Bite Me!

Back in the olden days, when we had nice weather (or Sunday, if you're feeling rather less melodramatic than I am right now) I did my food shopping.  For some people, summer starts with the first swallow; others, with the first barbecue.  For me, I know it's summer when I make the first tomato, basil and mozzarella salad of the year.  It's not worth making out of season because you need ripe tomatoes; in my opinion, it's a treat worth waiting for. 

These hot days of summer always get me in the mood for some Mexican food (says she, staring mournfully out of the window at the rain), and there's nothing simpler than some homemade nachos if you're after a quick fix.  Basically, all you need is some tortilla chips, jalapeno chillies and cheddar cheese; assemble on a baking sheet, stick under the grill for a couple of minutes, bob's your uncle.

Of course, to elevate your nachos to truly ambrosial heights, you need some good accessories.  Sour cream is a must, as are guacamole and salsa.  And the guacamole MUST be home-made.  I promise you, it's really simple to make and tastes about a million times better than the insipid goop you'll find in the supermarket.  Again, no need for a proper recipe - just mash up a ripe avocado with the juice of a lime, some salt and a hefty handful of coriander, finely chopped.  If you're feeling like living on the edge, add some finely chopped green chilli for an extra kick. Nigella Lawson adds roquefort to her guacamole to make "roquemole" which is equally delicious although probably better eaten as a dip than added to your Mexican dish!

Home-made salsa is also worth the effort, as again it's much better than the stuff you'll find in jars, with a real zing to it.  Just finely chop some ripe tomatoes, onion and coriander and mix together with lime juice and salt to taste.  Unlike guacamole, this will taste better if you let it sit for a while so that the flavours can mingle.  For both the salsa and guacamole, make sure the avocadoes and tomatoes are really ripe and soft otherwise you'll just end up with a load of little hard chunks in a bowl, which is not the effect you're after.

Et voila!  How simple was that?

Top tea tip of the day – try putting some cardamom pods in your teapot when you brew your tea.  This works especially well with cheap tea that’s not very nice, taking some of the edge and the bitterness out of it. Give it a try - you might like it!

(Thanks to Sana for that tip)

I spent a happy couple of hours on Sunday with my friend Sana making this Thai green curry paste; first we wandered down to Brick Lane to buy the ingredients, then got busy chopping and deseeding and grinding.  We used this recipe from Waitrose, to which we made a couple of alterations;  firstly, we didn't use olive oil - it has quite a strong flavour of its own that is totally wrong for Thai cooking.  Instead, use a flavourless oil such as rapeseed or groundnut.  Secondly, instead of normal basil, use Thai basil (if you can get hold of any).  Normal basil is fine if you can't get anything else but the flavour will not be as authentic as the two basils do taste very different from each other.   

You can make this paste with a pestle and mortar, but it will take you a LONG time and quite a lot of upper arm strength is required.  We started off this way before remembering that we had a mini food processor, which probably cut the preparation time down by about an hour.  If you do grind it by hand, you will probably end up with a better, smoother texture, but using a food processor or blender is fine.

To use the curry paste, simply bung in a saucepan with whatever veg you want to put in your curry (baby corn, peppers, aubergines, water chestnuts and cabbage are all good), plus a tin of coconut milk.  Then simply simmer until the vegetables are cooked.  The amount of paste you will need to use depends on how strong you would like the curry - for a really strong flavour, you'll probably want to use about six tablespoons of paste in a curry big enough for four people. Add a squeeze of lime and a scattering of fresh coriander at the end of the cooking time, and serve with a sticky Thai jasmine rice.

Traditional Gambian cooking is a sloooow process.  After marketing and a quick snack of cashew fruit, we start to prepare lunch, which will take a good couple of hours to cook.  We made vegetable benachim (literally, “one pot”).  This is most often served in the Gambia with fish, but the ingredients we used were:

salt

whole peppercorns

a few cloves of garlic

one onion, roughly chopped

a handful of tomatoes

one tin (400g) of tomato puree

vegetable oil (a lot)

water

short grain white rice

three whole tamerind

two bitter tomatoes, whole (you might have trouble finding these in the UK)

one sweet potato

one cassava  (try Caribbean/African food shops for this one – they sell it in Brixton Market)

two scotch bonnets

two baby aubergines

a handful of okra

two carrots

To start with, put the oil (at least a large cupful) on the heat – in the Gambia, a small outside stove is usually used for cooking purposes, with either wood or charcoal as fuel.  While the oil is heating, pound the salt and pepper in a grinder (a normal pestle and mortar will do, if you don’t have one of the giant versions in the picture above!)  When this is ground, add the garlic and onion, then the tomatoes, and pound into a paste.   Once the oil is bubbling, add the paste, along with the tin of tomato puree and a tin.  Cook this for about twenty minutes – you should see the start to separate slightly when it’s cooked. 

In the meantime, prepare the vegetables.  Peel the cassava and sweet potato and cut into very large pieces.  Halve the baby aubergines and dice the carrots very finely.  Everything else can go in whole.  Once the tomato paste mixture is ready, add the vegetables (except the carrots) and a couple of cans of water and leave to simmer until the vegetables are ready.

While the vegetables are cooking, rinse the rice, add the finely diced carrots and steam until partly cooked.  Once the vegetables are done, take them out of the broth and keep them warm on the side.  Now add the rice to the broth and cook until all the liquid has been absorbed. 

To serve, place the rice on a large plate, and arrange the vegetables on top.  Blob the sorrel (or hibiscus) around the plate artistically. 

Now comes the fun part – eating!  If you want to observe Gambian etiquette, eat with your right hand, and make sure you only take food from the part of the plate or bowl nearest you – no reaching over.  Most Gambian families will eat all together like this, gathering around the same plate or bowl, so make sure you have one big enough!  And watch out if you don’t have asbestos fingers, as the food will be hot and if you’re greedy (like me) you can burn your fingers...

To eat, simply grab a handful of rice, and squeeze it into a solid ball in your hand.  Then chuck into your mouth.  Simples!  You will probably drop rice all over yourself if you’re not used to doing this.  If you want a bit of heat on your food, squeeze one of the scotch bonnets over your rice – don’t try and eat one, whatever you do, as they are really, really hot.  The vegetables you can just break chunks off and eat separately. 

Enjoy!

www.gambiahomecooking.com

I found the recipe for these here and had to give them a try for Christmas morning, since they sounded so easy.  They are as easy as they sound, and I thought they were delicious, in part because they're slightly savoury - if you're expecting ultra-sweet American style soft muffins, you'll be disappointed.  But they are spicy and comforting and I love the crunchy sugar topping!  They'd be great with some chunks of white chocolate added, if you want that extra sugar kick.

People are always asking me what I eat for Christmas dinner - well, maybe not always, but fairly often around Christmas time!  So here's the answer for this year - roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, honey & mustard parsnips, stuffing and veggie gravy.  OK, so it's not the most sophisticated-looking plate of food, but it's reeeaaalllly good.  And (ssh!) surprisingly healthy.

I'm especially proud of the vegetarian gravy, which has a really intense flavour and is very easy to make.  You will need:

boiling water

marigold vegetable stock

Marmite

Tabasco

red wine or sherry

Worcestershire sauce

soy sauce

porcini (optional)

Method

 Very easy - simply mix a dollop of everything together in a saucepan and gently reduce down for about ten minutes.   I haven't put amounts down since I just chuck everything in and then see how it tastes.  If using the porcini, soak them in a mug of warm water for ten minutes before you start, and then add both the mushrooms and the water to the saucepan.  Sieve the mushrooms out before serving.  If you want thicker gravy rather than a jus, add a little flour or cornflour to the mixture and whisk to get rid of lumps. 

This is so good my sister even prefers it to normal gravy...

This is my Mum's great cookie recipe, named (and invented) by herself, and she's right - they are fabulous.  They are great because they look healthy, but actually aren't at all.  As she says, this recipe will make about 48 cookies, but they won't last long!  The measurements are in American cups, but if you don't have cups use a measuring jug - one cup equals up to the 250ml mark, half a cup is 125ml, and so forth.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter

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This Thai red curry is a favourite of mine - it's really quick and easy to make and tastes great.  I use shop-bought red curry paste which some would probably consider cheating, but as long as you get a decent paste I think that the end result is still pretty good.  I buy my paste from the Chinese shop in Brixton but Thai Taste is available from Waitrose and is excellent.  I would stay away from Marks & Spencers' red curry paste - I tried it recently and found it to be very vinegary, with a lot of chilli but not much flavour apart from that.

Ingredients

tbsp groundnut or other flavourless oil

two birds-eye red chillis, chopped fine

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I made these little fritters from a recipe in Madhur Jaffrey's fascinating book Eastern Vegetarian Cookery.  It's not a book for the faint-hearted, as so many of the recipes require ingredients that you're unlikely to find in your local Tescos, but the recipes sound so tempting and are so different that I think it's worth the effort...

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Cooking healthy meals from fresh ingredients is all very well, but sometimes you just want to eat something that's quick and dirty.  Having a craving for pizza this weekend, I created quite a respectable meal out of: one stale foccacia from the freezer (I always freeze things if I'm not sure what to do with them), half a tub of month-old salsa, some odd-looking mozzarella from the newsagent, and the contents of various other jars and remote corners of the fridge (frozen veggie bacon, sliced jalapenos, wrinkly mushrooms and the like).  I bunged it all under the grill and it was jolly nice too.

Yet more baking at the weekend - this time a raisin and walnut loaf from The Cranks Bible.  It's delicious toasted or with cheese, and best of all, there's no kneading!  I've had to put half of it in the freezer already to stop myself going mad and eating the whole lot at once...

Cabbage may not be the most elegant of vegetables, but it is certainly good for you (see here for how it may help prevent breast cancer), and it is very versatile. It’s also a staple for this time of year if, like me, you try and eat vegetables that are in season. I love it sliced thinly in stir-fries and noodle soups, or in a creamy pasta sauce, but if you want it to be the focus of your meal you can’t beat a dish of stuffed cabbage. My recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

one cabbage

tin of chopped tomatoes

two tbsp tomato puree

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I was on a bit of a baking kick this weekend, getting up at seven o’clock on Saturday morning to attempt to make some bread. I tried some sourdough a couple of weeks ago which was a complete failure, so this time I was less ambitious and made a simple white loaf using Nigella Lawson’s recipe from How to Eat. As you can see, it turned out rather well, but I think I will make a larger loaf next time as this one had vanished by the end of the day...

What did you have on your pancakes this year? I went for a gruyere leek filling – finely slice some leeks, fry and then add béchamel sauce and grated gruyere. Yummy.