green soup

So spring is getting on with it. The first tomato seeds have sprouted and stuck their necks outta the soil. The blossom is already falling and the broccoli is trying to turn into flowers the second you turn your back on it.

So I decided to pull up my patch of broccoli raab (aka cime di rapa). It was my first time growing it and I'd say it was a big success. Except I didn't know how quickly I had to eat it so now what's left has gotten quite tough as it turns into bright yellow flowers.

So, in our new friend Mr Red Pot we have - green soup. Should you find yourself wondering what to do with all your going to seed brassicas you might like to try it.

Fry some chopped almonds.
Add some garlic.
Fill the pot with chopped up broccoli and cime di rapa.
Cover with water or stock.
Boil for quite a while.
Blend.

It wasn't bad at all. The almonds add a good creaminess. The only problem was all the long fibres. I reckon a food processor woulda helped - I used the stick blender and that was quite ineffectual. Or maybe strain it somehow?

tarty much?

I have been thinking lately that if I was the marrying kind maybe I would start a campaign to marry Greg Malouf. Marry Me Mister Malouf I would call it.

You see, I'm not much for celebrity chefs - those books with pictures of Bill, Jamie, Nigella or whoever hanging out o so casual with their good looking children eating boring stolen recipes. Nah. But the Malouf's cookbooks are wonderful and completely sans photos of people. Greg writes them with Lucy Malouf, now his ex-wife. I mean, the fact that he can still travel through Lebanon and Syria with her and collaborate on beautiful books like Saha makes me think what a lovely fellow he must be.

And then...
well then I saw him on SBS's food [porn] safari and he was the sweetest thing ever. Trundling around a Lebanese nut shop extoling the virtues of yoghurt, modestly preparing some outrageous looking fish for his family. Yup. food love.

So Wednesday I'm thinkin, hey I'm gonna cook me some dinner from Arabesque for my ladyfriend. Maybe it's Feb 14th, maybe it ain't - still gotta eat no matter how cheesy it seems. Suffice to say, Wednesday didn't turn out to be a cooking day but Friday was and the food got made and sometimes nice things are even nicer when they're not on officially sanctioned nice thing days.

Arabesque is the Maloufs' first book and organised around little essays about key Middle Eastern ingredients. No lush pictures but some excellent recipes and good enthusiastic descriptions that make me wanna actually cook them. All of them. But it was a hot day and I only got home at 6:30 so here's what we had:

• Fattouche - a crunchy salad with fried lebanese bread and sumac
• Green beans - from the garden, in tahini yoghurt sauce
• Soused zucchini & eggplant - I dunno what he means by soused but damn good.
• Goats cheese grilled in fresh vine leaves

and dessert of course. Maybe the silly picture doesn't show just how ridiculously decadent this was. Sticky, crunchy, drenched in syrup and inducing a sugar rush like only middle eastern sweets can. Hard to eat elegantly though. Maybe scoring the pastry would help?

Toffeed fig tart
This tart was dead easy to make and impressive. I made two but this recipe makes 4. I should add though that mine was delicious because I used the homemade filo which is my best best friend. Yes maybe I'm a snob but I find supermarket filo really gross, hard to work with and unappetising. It does that horrible overly crunchy thing in the roof of my mouth.

The homemade stuff is available from the fridge at the Sydney Rd IGA or from the Turkish shop on Smith St as well as around Brunswick shops. If you're not in Melbourne try asking at a Greek or Turkish sweets shop?

• 10 sheets of filo pastry
• 200g butter, melted
• 100g castor sugar
• 100ml water
• a splash of rosewater (optional)
• 12 fresh figs (thanks to the ranch)
  
• 2 extra tablespoons castor sugar
• 1 tbsp butter
• 100g hazelnuts, toasted, peels rubbed off and then roughly crushed
  

Layer the sheets of filo on a tray, brushing each one with butter as you go. Cut around a bowl to give you 4 circular stacks about 8cm across. Or maybe make 8 mini ones using a cup? Bake in a 180C oven until browning on top - about 10 minutes or more. When you remove them from the oven drizzle them with syrup before they cool.

What syrup? This one - while they're baking place the sugar and water in a pot and bring to the boil making sure all the sugar dissolves. Simmer it for 5 minutes then remove from the heat and add your rosewater if you want it.

Cut your figs in half. Now get a large heavy frypan and melt the tablespoon of butter and extra sugar in it. Wait for the sugar to caramelise. I started getting very nervous - something about bad history with caramel and toffee. 'It's not working' I cried in a sooky fashion. But after doing some strange cloud formation things for a long time caramelise it did. So when this happens add the fig halves and stir to coat. As the fig juice hits the caramel it'll start to toffee so get them all good and coated.

To serve you just need to stick the pastry circles on a plate and top with the figs. Greg says in 2 layers of 3 halves each but I wasn't quite that neat. Top with the nuts and serve with creme fraiche. Or if you ain't that organised, ice cream.

Ya-um!

tiny little bits

Russian Salad is a funny thing. It looks like really bad potato salad but everything is chopped into the tiniest dice. Why is it called Russian Salad? I think it's really Salad Olivier if you're in Russia.

Basia Zagala, who is Polish, makes the greatest version. I started thinking how much I missed hers the other day. At parties where her salad is served people can’t stop eating it… it’s good enough that I would go to a bad party if I knew this was being served. Really – the texture of the tiny little bits, and the way the flavours combine are fucking genius. There’s potato sure, but it ain’t no potato salad, it’s some kind of magic that comes when you put crunch and tender, sweetness and pickle all together.

Once when my sister Marion really wanted the recipe for this salad her birthday party she called Basia to ask for it. In under an hour Basia and Voitek were at the door with their knives and a bottle of wine . They insisted on making it for her. If only there was such a good dial-a-salad service available to us all.

Anyway, I had a go at making it myself yesterday using Basia's recipe. It wasn't as good - I got bad pickles! And the mayo wasn't the best. But still, it was pretty tasty and it was kinda fun to spend an hour chopping things really tiny, not painful like I thought it would be. It helped that there was a house full of hysterical ladies to entertain me and the glorious ridiculousness of the L word to relax in front of afterwards.

Here’s what Marion says about Basia's method: “You need 6 waxy potatoes that are good for salad and won’t crumble, ask the people at the greengrocer. If they are really big cut them in half. You need 3 – 4 quite large carrots as well. Put both in a big pot of cold water and boil until cooked. While boiling get good ogorki (pickles) – maybe 2 tins of Israeli ones and chop up very small in cubes – 6mm square. When the potatoes and carrots are cooked rub off the skin on the potatoes and peel the carrots and cut them tiny too.

Add 2 tins petis pois which are funny little baby peas you get at the supermarket. You need the imported type. Also 3 or 4 apples, very hard and crunchy ones cut up as tiny as the rest. Throw it all in together and dress. Use a huge jar of really good mayonnaise like S & W with some lemon juice and a little bit of white vinegar, salt and pepper. Basia adds minced dill as well, but this is controversial. In any case, stir it really well through, taste it and refrigerate for a day.”

You won’t be disappointed.

where's the year gone?

Yeah, you gentiles think I'm worried cos it's almost November and the giant bloody Christmas tree is up again already. But no, I'm worried cos I had this Rosh Hashana post all thought out and the time, the time, where is the time... it goes and now it's bloody weeks since jewish new year so what do you wanna hear me kvetch about it or what?

Also I'm thinking maybe I should get me a computer so I can do this blogging thing more often. New jobs don't have as much interweb slacking time. But then me thinks, well do I want to spend my home time on the computer or in the lovely big new garden or playing with Lish's Le Creuset pot and the world's biggest mortar and pestle in my new kitchen? But you know, maybe if I had a computer I wouldn't write all frantic frantic unedited on my sister's while the baby sleeps...

Ok, here's the new year's recipe.
for what it's worth at this late time, Shana Tova folks.

New Year's Chickpeas
from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian.

Claudia Roden says in her Book of Jewish Food that round foods like chickpeas bring good luck for the new year. Wholeness and all that. I think Sephardic Jews eat chickpeas at Rosh Hashana. A few years back I decided that we should too because this truly is delicious. I like also to remind people that there are Middle Eastern Jews too... you know in these days where the idea of Arab and Jew are sold to us as diametrically opposed. As if the Middle East wasn't the safest place for Jews to live for centuries and centuries of Muslim rule. As if Iraqi Jews never existed. Um.. anyway. On a food note, if you serve it with giant couscous, which is my new favourite thing, then you get double roundness. And because Rosh Hashana comes in Spring here it's so exciting to use the first of the broad beans. If not, Madhur suggests using zucchini.

You need:
(double or triple this for a festive meal)

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 onion, sliced into thin half rings
• 1 tsp cumin, ground
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp ginger, ground
• 1/2 tsp cayenne, or less
• 3 tomatoes, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 cups of cooked chickpeas
• 2 cups of pumpkin in a 2cm dice
• 2 tbsp big fat raisins
• vegie stock
• 1 cup or more broad beans
• salt
• chopped parsley and coriander - a few tbsps

Mix the dry spices together in a cup. Heat the oil in a big saucepan. Fry the cinnamon stick for a few seconds, then add the onion and fry until golden brown. Add the spices and stir for a second before adding the tomatoes. Cook until they soften down. Now add the chickpeas, raisins and pumpkin and cover with stock - it should be quite quite liquidey. Cook slowly until the pumpkin is almost tender. Season as needed and add the broad beans. Simmer until done. Mix the herbs through and serve over giant couscous with labne and harissa.