium (about 1.2kg) desiree potatoes, peeled
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• 1 egg, lightly whisked
• Pinch of salt
• Vegetable oil, to shallow-fry
• Select all ingredients

Coarsely grate the potatoes into a colander. Use your hands to squeeze out as much excess liquid as possible -- this is really, really important, so give it some welly!

In a large mixing bowl, combine the grated potato, flour, egg and salt, and stir until well-combined. Make flattened cakes with the potato mixture -- the thinner you make them, the faster they will cook, and the less oil you will use.

If you're feeling fancy, use a deep fryer to cook the hash browns. If you're feeling like you want to live a few days longer, use as much oil as it takes to cover the bottom third of the hash browns, and flip them once the underside is golden brown. Drain on kitchen towel and serve as quickly as possible, dusted with a little more salt.

Wagamama Week: Yasai Korroke

At last! A successful recipe - something I might try again! Shame the ingredients list will be the longest I have ever posted :) I have given up revising their quantities in the ingredients list, and just written the ones that I used. For once the original recipe didn't make enough food, and while I'm willing to try making too much, I'm not willing to go hungry for the sake of following the recipe!

Ingredients:
Amai sauce:

• 1tbsp malt vinegar
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1 1/2 tbsp tomato ketchup
• 2 tsp tamarind paste

Salad dressing:

• 1 tsp finely chopped shallot
• 1/2" piece of fresh ginger root, peeled and grated
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1/2 tbsp tomato ketchup
• 50ml vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 tbsp light soy sauce

Vegetable cakes:

• oil for deep-frying
• 2 large potatoes
• 1 medium sweet potato
• 50g frozen peas
• 75g tinned sweetcorn, drained
• 1 small onion
• 1 red chilli
• 3-4 tbsp plain flour
• 1 egg
• 75g fine breadcrumbs

Salad:

• half a bag of mixed salad
• 1/2 red pepper
• 10g dried wakame

Microwave the vinegar, sugar and soy sauce until the sugar has dissolved, then whisk in the rest of the amai sauce ingredients and set aside to cool. In a separate bowl, whisk together the salad dressing ingredients and set aside as well.

Peel and chop the potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Boil the potatoes for 12 minutes; add the sweet potatoes after 3-4 minutes so they are done at the same time. Drain very well, and cover with a teatowel to absorb the moisture. When reasonably dry, mash roughly with a fork, then stir in the peas and sweet corn and set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, peel and finely chop the onion, and trim and deseed the chilli (or leave the seeds in, if you like the kick). Fry in a few tbsp of vegetable oil at a low heat, until soft and fragrant. Stir into the potato mixture. Using your hands, form the mixture into small cakes, and then dip into the flour, the egg, and then the breadcrumbs, and deep-fry at 180C for 4-5 minutes until crisp and golden. If the cakes are too fragile, chill them for an hour and then fry them slightly longer.

Meanwhile, finely-slice the red pepper and rehydrate the wakame. Toss with the salad leaves and dressing, then serve the cakes on top of the salad.

Verdict:
Ahh, this was a breath of fresh air. Crisp, delicate vegetable cakes that were surprisingly light and more complex than the sum of their parts. A salad dressing that looked thoroughly unappetising and unbalanced, but shined when combined with the crisp red pepper and earthy seaweed. I couldn't keep track of the quantities I adjusted this time: they suggested 50g of dried wakame go into the salad... that would be like one of the serving bowls entirely filled with wakame. And while this recipe nestles happily in the middle of the vegetarian main meal section, where the recipes seem balanced for 3-4 people despite being advertised for two, the original would only just have fed one. Strange book; it's like they went into the kitchens and tried to guess what quantities of raw ingredients went into each meal, rather than asking one of the chefs.

BBQ Stuffed Potato Skins

I'd been craving this for a while, for some reason. They were a meal in themselves - although we had a little side salad to offset the sheer decadence of the carb-fat-bacon-tastic skins :)

Ingredients

• six medium roasting or baking potatoes
• 4 full rashers of bacon (or 8 streaky, or 3 back)
• a small bunch of chives or two spring onions
• 100ml sour cream
• 120g cheddar or soft blue cheese

Put the potatoes in a pot just large enough to take them all, and top up with boiling water. Simmer for 15 minutes, until just soft enough to pierce with a fork. Remove and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, BBQ, grill or fry the bacon until crispy, then crumble; finely chop the chives or spring onions. Slice the potatoes in half lengthwise and scoop out the cooked flesh, putting it in a glass bowl. Leave a 2-10mm border of cooked potato in the skins, and try not to tear them.

Mash the potatoes and sour cream together in the bowl; stir in the chives/onions and crumbled bacon. Spoon back into the skins, packing the mixture in well. Top with a little grated cheddar or a knob of soft blue cheese. Brush a hot BBQ plate with olive oil and pop the potatoes on for 5-10 minutes, until the cheese has melted and the skins are crispy. (Alternatively, put in a hot oiled roasting tin and roast for 10-15 minutes.)

Alu Gobi Bhaji (Spicy Fried Potato and Cauliflower)

Another one adapted from my Giant Asian Cookbook: a quick and simple curry that we served with delicious spinach and yoghurt.

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp of ghee or oil
• 1 tsp black mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp asfoetida
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
• 1 large garlic clove, crushed
• a thumb of fresh ginger, finely grated or chopped
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 small head cauliflower
• 2 potatoes
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• fresh coriander, to garnish

Fry the mustard seeds in the oil over a low heat until they start to pop. Add the asfoetida, chilli (if using), garlic and ginger and stir-fry until golden. Break the cauliflower into florets and dice the potato - it can help to leave the cauliflower a bit large and make the potato quite small, to even out the cooking time. Add the turmeric, salt, cauliflower, potato and 60ml of water and cook for 10-15 minutes, or until the potato and cauliflower are tender. Sprinkle with garam masala, top with coriander leaves and serve.

Potato and Cheese Polpettes

Here's an alternative vegetarian barbeque burger to the ubiquitous bean burgers. Not sure I'd want to serve them in a bun: better with a sweet and spicy chutney, some gorgeous steaky portabellas and plenty of black pepper.

Ingredients:
5-6 medium mashing potatoes
250g feta cheese
4 spring onions
4 tbsp chopped fresh dill (or mint, if you prefer)
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp lemon juice


(Peel the potatoes if you like - I don't.) Wash, cube and simmer them until soft, then mash, allowing plenty of steam to escape - for once you want this to be a kind of dry mash. While it cools a little, finely chop the spring onions and herbs, then add them to the potato, season with plenty of black pepper and stir well. Stir in the egg and lemon juice. Finally, crumble in the feta and fold gently to combine. Cover and refrigerate the mixture for an hour or so. Then divide into little balls and flatten them slightly. Brush with olive oil, then barbeque on the grill or hotplate for a few minutes each side, until golden brown and hot through. (We might use a lower heat and more oil next time!)

Beef and Ale Stew

This week I have a plan, and it involves stretching a kilo of cheap beef across three very tasty meals. The trick with cheap cuts of beef is to simmer them for a long time, until the gristly fatty connective tissue breaks down and becomes a thickener for the sauce. By this point the meat itself is tender and falling apart. Wonderful!

First off is the world's simplest stew, something I can always throw together if I have just a few minutes to do the preparation before I go do an hour's work -- or telecon as is usually the case on Tuesdays. Tomorrow I want to use the remaining stew in Cornish pasties, but tonight it's just as-is, with delicious fresh bread spread thickly with margarine to dip in. This recipe serves six if you were to eat it all straight away.

Ingredients:

• 1kg diced beef
• two large brown onions
• a couple of bay leaves
• 500-600ml dark ale (so a pint or a demi depending on your country of origin)
• 15 shallots (optional)
• two large carrots
• four potatoes
• two large tomatoes
• 300g frozen peas (optional)

Chuck the beef in a large heavy-lidded casserole pot (e.g. a Le Creuset) and fry for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, finely dice the onions. Once the meat is a little browned on the outside, add the onions and bay leaves and fry for a further 3-4 minutes, until the onion has lost its raw smell. Pour in the ale and bring up to a simmer; allow to cook uncovered until it stops frothing. If you're using the shallots, cut off the root and peel them, and drop them whole into the stew. Cover and simmer for an hour, checking halfway through to stir and make sure it is not looking dry.

After an hour, check a piece of meat - it should slice easily with a knife, and any fat should be transparent and wobbly. If the meat is still tough or the fat is white and stringy, simmer for a further half hour and check again. Meanwhile, scrub and cube the carrots and potatoes; finely dice the tomatoes. Add to the pan, cover and simmer for a further twenty minutes, until the carrots and potatoes are soft. If using the peas, pour directly into the stew, stir to cover, and simmer for 2-3 minutes until sweet. Chcek the stew for seasoning; it may need 1-2 tsp of salt and a good grinding of pepper. Serve with hot fresh bread.

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.

Courgette and Potato Cakes with Carrot and Bean Salad

It's "winter" here - absolutely nothing has changed in terms of weather, which is still a glorious sunny 25-30C, but our electricity supplier has flipped 'peak' time from 11am-5pm to 5pm-9pm. So generally I avoid using the oven in the evenings, or at least I will until the house gets cold enough that I'd like a little extra heat. (It happens. For like... two or three days in the year!) So I've avoided making these little cakes because they're definitely best done in the oven, and ours is a bit of a power-hungry monster.

At the weekend the electricity is cheap all the time, so today I figured, why not? They're originally a Delia recipe, but over the years I've made a few modifications until they worked well for me.  We served them with a simple salad made from a carrot and a tin of beans, with a mustardy-garlic dressing and a few coriander leaves. Can you tell that I'm not doing the shopping until tomorrow? :)

Ingredients:

• two large courgettes
• two medium potatoes
• a 200g block of feta
• a medium bunch of mint
• one egg
• 3-4 tbsp flour
• salt and black pepper

Using a large tower grater, grate the courgette into long strands. Sprinkle over a tsp of salt and pop them into a sieve over a bowl or saucepan, then put a plate on top and something heavy on top of that. Leave for at least ten minutes, preferably for an hour - green water will start dripping out of the sieve. Squeeze the remaining water out with your hands - I got about 300ml just from two courgettes! Ignore Delia's advice to put them in a teatowel... you will NEVER get all the bits of courgette off the towel!

Meanwhile, grate the potatoes, then blanch in boiling water in a saucepan for five minutes. Drain thoroughly, washing once with cold water to cool them down. Strip the leaves from the mint and wash if necessary. Crumble the feta. Add the courgette, potato, feta, mint and egg to a large bowl, season well with black pepper, and sprinkle with the flour. Combine together with a couple of forks. If there is still excess water or the mixture is not coming together, add some more flour.

Between your palms, make little cakes out of the mixture - I made 12 with the above ingredients. Put on a baking tray and roast for 45 minutes in a 200C oven, until golden brown and crispy on the outside.

BBQ Kangaroo Steaks, Salad and Sauteed Potatoes

Not much to report beyond the awesomeness of my husband. A couple of kangaroo steaks seared on the barbie, sauteed potatoes, and a man-salad of rocket, tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, toasted pine nuts and croutons. Tasty, simple and great after Zumba!

BBQ Duck

Such a joy to come home and find that my wonderful husband has BBQd a whole duck, splitting it right down the breastbone so it cooked in just over an hour. Perfect roast potatoes (in a tray on the bbq, in duck fat, of course), steamed broc, and a couple spoonfuls of sweetly acidic stewed plums complemented the succulent fatty duck legs and wings.

Sophie's BBQ'd Potatoes

This is a great way of preparing potatoes for the barbie, although you may have to allow a potato or two for wastage if you don't get the temperature exactly right :)

A little charcoal is good for you!

Ingredients:

• 4-5 potatoes
• olive oil
• 6-7 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly slices
• 4-5 sprigs of rosemary

Cut the potatoes into large pieces width-ways and parboil, then cool and slice into thick pieces. Lay them out on a large piece of aluminum foil, and glug over a bit of olive oil, the garlic and the rosemary. Combine gently and then put another piece of foil over the top, and fold over the edges, so you have a neat flat parcel. Roast on the barbeque for 10 minutes per side, checking each time to make sure the potatoes aren't burning (too much).

Sophie's Pots with BBQ'd barramundi and a simple salsa.

A French-ish Salad

The weather has taken a turn for the hotter - MUCH hotter. Yesterday we feasted on Thai beef salad in a comfortable 28C; today the mercury hit 34C and we took beef satay to a riverside barbecue. All beefed out and sunstroked at home, we wanted nothing more than a super veggie hit - preferably with a salty, mustardy dressing. I whipped up a French "ish" salad; all of the ingredients are as  you'd expect to get in Provence... but I'm not sure the serving style there would be quite so "rustique".

Ingredients

• 10 quails eggs, or two hen's eggs (Yes, yes, I'm the sort of person who just has quail's eggs lying around in the pantry. Deal with it.)
• two white potatoes, scrubbed
• half a bunch of asparagus
• a tomato
• a few giant leaves of lettuce
• a handful of olives
• a couple of anchovies
• a handful of sprouting seeds or other mild lettuce
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• juice of half a lemon
• one generous tsp dijon mustard
• one flat tsp grain mustard
• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
• salt and pepper

Simmer the eggs for 5-10 minutes, until hard-boiled, then run under cold water, peel, and slice in half. Slice the potatoes into thick rounds, and simmer for 10-12 minutes, until tender. Snap the asparagus and cut into bite-sized pieces, and steam for five minutes, until tasty and bright green. Halve the tomato, slice again lengthwise, then cut into thin slices. Pit and halve the olives (olive-pitter from the wedding list is AWESOME). Roughly shred the lettuce, and add with the anchovies and the rest of the solid ingredients to a nice big salad bowl.

Whisk the olive oil, lemon juice, mustards and vinegar together in a jug or jar, then taste and season. Pour over the salad and toss well, then serve immediately.

Potato and Rocket Soup

Our shipment from the UK arrived at last, and after half a day spent supervising and unpacking, I was absolutely exhausted. This was a quick throw-together to use up the last of the chicken stock and the very spicy rocket I bought earlier in the week. It turned out ok, but like all blended potato-based soup, it was really quite bland. I cheekily spiced it up with a bit of pesto and creme fraiche.

Ingredients

• half a white onion
• three white potatoes, scrubbed
• 500ml of good chicken stock (vegetarians obviously substitute vegetable stock)
• 200g rocket
• green (basil or rocket) pesto
• creme fraiche

Finely chop the onion and potatoes and fry them in a little olive oil for five minutes. Add the stock, and simmer for ten minutes, until the potatoes are cooked. Add the rocket and blend with a hand blender. Taste and season - it may well need a fair amount of salt, and maybe a splash of lemon juice. Serve swirled with green pesto and creme fraiche.

Potato Salad

Lunch today was with the Oz side of the family, hosted by my lovely cousin on the other side of town. It was a lovely meal, shoulder of lamb with all the trimmings, including way more new potatoes than even the nine of us could eat. I took the extras home with me in a plastic tub, and this evening they served as a shortcut to my potato salad, which I have refined over the years to absolute perfection.

My cousin departs tomorrow for another trip into the outback - and so will I, on Friday. I'll be away for nearly two weeks, but hopefully will be able to keep up the writing while I'm gone - although I might not be able to update until I'm back. In the meantime, the recipe! Tonight we ate this with simply sauteed leeks and golden brown sausages from the butcher. It's really good with anything barbeque'd.

Ingredients:

• 300-400g potatoes (preferably a waxy variety, baby, or new potatoes)
• half a carrot
• a generous bunch of celery or parsley leaves
• 3 tbsp mayonnaise
• juice of half a lemon
• 1 tbsp dijon mustard

Cut the potatoes into bite-size pieces and simmer the potatoes until tender, but not falling apart - about 10-15 minutes. Run them under cold water or put in the refrigerator to cool down. (WA water conservation kicking in here!) Coarsely grate the carrot, and finely chop the leaves. Mix the cool potatoes, carrot and celery leaves in a large bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Taste, and add more mayonnaise if you like it creamier, or more lemon if you like it sharper. Keeps for a few days in the fridge, but is best served after making, at a cool rather than cold temperature.

Artichoke and Soft-boiled Egg Salad

Apologies for the lack of updates but I have been in Croatia, first at a conference and then for a short holiday! I was hoping to write a long post about Croatian food, but while it was all very fresh and delicious, the Northern Dalmatian cuisine was not particularly innovative or exciting. Mostly it was grilled fish or squid served with a simple salad, and potatoes or fries, or pizza with any sort of random topping - we even had one with kidney beans!

So when we returned we'd had that typical holiday experience where the only vegetables you've managed to eat for a week are the side salads, and you start to feel just a teensy bit scurvy. So we had a big salad of all sorts of tasty things, with a strong storecupboard emphasis as we're preparing to move house!

Ingredients:

• a 400g tin of artichoke hearts
• 10-12 baby plum tomatoes
• 200g fine green beans
• a large handful of basil
• 5-6 baby new potatoes
• 2-3 eggs
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 tsp dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp red or white wine vinegar

Set the tin draining in the sink. Scrub the potatoes and simmer gently for 15 minutes until tender. Get a pan of water simmering and then lower the eggs into it, and cover. Count out one minute on a timer, and then remove the pan from the heat and leave for a further seven minutes, after which you should drain the eggs and cool them, then peel and slice into quarters. (If I could cook the eggs at exactly 57 C as per Molecular Gastronomy, I would!) 

Cut the beans into bite-size pieces and blanch in boiling water for a few minutes, until bright green and sweet, but not soggy. Slice the tomatoes into halves and the artichoke hearts into quarters, and put in a large salad bowl. Tear in the basil. Add the potatoes and cooked beans, and season with salt and pepper. Combine the dressing ingredients in a jar, then pour almost all of it over the salad, then toss well. Lay the soft-boiled egg quarters on top and add the rest of the dressing.

Boulangère potatoes

We popped this in the oven before going out for a short walk: it's quite flexible and can be prepared in advance, or just before you want to eat. It's basically Dauphinoise potatoes without the cream, so nice when you don't feel you've exerted yourself enough to deserve a brick of dairy fat! I just made these without the butter, and they didn't suffer much for it, but they did lack a certain punch, so if you're not vegan or dieting, I'd recommend leaving the butter in.

Ingredients:

• 1 small white onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 3 medium potatoes
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• about 200 ml chicken or vegetable stock
• a few slices of butter

Preheat the oven to 160 C. Peel and halve the onion, and slice into very thin half-moons. Fry over a moderate heat in a little olive oil until translucent and softened, and just beginning to caramelise. Crush in the garlic and cook for a further minute, then remove from the heat and stir in the salt and thyme. Scrub or peel the potatoes, then very finely slice them using a sharp knife or mandolin. In a small baking dish, laayer the potatoes with the onions, then pour enough hot stock to nearly cover them. Top with the butter slices and bake for an hour, until the top is golden and the potatoes are tender all the way through.

Haggis, Neeps and Tatties

Here's another meal we ate over the Easter holiday with the whole family. I hesitated to add it as it's very straightforward and relies entirely on the availability of haggis. But I thought I should share my dad's secret ingredient for the neeps! This is enough for four, and scales easily. Serve it with some simple greens - steamed beans or blanched frozen peas will do - and chutney or brown sauce.

Ingredients:

• a nice plump haggis, or two small haggises
• 8 medium potatoes
• butter
• 4 tbsp crème fraîche
• 1 rutabaga
• 2 tbsp horseradish sauce

Set your haggis to steam or boil, according to the packet instructions. Scrub or peel the potatoes, cut into large chunks and simmer, just covered with water, for twenty minutes or until tender. Drain and mash with a slice of butter and the crème fraîche, and season with salt if needed.

In a separate pan, cook the neeps in the same way. Drain and mash with the horseradish sauce, and another slice of butter, seasoning with black pepper and again a little salt if needed.

Pierce the haggis skin, reciting 'Address to a Haggis' if you like... But perhaps leave the neeps and tatties somewhere warm if you do - it's a long poem!