Pasta with yoghurt, peas and chilli - Ottolenghi recipe

Pasta with yoghurt, peas, parsley , feta
with walnuts toasted in chilli olive oil on top

Various recipes lately have been making me realise how awesome peas are.  Including this unusual recipe from Ottolenghi for pasta with yoghurt, peas and chilli.

Overall verdict:  lovely.  Though unexpectedly not that hot (in the temperature sense) because the yoghurty mixture isn't hot when you mix it with the pasta - it kind of tastes more like a pasta salad than a main course pasta dish, if you know what I mean.  I really really liked the nuts toasted in olive oil with chilli flakes especially - that is totally happening again for me on top of other pasta dishes.  And I think I might test out other options with the yoghurty pasta sauce concept as well - burnt aubergine in it would be nice, I reckon..

Anyway.  Back to this recipe:   you blend some yoghurt, peas, garlic and olive oil in a food processor:

Yoghurt, peas, garlic and olive oil

While you cook the pasta, toast some nuts in olive oil with chilli flakes.  Ottolenghi says pine nuts but I went for walnuts because I like them better and had some left over from this pesto experiment.   And also I didn't have any pine nuts.  You should, at the same time, cook the remaining peas - Ottolenghi suggests doing this in a third pan but I didn't want my lovely husband to hate me (he does the washing up) so I just put them in with the pasta, half way through.  You can totally tell from Ottolenghi's recipes that he creates them in a restaurant kitchen where he does not have to do the washing up or be married to the person who does the washing up.

Toasting walnuts in olive oil with chilli flakes

Toasting walnuts in olive oil with chilli flakes

Toasting walnuts in olive oil with chilli flakes

Chop up some feta and herbs - Ottolenghi says basil but I went for parsley for roughly similar reasons to the pine-nuts/walnuts thing earlier!  I think mint/dill would be nice too.

Feta and parsley

You then stir it all together - adding the yoghurt mixture slowly to the pasta to avoid it splitting - and with the nuts on top to look artistic.

Pasta with yoghurt, peas, parsley and feta

Pasta with yoghurt, peas, parsley and feta

Pasta with yoghurt, peas, parsley , feta
with walnuts toasted in chilli olive oil on top

Khachapuri - the food of the gods

Mmmm, khachapuri

So, we went to Moscow about a year ago, and - apart from the Kremlin and other irrelevances - the best thing was the Georgian food.  And the best thing about the Georgian food was khachapuri.  I could try to describe it but it wouldn't really work - you just need to try it.  There are variants but, essentially, it's flat bread with cheese on top and eggs cracked in and cooked on the hot bread.  I know, what you're thinking, "I can eat bread, cheese and eggs any time", but khachapuri is just SO much more than the sum of its parts.  It is glorious stuff.

As soon as we came back, we investigated Georgian restaurants in London - Tamada, in St Johns Wood, is pretty good but, really, I wanted to make it at home.  I was thrilled to see that Ottolenghi's Jerusalem cookbook, which I have out from the library, had a recipe, so I gave it a whirl.

It was great fun to make - particularly the final bit where you had to make little boats with the dough (made in a similar way to this recipe) and put an egg yolk in each one, along with as much of the egg white as you could fit in.  The recipe suggests that you  pinch two ends of dough and then straighten the side "walls" but I found it easier (after a bit of trial and error) to make the "walls" first and then pinch the ends.

Khachapuri

Khachapuri boats

They were yummy.  Key, I think to them, is the spicing - za'atar, along with some lemon and salt and pepper.  It's odd because I hadn't previously realised that khachapuri were spiced but, as soon as I'd spiced the cheese mixture, I knew it was going to taste like the khachapuri of Moscow.  The mixture of ricotta, halloumi and feta also worked well but I'd be inclined - next time - to have more cheese mixture: dough ratio.  And probably to make a couple of bigger ones to split rather than the small ones as they are a) fiddlier and b) mean that there's more bread than eggy/cheesey goodness!

Putting egg yolks in the khahapuri

Putting egg yolks in the khachapuri

Khachapuri with yolks ready to go into the oven

Khachapuri all done!

It does all make me realise how geographically close Gujarat is to Georgia/other Middle Eastern countries generally, "khachapuri" means "undercooked bread" in Gujarati, doubtless referring to the fact that the egg cooks on the bread.

Roasted aubergine with fried onion and chopped lemon - Ottolenghi recipe

Roasted aubergine with fried onion and chopped lemon

So, I've got Ottolenghi's Jerusalem cookbook out from the library at the moment - it is awesome, by the way  - and, inevitably, an aubergine recipe caught my eye..  It's funny, I clearly named this blog after aubergines but, honestly, I didn't realise just how much I cooked with them until I started posting and "aubergines" started looming so large in the tags list.  They are amazing, though - so versatile!  Anyway.  Anything that includes fried onions and lemon and aubergine is good for me..  

Ottolenghi has helpfully put the whole recipe in a Guardian article here so I won't bore you with the details but basically, you cut crosses in aubergines and roast them with olive oil, salt and black pepper on top:

The sacrificial aubergines with their flesh cut open

The sacrificial aubergines with their flesh cut open

I slid some garlic into the slits because it is tasty and I could (Ottolenghi refrains):

Black peppery aubergines with stealthy garlic slipped in

You then fry some onion with chilli and sumac and tasty things of this nature:

For a minute at the end you add in the feta:

And then you mix the chopped lemon flesh, chilli and garlic in with the onions and feta mixture and put on top of the roasted aubergines:  voila!  You can eat warm or at room temperature as you prefer.  It is quite an intense dish, so I recommend something relatively bland to go with it - some nice bread, perhaps.

Roasted aubergine with fried onion and chopped lemon

This may sound obvious but you really do have to like lemon for this dish to work for you.  Lots of recipes with lemon call for just a little twist of it but this one - with the whole chopped lemon in it - really requires you to love your lemons.  Luckily, I do.  I've always loved sour flavours, I was always That Child who stole the citrus slices from everyone's drinks.

Roasted aubergine with fried onion and chopped lemon

What to make a vegetarian at Christmas

I had a request to write a post on this (which is always nice!) so I thought I would.

Obviously, if you are making the whole meal vegetarian, the world is your oyster (or something vegetarian), but, assuming that you are not and are just seeking something to make for one or two vegetarians when you're making the rest of the Christmas meal traditionally...

I reckon there are three important things - a) the vegetarian option needs to be something special, there are so many side dishes on the table, it needs to be something that is obviously not another side dish, b) it needs to go sensibly with the side dishes - i.e. it's going to be a bit weird if the vegetarian main is curry to eat roast potatoes and sprouts with it and c) it should, ideally, have some of the standard festive flavours.

I know there are people who are all "but they can just eat the sprouts" but, really, these sorts of meals are about coming together, breaking bread together, all of that stuff that is just - frankly - ruined by one person being ignored and hungry at the table.  If you're an omnivore hosting a vegetarian this Christmas, be inclusive, make them something special and, trust me, the meal will feel more special for you too.

With that in mind, I think pastry in general is a good bet - it definitely feels like a main, you can add ingredients (like stilton or chestnuts) which make it feel festive, and it goes with the standard side dishes.

I posted about puff pastry tarts for party food here but they can easily be made larger and, if you use ready made pastry, they also have the virtue of being pretty quick and easy while still looking impressive.  Mushrooms and stilton might work well.

On a related note, pie is satisfyingly stodgy and can also be made to include festive flavours.  I posted about a couple of different pies here - spinach, broad beans and feta, and mushrooms, chestnuts and stilton.  Making your own pastry definitely does make it taste better but is by no means essential.

It's not particularly festive but it was tasty and I feel the need to include something which includes mighty aubergines, the Greek version of aubergine parmigiana, which I posted about here is easy to prepare in advance, looks impressive and is a bit different - any vegetarian will be well used to aubergine parmigiana but the Greek version is different, more robust, more strongly flavoured.

Also on the not particularly festive but tasty note, Ottolenghi's onions stuffed with breadcrumbs, feta, and parsley are delicious and definitely special enough for Christmas.

Whatever you decide, I hope you all have a great Christmas!

TV chefs Vs ready meals

This article on how TV chef's recipes are more unhealthy than microwave ready meals really really annoyed me.  Running through the whole article seemed to be the assumption that, obviously, the main reason why you'd cook rather than get a ready meal is to be healthier.  What utter rubbish!  I cook rather than eat ready meals because a) my food tastes better than ready meals and b) because I actually enjoy cooking.  Really, it's not that I secretly desire ready meals but virtuously restrain myself in favour of cooking.

Arto der haroutunian recipes: leeks with olive oil (bras yahni, broad beans with carrots (baklali havuci)

leeks with olive oil (bras yahni)

Broad beans and carrots (baklali havuci)

So, as I've mentioned before, I love my Arto der Haroutunian cookbook.  I hadn't cooked anything from it for a while so I decided to try out a couple of new recipes from it.  Both carefully selected based on ingredients that I already had.

Well, the leeks in olive oil recipe was also selected because it involves 8-10 whole peppercorns and I have a lot of respect for recipes that involve whole peppercorns.  It was like an Armenian version of risotto or paella, this, though simpler than either.   Basically, you fry an onion (or in my case a few onions as I didn't have enough leeks), and then some leeks (1 1/2 lbs) for a while in plenty of olive oil.  Then stir in a couple of chopped tomatoes, salt, whole peppercorns, rice (not too much, just 2-3 handfuls) and (according to Arto) a 1/4 of a pint of water and simmer with the lid on for 20-30 minutes.

Frying  stuff for bras yahni

Frying  stuff for bras yahni

That didn't look like nearly water to me when I added it for the quantity of rice so I kept a fairly close eye on it and ended up adding more like a pint of water in total and it didn't (see photo) end up particularly liquidy.  You then add some lemon juice and sumac to finish.  I really liked it, think I'll be making again. It reminds me how good Middle Eastern food can be - the leeks ad lemon come through really strongly but it remains a comforting rice dish at heart.

leeks with olive oil (bras yahni)

The main reason that I decided to make the broad beans with carrots (baklali havuci) to go with it (other than having broad beans and carrots to use up) was the fantastically incomprehensible Jewish proverb that Arto quotes just before it:  "One has no appetite for eating - the other has no eating for his appetite."  What?!  Seriously, if anyone reading understands this, please do explain!

Anyway.  One of the things that's annoying about cooking is that, while sometimes there are fiddly things that are not worth doing, there are some fiddly things that absolutely are worth doing.  Like peeling broad beans. Now I'm pretty speedy in the kitchen with things like this but even I find this tedious.  And yet it is definitely worth it.

10 mins of effort:  peeled broad beans

Once you've peeled the broad beans, this is pretty easy:  put broad beans in a saucepan with a chopped onion and a little water (250 ml), cook for 30 mins.  Stir in chopped carrots, chopped mint, chopped garlic, salt/black pepper/sugar/olive oil to taste.  It's not wildly exciting, it has to be said, certainly not compared with the proverb but a nice side dish.

Broad beans and carrots (baklali havuci)

Tofu

Marinaded tofu in stirfry

So, for a long time, I've had tofu issues.  I've been one of those vegetarians who is all defensive about tofu and wheatgrass shot stereotypes and enjoyed shocking people who assume the vegetarians eat nothing but tofu by saying, "I don't even LIKE tofu" loudly and annoyingly.  The other day, I decided that that was, well, a bit childish and petty and millions of people worldwide eat tofu and who was I to dismiss it without giving it a proper try?

So, I did a bit of googling - because it wasn't all affectation, I really don't know much at all about tofu, Gujarati food, I can do, Middle Eastern food, pretty comfortable with, but I'm really not much of a fan of East Asian food (with the exception of Korean food) so I know little about it - and discovered that the internet seems to feel that marinading is the thing.  This description of how to do it made sense to me - particularly the dry-frying of the tofu beforehand to dry it out a bit and make it more receptive to marinading.  I did this with a tasty marinade of soy sauce, chilli, ginger and garlic.  Then, after it had been left to marinade for an hour or so, I stirred it into a stir-fry of mushrooms and spinach and served with rice.

Much as I want to repent from my previous churlishness about tofu, I'm afraid it still isn't for me.  It's true all the things that people say about it, it does take on the flavour of the stuff you cook with it, but the thing is that I'd rather just have the stuff you cook with it.  My marinade was pretty damn tasty, I wish I'd just chucked it into a vegetable stir fry, I didn't feel like the tofu element added much.  It's not that it was bad, it was just..  blah.  I'd much rather have had water chestnuts or exotic mushrooms in the stirfry.  And, to be honest, most of the time, I'd rather just not have stirfry at all...  I feel like a bad vegetarian.

It looked pretty though.

Marinaded tofu in stirfry

Walnut, goats cheese and parsley pesto

Pasta with walnut, goats cheese and parsley pesto and roasted yellow peppers, asparagus and courgettes

An article in the Guardian reminded me about making pesto.  I tried making pesto a while back and it was nice but not significantly nicer than shop bought pesto.  But this article reminded me that one of the advantages of making your own pesto is that you don't have to stick to the pine nuts/basil/parmesan thing, you can make up your own recipe.  So, on a whim, I bought some walnuts, parsley and hard goats cheese and made my own.  I just chucked some of all three of these in the food processor and added olive oil until it looked right.  Not the most precise recipe of all time but it tasted pretty damn good.  I think I prefer parsley to basil in pesto, largely because of the more robust flavour.

Walnut, goats cheese and parsley pesto

Walnut, goats cheese and parsley pesto

To go with it, I roasted some vegetables - courgettes, yellow peppers, asparagus and some chopped garlic along with lots of salt and black pepper and olive oil.  I love roasted vegetables so much.  While they were roasting, I cooked the pasta and then combined.  Hmmm.  Definitely experimenting with pesto again..

Roasted yellow peppers, asparagus and courgettes

Pasta with walnut, goats cheese and parsley pesto and roasted yellow peppers, asparagus and courgettes

Sticky toffee pudding

Sticky toffee pudding

I know it's unsophisticated but I hate puddings/sweets that are basically savoury food with just a little subtle hint of sweetness, like posh cheesecake.  Except for tart/sour desserts like lemony things or fruit sorbets.  Anyway.  I don't have much of a sweet tooth, I prefer savoury food as is probably obvious from this blog, but when I want a sweet thing, I want it to be properly sweet.

Which means that I love sticky toffee pudding.  Since my lovely husband loves me, he decided to make it one lazy Sunday afternoon, using this recipe.  We were quite startled to find that it wasn't a steamed pudding which, I suppose, is rather ignorant of us.  It was lovely.

Sticky toffee pudding mixture

Sticky toffee pudding mixture

Sticky toffee pudding mixture

Sticky toffee pudding about to go into the oven

Sticky toffee pudding just out of the oven

Rye soda bread

Rye soda bread and soup

So, I've recently become interested in soda bread, inspired by a friend of mine, as I've mentioned earlier and I had some rye flour left over from something or other.  So, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I decided to try..  rye soda bread, using Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's recipe.

Served with some soup I knocked up with vegetables that needed using up, it was a really nice autumn meal.  Because I made two small loafs rather than one larger one, they cooked faster.

The only criticism I'd make of the recipe is that I thought the amount of salt was completely wrong.  I thought this when looking at the recipe and went for a whole teaspoon rather than 1/4 teaspoon as suggested but both my lovely husband and I thought it was still undersalted.  I'd be tempted to go for two teaspoons next time.

Rye soda bread

Rye soda bread