Luscious lemon slice

At this time of year we always have a glut of lemons.  One thing I'll attempt for the first time is making preserved lemons - but not quite ready to yet.  This recipe from Belinda Jeffery is a voluptuously sweet way to use up some of your surplus lemons.  It is very tangy and as she herself says, it is more lemon tart than a slice.  I've varied my recipe by including coconut in the base and using less sugar in the topping.  Her photo is much prettier than mine!  Makes 20 -24 medium sized bars

base
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 cup desiccated coconut
180g cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp iced water

lemon topping
6 eggs
2 cups caster sugar
finely grated zest of 3 lemons
1 cup strained lemon juice
1/2 cup plain flour
icing sugar
chopped pistachio nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Lightly grease and line a baking tin measuring 32x24x5 cm.
For the base, whiz flour, coconut and sugar together in food processor.  Add butter and process till it resembles fine breadcrumbs.  With processor still running add vanilla and iced water and whiz until the mixture forms a ball around the blade. Take it out and press evenly into the tin.  Gently roll a glass tumbler across the top of the dough to smooth it out.  Bake the base for about 18mins till edges begin to colour and the top is pale golden.
In the meantime, make the topping.   Beat vigorously the eggs and sugar until frothy.  Whisk in the lemon juice and zest and sift the flour over the top gently incorporating until the mixture is smooth.
When the base is ready transfer to a wire rack to cool.  Reduce oven temp to 150degrees.  Once the base has cooled, pour the filling over the base.  Return the tin to the oven and bake for another 35 - 40 mins or until the topping has set..  Place tin on wire rack to cool.
Allow the slice to cool down completely before slicing in squares or elegant diamonds.  Dust with icing sugar just before serving and sprinkle with a few chopped pistachio nuts.  Quite lovely with a dollop of thick cream....

supercilious potato gratin

My dear girl and I love concluding  our day with a story.  If she had her way it would be Andy Griffiths, but alas she is content to listen to me read from the Classics.  Lately we’ve been re-reading Oscar Wilde.  Our absolute favourite is the Remarkable Rocket.  For those of you unacquainted with this literary gem, it’s about a very proud rocket  who boasts about his noble heritage and how remarkable he is to his fellow pyrotechnic companions such as the Catherine Wheel and the Roman Candle, amongst others.  He was to be ignited on the occasion of a much –heralded Royal Wedding as part of the magnificent finale, akin to watching the aurora borealis as the King commented.

However he became damp and came to a rather unremarkable end, in a mud pit in broad daylight.  Despite this ignominy, his last gasp was “I knew I would create a sensation!”  I love how he shielded himself from the harsh reality of his existence (and his demise) with his protracted delusional state.  My daughter just loves the word ‘supercilious” which features a number of times in the story and has taken to calling a number of her peers as supercilious.  I guarantee you will feel supercilious for creating something so delicious, so comforting with minimal effort.  ….Serves 6 as a side dish.

800g potatoes (sliced to 1.5cm using a mandoline)

300ml cream

50g butter

1 leek sliced very thinly also

4 peppercorns

1 fresh bay leaf

4 garlic cloves peeled and chopped

½ cup coarsely grated parmesan

Freshly grated nutmeg

 Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C.

Heat cream in saucepan with all the peppercorns, bay and garlic till boils then lower temp and simmer for a further 5 mins.  Cool in saucepan then strain and remove the flavourings.

In a large bowl, thoroughly combine the potatoes, leeks and infused cream with your hands.  Place in a greased roasting tin and dot with bits of butter.  And bake covered with foil for about 45 mins till potatoes are tender.  Remove foil, turn up the heat to 200 degrees and scatter over the parmesan and grated nutmeg.  Return to oven and cook for  further 15 mins till golden and brown on the top.

 

 

Harira happiness

Occasionally you come across a recipe which is the culinary counterpart to Tolstoy’s War and Peace or Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.  Despite my penchant for hyperbole, I believe this classic Moroccan soup is it.   It’s complex, beautiful, lingers in your gustatory memory long after your last mouthful.  I’ve had this recipe since, again when Cath Claringbold was a regular food writer for Melbourne’s The Age and after all these years I finally made it!  According to the doyenne of Middle Eastern cuisine, Claudia Roden, harira is the generic term for a soup full of pulses with little meat, few vegetables and brimming with herbs and spices.  Every day during the month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast between sunrise and sunset, the smell of this soup permeates Moroccan streets as every household has it's own version to be eaten when the sound of the cannon heralds the breaking of the fast.  How torturous that would be inhaling this divinely aromatic elixir all day only to wait till darkness unfolds before you can eat it!   On a more prosaic level, this would be analogous to my school days when I often had a cold salami and tomato sandwich and watched the lucky few eat their lunch-order hot pies and sausage rolls on cold wintry days.

I have perused a few recipes from various sources and astonished to notice that one ‘high brow’ cooking periodical used  tinned chickpeas!!  Anathema if you want flavour of the highest calibre.  Have I convinced you to make this?  Go to the effort of soaking your chickpeas overnight, making a proper chicken stock and you will be rewarded ten-fold.  As my children were unlikely to partake, I took the liberty of adding harissa at the end and didn’t use the luxurious saffron as stipulated in Cath’s recipe. Serves 6 – 8

 

Olive oil
500g diced lamb (leg or shoulder)
3 brown onions, finely diced
1 capsicum, diced into 1cm pieces
4 cloves garlic
2 carrots, chopped coarsely
2 celery sticks, chopped coarsely
1 tbs ground cumin
2 bay leaves
2 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tbs tomato paste

1 cup chickpeas, soaked overnight, rinsed and drained
10 cups chicken stock
400g tinned tomatoes
1 cup baby lentils
coriander leaves, chopped
1 tsp ground cinnamon
lemon juice
salt to taste

Heat some olive oil in a large stockpot and over medium to high heat, brown the diced lamb in batches and set aside.

Add some more olive oil and pan fry onions and capsicums till soften, about 5 mins then add garlic, carrots and celery.  Saute for a further 5 mins stirring through the spices and tomato paste in the last 2 mins.   Return the lamb to the pot with the chickpeas, stock and tomatoes.  Bring to the boil then reduce heat, cover and cook until both the lamb and chickpeas are tender which will take approximately another 1.5 hours.  Taste and adjust for seasoning adding salt as required.

Rinse and drain the lentils before adding to the soup pot.  Cook until tender (another 30 mins).

To serve, add a generous amount of chopped coriander, ground cinnamon, lemon juice and salt.  Serve with warm pita bread and, if you're going to eat like a Moroccan, dates.

Easy pitta bread

My mum makes the best pitta bread.  But being a typical Greek mum, when I ask for a recipe she'll give me the ingredients but not the proportions.  Always the response is, 'me to mati', translated as 'with the eye'.  While it's wonderful to exercise intuition when cooking and it certainly is something that is perfected with experience, sometimes a little exactness is required especially when working with yeast.  Well, I found this wonderful recipe from a newspaper clipping from way back when Cath Claringbold of Meccah Bah fame in Melbourne was a regular contributor for Saturday's 'The Age'.  

I made mine with 200g organic Rye flour and 250g unbleached white and they were as good as Mum's!  They can also be used as wraps. Much healthier than the shop-brought ones with their high salt and sugar content.  And easy as....
Makes about 12 rounds.

450g unbleached white flour (or 200g Rye and 250 white flour)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp dried instant yeast
1/2 tbs olive oil
275ml tepid water

Combine all the ingredients in an electric mixer and using a dough hook, mix on low for 10 mins.  Alternatively knead by hand till dough is smooth and elastic.

Roll the dough into balls about the size of a lemon.  Dust with flour and place on a tray. Cover with a tea towel and leave to prove in a warm spot in the kitchen for 30 - 60 mins.  After which time, the dough should increase in size and leave an indentation when touched.

Roll out the dough into 18 - 20 cm circles.  Brush with olive oil and chargrill on a barbeque or on a non-stick griddle pan.  Watch in delight as they puff up like pillows, then turn them over.  It should only take a minute on each side.  Brush with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and serve with your favourite dip or soup. 

Baba Ghanoush Bliss

There’s a  line in Kate Richard’s “Madness:  A Memoir” , “ Bliss; a cup of barista-ed coffee”.  Being an aficionado of the bean I’ll have to agree.  But a bowl of this coupled with warm, home made pitta,  would have to be on par.  Due to the amount of garlic, this is guaranteed to not only be blissful, but very healthful too.  Perfect to keep the winter bugs away!

This is from Weir’s From Tapas to Meze.  Grilling or barbequing the eggplant before hand, imparts a most desirable smoky flavour.

2 large eggplants

4 – 5 cloves of garlic

½ cup tahina

1 heaped tbs cumin

Juice of 2 lemons

1 tbs extra virgin olive oil

2 tbs freshly chopped parsley

Barbecue or grill eggplants turning till skin is blackened (5 – 10 mins).

Place eggplants on baking tray and roast till soft at 180 degrees C , which will probably be another 15 – 20 mins.  Once cooled, peel the skin.

Place the pulp in a bowl and mash or pulse in a food processor with salt, garlic, tahina, cumin and lemon juice. Taste and adjust for seasoning.  Spread on a plate, drizzle with oil and sprinkle with parsley.  Serve with olives and warm pitta.

Meatball Sedation

Presently enamoured by Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the lighthouse’.   There is a dinner party scene where interactions amongst the guests are patently strained which include a misanthrope who would rather be eating alone than engaged in ‘silly’ banter, a painter who can not wait to the morning to paint a magnificent landscape she’s creating in her head, a host visibly offended that a guest has helped himself to a second bowl of soup, a hostess at her wits end trying to merge these disparate parties to create a sense of bon homie. …But then the main course, the Boef en Daube arrives and suddenly there is animation in the room, the hostess feels revived and the guests are quietly enraptured.  Well this is analogous to the reception this dish received when served for dinner.  Prior there was bedlam at the dinner table with children bickering and a harassed father trying to subdue them.  But tout a coup, once the meatballs and spaghetti were served there was a collective hush.  It was devoured within minutes.

It’s  very nourishing, uncomplicated in flavour and guaranteed to please the fussiest eaters and tame the wildest recalcitrant.   This is from Nigella’s How to Eat.  Serves plenty.

 

For the meatballs

1 onion

2 tbs oil

4 slices stale white bread, crusts removed and broken into pieces

200ml milk

1 kg minced beef (or combination of veal and pork)

2 beaten eggs

4 tbs grated parmesan

1 heaped tbs chopped fresh parsley

Flour

For the sauce

2 tbs olive oil

1 tbs butter

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

1 carrot

1 stick celery

1 tsp cinnamon

2 heaped tbs dried oregano

2 tbs red wine or apple juice

3 x 400g tins best quality tomatoes

3 bay leaves

200ml milk

….

Chop onion very finely and fry it in 1 tbs oil for about 10 mins, sprinkled with salt, till golden and soft.  Place in a large bowl.  Cover bread with meal in a dish and leave till soaked (about 10 mins).

Now for the sauce.  Blitz onion, garlic, carrot and celery in a processor then fry in a large saucepan in butter and oil.   Once soft and stew-like, add wine/apple juice with cinnamon, oregano, bay and 2.5 tins of the tomato.  Push around saucepan with wooden spoon till tomato disintegrates.  Season with salt and pepper.  Cook for about 20 mins add milk then another 10 mins by which time it will have become a sweet tomatoey melody.

In the meantime, place minced meat in the bowl with cooked onion.  Add bread which has been squeezed of excess milk. Then the beaten eggs, the parmesan, the cooked onion, the parsley and salt and pepper.  Mix well with your hands.

Spread a large surface with flour and have 2 large plates ready.  Using your hands shape into walnut-sized balls and roll about in the flour and place on the plates.  Makes about 46 meatballs.

Heat about 1 tbs of oil in  a non-stick frying pan (you will indubitably need to add more oil as you go along) and brown the meatballs in batches.  Spoon the browned ones into the large pot containing the sauce. When you’ve done them all, throw the remaining ½ tin of tomatoes into the frypan in which you’ve been browning the meatballs, then pour on top of the meatballs in sauce.  Cook in the sauce for about 20 -30 mins covered, till cooked through.  Remove bay leaves and toss through a huge bowl of cooked spaghetti.  Or alternatively serve with cooked rice.  And enjoy it’s sedating effect……

 

Greek -style baked beans

Frank Sinatra’s ‘That’s Life’ occasionally comes to mind when  I cook.  It was a case of “..flying high in April”  when the children wholeheartedly enjoyed the gnocchi but this dish, equaIly as earthy, was my ‘shot down in May’ moment.  Refused to take a bite!  Regardless of the dismal reception by the little dears in my life, this is my favourite way of cooking beans.  The recipe is my mother-in-law’s although probably not strictly adhering to it as I’m relying on my memory of the many occasions she’s graciously procured it over the phone when asked.  In Greek, it’s called gigantes because the lima beans expand whilst soaking and literally become giant beans.  Beware, despite the flavours being simple and clean, the process requires overnight soaking and pre-cooking so commence this the night before. Serve as a main with a green salad and a piquant fetta like piperati, and for extra protein add grilled meat or fish.   …Serves 6 as a main

500g lima beans

2 bay leaves

125ml olive oil, plus extra for drizzling

2 medium brown onions

2 celery stalks with leaves, roughly chopped

2 large carrots, roughly chopped

4 garlic cloves, finely sliced

2 tsp ground allspice

800g of coarsely grated ripe tomatoes, or tinned

A handful of parsley chopped

½ cup of breadcrumbs

Soak the beans overnight in a large bowl of water. Drain then place in a large saucepan, add the bay leaf and cover with water.  Bring to the boil then reduce heat to medium – low, and cook till very tender, approximately 1.5 hours.  Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.  Add a couple of shakes of salt towards the end of the cooking time.  Drain the beans, reserving about 400ml of the liquid.

Preheat oven to 180⁰ C.  In a frypan, sauté the onions with the garlic in about 2tbs of olive oil till tender and translucent.  Remove from the heat and mix in a bowl with the remaining ingredients, including the precooked beans with the reserved liquid, except for the breadcrumbs.  Season with salt and pepper.

Place in a large baking dish and insert into oven.  Cover with foil and bake for about 45 mins.  Remove the foil and stir the beans add extra water if they seem to be drying out.  Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and return to oven, baking for another 30 mins.

Serve warm with a final flourish of olive oil.