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!

Moroccan Braised Chicken

Back in Cambridge, we bought a second-hand copy of a One-Pot Cookbook which was really useful in the series of tiny kitchens where we prepared our meals. One of the standout recipes, which I always go back to, is probably incredibly inauthentic and doesn't even rate a photo in the cookbook (and you can probably see why, from mine). But it perfectly embodies the spirit of one-pot cooking. You literally only need a knife, a board, and a single large casserole dish to make this, and it will serve four or more (depending on the size of your chicken). Easy, no-fuss, and totally tasty.

Ingredients

• a ~1.6kg chicken (giblets removed, etc)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 large onion
• a thumb of root ginger
• 2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground paprika
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 725ml of chicken or vegetable stock (from powder is fine)
• 3 medium courgettes
• 1 medium red pepper
• 4 medium carrots
• a 340g tin of chickpeas
• 225g cous-cous
• 50g seedless raisins
• 30g pine nuts

Peel and finely chop the onion and ginger, then add to the large casserole and fry with the spices for a couple of minutes. Add the chicken and turn so it gets covered with the spices. Pour in the stock, salt, and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes. Dice all of the vegetables, then stir them in and simmer for a further 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked. Mix in the chick peas and then pour in the cous-cous and raisins. (You can remove the chicken first, if you prefer -- it certainly makes serving easier.)  While the cous-cous absorbs the liquid, toast the pine nuts gently either in the hot oven or on a small frying pan. Serve the chicken and vegetables topped with the toasted pine nuts.

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.

Chick Pea, Chorizo and Orange Salad

I spent most of last week sleeping and reading, trying to shake off a nasty cold. As a result we hadn't worn down the food stores quite as much as usual, so this week I'm attempting to cook entirely using whatever I have left in the fridge from last week. OK - I definitely cheated here, as there was a HUGE bag of red peppers going cheaply at the grocers' when I popped into the park centre to buy milk, and I did have to top up the onion supply. Now that I've made this salad, I think it's actually worth going out to get the ingredients, as it was amazing! No internet link this time; I just had ingredients I needed to use and found the right flavours to link them together.

Ingredients:

• one tin of chick peas
• one medium white onion
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• a handful of green beans
• a small handful of raisins
• a fat, spicy chorizo sausage
• two roasted peppers, skinned
• an orange
• a small handful of mint
• 1 heaped tsp dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 3 tbsp olive oil

Drain the tin of chick peas and tip into a salad bowl. Thinly slice the onion into slivers, and fry over a very low heat until golden, translucent and falling apart - about 12 minutes. Add the sugar and cook for a further minute, then tip out of the pan onto the chick peas. Meanwhile, top, tail and blanch the green beans and raisins, then drain and add to the salad bowl.

If the skin of the sausage is tough, skin it, then finely slice the sausage and fry in the onion pan for a couple of minutes, until crisping up and colouring. If you like, blot the excess fat with kitchen paper before adding to the salad bowl. Slice or tear the peppers into strips and add to the bowl. Using a sharp knife, cut the peel and pith from the orange, then segment into the bowl; squeeze out the core over the bowl to retain all of the lovely juices. Finely chop the mint and add to the bowl.

Whisk the remaining ingredients together to form a dressing, pour over the salad, toss well and serve immediately.

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.

Raisin Spice Bread

We spent a lovely afternoon playing games at a friend's house the other weekend, and they gave us generous wedges of this bread spread with cream cheese to snack on. They have the same breadmaker as us and the recipe was straight from the book, so I decided to make it too - amazingly I've never made a sweet bread in the machine! After this I'd love to try a brioche. And that doesn't have any fruit in it, so no chance of me messing up the dispenser setting, as I did for the first time making this :)

Ingredients:

• 130ml water
• 130ml milk
• 2 1/2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 575g white bread flour
• 100g malted dark bread flour (optional, replace with white or wholemeal if you prefer)
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 2 1/2 tsp dried yeast
• 1 cup raisins

Put everything except the raisins into the breadmaker; put the raisins in the dispenser, or add at the second knead. Pop the breadmaker on 'sweet' and brush with a little sugar glaze at the end if you like.

Or, if you have no breadmaker, knead for 15 minutes, rise for 40, punch down, rise again for 30, shape however you like, rise again for 50 minutes, and then bake for 70 minutes at 115C.

They taste just like hot cross buns so you could also put the dough on, then take out, shape into small buns, rise again and bake for maybe 20 minutes to produce hot cross buns. Then the glaze is mandatory!

Moglai Biriani

I've been in Tasmania for most of the last week, hence the lack of updates. Tazzie cuisine is excellent, featuring lots of fresh seafood and local produce. It was also wonderful to see so many apple varieties again - shame I couldn't take any back to WA, what with the quarantine.

Today we went into Perth to catch up on some bits and pieces of shopping we hadn't got round to in ages. One important task was to use a very generous book voucher we had received for the wedding from a friend. As you may have seen me complaining, I really could do with a few new cookbooks for inspiration! I found a rather hefty and inspiring tome - The Complete Asian Cookbook, which tours every country east of Turkey and north of Australia. I need to buy a few things from the market next weekend, but I did manage to put together a pretty amazing moglai biriani tonight, even with half the ingredients missing. What follows is what I actually made, but I thoroughly recommend picking up the cookbook yourself and trying the full, correct recipe.

Complete with Tasmanian Devil oven glove purchased
from Hobart's excellent Salamanca market!

Ingredients:
For the lamb:

• 1 medium onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 300g of lamb chunks
• 1/2 tsp crushed black onion seed
• 1 tsp powdered cumin
• 1/2tsp dried chilli
• a large handful of fresh mint leaves
• one tomato, roughly chopped
• juice of half a lemon

For the pilau:

• 1 medium onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp powdered cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 100g basmati rice
• 3 bay leaves
• a chicken stock cube
• a handful of sultanas

For the topping:

• a handful of almonds
• half a cup of frozen peas
• a sprig of fresh coriander leaf

Finely chop the two onions and fry gently for five minutes, until golden. Crush in the garlic, stir for a further minute, then split between two pans, preferably a stainless steel suitable for cooking rice, and a heavy oven-proof casserole pot, like a small Le Creuset. To the latter, add the lamb chunks, onion seed, cumin, chilli, mint leaves, tomato and lemon juice; cover and simmer for an hour, checking occasionally and adding water if you find it sticking.

Meanwhile, toast the coriander seeds, cumin seeds, peppercorns and remove to a mortar and pestle once fragrant, then crush finely. Stir in the cinnamon and nutmeg, then add all of the spices to the onion and garlic in the stainless steel pan, along with the rice. Fry for a minute, then add the bay leaves, stock cube and sultanas, and twice as much boiling water as rice. Simmer for 20 minutes, checking occasionally and adding more water if you find it sticking - do not stir.

Ten minutes before the lamb is done, start the oven preheating to 160C. When the lamb is cooked and the sauce around it has thickened and become fairly dry, remove it from the casserole, and replace with half of the rice. Put the lamb back on top of the rice, then cover with the remaining half of the rice. Cover the casserole pot and place in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

Five minutes before the end, lay the almonds out on a baking tray and toast in the oven; keep an eye out so they don't burn. Remove and roughly chop. Heat the peas in boiling water in a microwave, then drain. Remove the biriani from the oven and serve, topped with the almonds, peas and coriander leaf.

BBQd Beetroot and Feta

I often roast beetroot in the oven, add some feta at the last minute, and toss it in a salad with leaves and puy lentils. Tonight the SO put the beetroot cubes in foil parcels on the BBQ and they came out splendidly. He perhaps added the feta a tad early, as you can see from its slightly mangled appearance! Cous-cous with raisins and some chopped olives, sundried tomatoes and skinned, roasted red peppers made up the accompaniment. Just in time to eat while playing some turns on the online Race for the Galaxy with friends waking up in Cambridge :)

Quick Roast Lamb and Cauliflower Quinoa

We had some lamb rumps to eat tonight; I arrived home late after a seminar and realised I hadn't done any preparation, but that the lamb would be better-tasting today than tomorrow. I browsed the internet looking for things I could make with ingredients I had, but couldn't find anything that I wanted. Eventually I went back to the fridge, looked through and picked out things that I wanted, and that I thought would go well.

In the garden we have a mint plant which grows enormously this time of year, and it has giant, coarse leaves that you can't eat raw. I thought that would go well with some lemon, and chanced some green olives and coriander in a quick herb rub. We had potatoes last night, and I didn't have time for brown rice, so I decided to break out the quinoa - I'm always pleased when I cook it, but often forget that I have it! With some fattened raisins and some quickly stir-fried vegetables, it made a pleasing accompaniment to constrast the lemony herb rub and deep savoury lamb. A delicious, entirely improvised meal that took just half an hour to prepare.

Ingredients:

• 400g lamb rump
• a few green olives
• a small handful of mint
• a small handful of coriander
• juice of half a lemon
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 200g quinoa
• a small handful of raisins or sultanas
• 2 spring onions
• 5-6 cauliflower florets

Preheat the oven to 220 C. Remove any large pieces of fat from the lamb rumps, and place in a small oven-safe dish. Blitz the olives, mint, coriander, lemon juice and cumin seeds very briefly in a blender, to make a coarse rub. Scrape this over the lamb and turn the pieces in it, pressing it in and making sure they are all covered. Roast in the oven for 20-25 minutes, turning once, until cooked on the outside and pink on the inside. Rest for 5 minutes before slicing into bite-sized pieces.

Meanwhile, set the quinoa cooking according to its packet instructions (I use 2:1 water:quinoa, simmer for 10 minutes then switch off and allow to absorb the remaining water). Soak the raisins in a little boiling water for 5-10 minutes until plump, then drain. Finely slice the spring onions into strips, and the cauliflower into thin slices. Stir fry in a little olive oil for 6-7 minutes, keeping on the move the whole time so that the vegetables cook through, and remove from the heat once they pick up a little colour on the edges. Combine the quinoa, vegetables and raisins, and serve the lamb on top, with any juices from the pan drizzled over.

Dad's BBQ Rice

We're having a little heatwave at the moment, and yesterday I hosted the first barbecue at our house since we moved in... over a year ago :) What can I say - the weather in 2010 was terrible! I prepared some lamb chops, marinaded some aubergines, put together a variant on my cauliflower salad (this time with pumpkin seeds and cranberries, yum!), and made a couple of amazing focaccia.

I also made a big heap of my dad's BBQ-style rice. I love this with any grilled meats: it's a taste straight out of my childhood. It's very simple to make, can be served warm or cool, and can be made several hours ahead. It keeps for a day or so in the fridge, but is best fresh. The secret is to be very patient when frying the onions: use a low heat and give yourself plenty of time. This recipe served 15 people as a small side, with some left over! Would easily serve 8 as the main side.

Ingredients:

• 3 small or 2 medium white onions
• 2 tbsp Swiss Marigold vegetable bouillon
• 400g basmati rice (white or wholemeal; either works)
• 1 small glass white wine
• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 2 generous handfuls almonds
• 2 generous handfuls raisins

Finely chop the onions and fry in olive oil over a very low heat. They should cook until translucent and beginning to caramelise around the edges: 10-15 minutes. Add the bouillon and rice, stir and cook for a further minute. Pour in the wine and deglaze the pan, then top up with boiling water so the rice and water are at a 2:1 ratio. Cover and simmer for the cooking time of your rice, less one minute. The water should be absorbed so the rice is mostly dry.

Meanwhile, chop the tomatoes into medium-sized cubes, and roughly chop the almonds. Fold these, along with the raisins, gently into the rice, being careful not to break up the grains. Cover and remove from the heat. The tomatoes will soften gently in the residual heat of the rice, the raisins will absorb a little excess water and puff up, and the almonds will freshen a little. Serve warm or cool, within a few hours of cooking.

Peshwari Naan

Naan is a delicious flatbread that is best cooked in an extremely hot oven. Lacking an extremely hot oven, we made do tonight with an extremely hot grill - but didn't leave quite enough space between the pan and the elements! So be aware that if you try this, you'll need a few inches of leeway for the naan dough to expand, or of course you can use an oven. I find it's hard to substitute the yoghurt in naan; it just adds the right tang to the dough. This recipe makes four large naan.

Ingredients:
For the dough:

• 50 ml boiling water
• 1 tsp sugar
• 100 ml cold water
• 1 tbsp active dried yeast
• 175g natural yoghurt
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp melted butter or ghee
• 450g strong white bread flour

For the filling:

• 2 generous handfuls of almonds
• 2 generous handfuls of raisins
• 75g solid coconut cream or dried coconut
• 3 tbsp honey

Dissolve the sugar in the boiling water, cool to blood heat with the cold water, then stir in the yeast and leave for 10 minutes to activate. If you have a breadmaker, add the yeasty water and yoghurt to the breadmaker along with the other ingredients, and set to dough cycle. If you don't, combine the ingredients in a large bowl, stir to make a dough, then knead for 10 minutes until soft and elastic, leave for 30 min, knock back and knead again, then leave for 30 further minutes.

Meanwhile, blend the filling ingredients in a food processor - or I guess finely chop them if you don't have one. Pour a little milk into a ramekin and preheat the oven to 250C or the grill to its maximum setting.

Flour a clean surface, and divide the dough in two, then again, and then again, to make eight equal pieces. Roll two pieces as flat and thin as you can, and add 1/4th of the filling to the centre of one, patting it flat with the back of a spoon. Using your fingers, dab some milk from the ramekin around the edges of the piece, and lay another piece over the top. Push together to stick the dough together, and repeat for the other three pairs of pieces.

Put your baking trays in the oven or under the grill, and when they are properly hot, slide the naan doughs onto the trays, and place immediately in the oven or grill. If grilling you might need to flip them halfway through. Cook for 4-5 minutes, until browned. If you like, brush with a little melted butter before serving.

Pork Chop with Cauliflower Salad

I know, crazy combination right? But the caulis looked so cheerful in the market: nestled in a crate with cheeky white florets poking out from within a cocoon of emerald green leaves. I always preferred broccoli or carrots as a child, but with the right seasonings, the slightly nuttier flavour of cauliflower can be delicious. It's just important not to overcook it!

As for the pork chop, I ended up with a huge thick slab from the butcher, and it has kept quite well for a few days. I like to flour and fry it, but grilling a monster like this would also be fine as it would probably stay quite juicy. No marinade, no spices, just seasoned flour and a slow caramelisation in the pan. The juices ran all over the plate with the salad dressing, and one could certainly use some soft white bread to mop them up.

Ingredients:

• a small handful of raisins
• 1 tsp caraway seeds
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• a good handful of cashew nuts
• 5-6 florets of cauliflower, and a few of the small leaves if desired
• a handful of peppery salad leaves (I like watercress) or flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
• One large pork chop
• a few tsp plain flour
• juice of half a lemon
• a splosh of really good olive oil

First, put the raisins in a pyrex bowl and pour a small amount of boiling water over them, and leave them to soak. Dry-fry the seeds in a non-stick frying pan until they are hot and smelling fragrant, then tip them into a mortar and pestle and gently crush a little. Dry fry the cashew nuts, tossing around frequently on a low heat so that they don't burn, then remove from the pan.

Dip the pork chop in seasoned plain flour and fry in olive oil over a moderate to low heat. Thin cuts will need a higher temperature and less time, but the slab I was given took a good five minutes on each side before the juices no longer ran red. Don't overcook your chop: it should still have a hint of pink, and it's fine if the middle of the bone is still red, as it does not conduct heat well.

Slice the cauliflower florets into half-cm slices, maintaining their essential shape - I'm sure there is a name for this technique but neither my recalcitrant brain nor Google seem to be able to help me. Steam them for 3-4 minutes, until al dente. Drain and run a little cold water over them, and also drain the raisins. Toss together the cauliflower, leaves, spices, raisins, cashews, lemon juice and olive oil, and tip over the sizzling pork chop on your plate. Enjoy!