Dahl Soup

Well, as I mentioned, I’ve just shifted house, and now have a lovely new kitchen to play in! I had planned to make a fancy meal over the weekend to celebrate the big shift and new kitchen, and Kat’s suggestion of gnocchi was very appealing. However, in the event, I was just too damn tired to be bothered cooking anything much (I just managed a stir-fry on Saturday night because I had the ingredients in the house for that and really really couldn’t face going to the shop for anything else!) and then fish with wedges last night (lovely, but not exactly a revolutionary concept. Actually it was very good though – I used whiting which is a terribly unpopular fish over here, which means it is very cheap. They are so obsessed with the precious cod in the UK, and I think it’s horrid – almost always less-than fresh, over-priced and their obsession with it means that it has been over-fished. I’m delighted to have found a cheaper, fresher, more sustainable alternative! Anyway, I digress…) I’ve felt a bit poorly since the move (brought on by tiredness I’m sure), and I have just been craving the soothing warmth of soup. Yesterday when I was wandering around the supermarket in a bit of a daze, doing the week’s groceries, I saw a packet of yellow split peas and grabbed them. It’s not an ingredient I’ve ever bought before, but I had a suspicion that I could make a lovely soup with them. I didn’t have a recipe, although a bit of Googling brought forth a host of options.

The most traditional soup is pea and ham, but I didn’t have a ham hock handy (does anyone ever really have a ham hock handy?) There’s a very nice sounding French option called Faubonne soup which has celeriac and sorrel in it – but again, I had neither of those in the house. The Hungarians do a version with ham and parsnip, but we’ve already established I had no ham, and nor did I have parsnip. But, what I do always have are spices a-plenty. So when I came across a recipe called Egyptian Cream soup which has ginger, chilli, garlic, cumin and saffron in it, it sounded like just what the Dr ordered. Of course, saffron is about the one spice that I don't currently have in the cupboard, so I just threw turmeric in the mix for a bit of colour and in doing so, I seem to have shifted my soup from the banks of the Nile to the bustling streets of Delhi. In fact, I’ve decided to call this Dahl Soup because that’s exactly what it tastes like to me! It’s smooth, filling, creamy and spicy and has a gorgeous yellowy autumnal colour – just the thing when you’re feeling tired or blue!


Dahl Soup

300g yellow split peas, soaked in cold water overnight
1 large onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
1-2 large cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tbsp (ish) of fresh ginger, chopped
Good glug or two of olive oil
2 tsp whole cumin seeds
1 ½ tsp ground cumin
1 ½ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground chilli (I would have put in a whole fresh chilli, chopped, except I didn’t have any)
½ tsp turmeric (I put in a whole tsp but think it overpowered the other spices)
1.5 litres hot water plus a stock cube (or 1.5 litres of home made stock…I’d used all my frozen stuff before shifting, so it was a cube for me!)
Salt to taste (start with about a tsp and see how you like it – pulses tend to need a fair bit of salt I think)
Fresh coriander to sprinkle on top to serve

Heat oil over medium heat. Sweat onion and carrot. Once softened, add garlic and ginger (and fresh chilli if you’re using that instead) and whole cumin seeds. Cook a minute or two then add the ground spices. Cook for a minute then add your drained peas and stock. Bring to the boil then simmer for about an hour or until the peas are soft. Blitz with a hand-held blender thingy (or any other blitzing device) and serve with chopped coriander and whatever else you fancy. I had it with loads of garlicky croutons which was really yummy, but a splosh of cream or yoghurt would also be nice (as would a Naan bread for dunking!).

Shifting Kitchens

Apologies for not posting anything of interest recently! I'm shifting house and it's a hideous process which makes everything difficult, so there hasn't been a great deal of interesting food coming from the kitchen recently. However, the new place we're moving to has a lovely kitchen and I'm just itching to get cooking in it. The big question, of course, is what on earth should I cook?? Comfort-food classics (it's autumn, so think stews and soups with fresh bread) or shall I try a brand new recipe in a brand new kitchen? Any and all suggestions welcome and I promise a proper post on the First Supper!

Short, sweet and buttery...

Is there anything at all better than freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven, scoffed with loads of butter??

An evening with Julia and Julie, Meryl and Amy

Tonight we went to the movies. It's been a while, actually, since we went last, and I was rather looking forward to it. Actually this was the second time we'd attempted to go to see this particular movie - the first attempt being derailed by a rather tragic hair-related debacle. So tonight, hair straightened into submission, off we set for dinner and a movie. But this was not just any movie; this was Julie and Julia - a film I've been dying to see since I first heard the story had been made into a movie.

So, the premise (in case you don't know it, but I'm sure that any foodies would be hard pressed not to have heard of it at the very least in the lead up to the film's release), is that government secretary Julie Powell decides to give her life meaning by cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking (MATFC) by Julia Child in one year. She blogs about it along the way and in the end the Project became so popular that a book deal was signed (Julie/Julia - read it - it's hilarious!)

The movie takes Julie's story and splices it with that of Julia Child, based on a new biography chronicling the writing of Child's seminal cookbook. And the movie is wonderful. Actually no, the movie is lovely. Meryl Streep can't help but steal the show - she's over-the-top perfection in every joyous and heartbreaking moment (much as I imagine Julia Child was). The food is gorgeous and the film is definitely lovely. The problem for me is that the book (Julie/Julia, not MATFC) is not lovely. It's crass, delicious, smart and laugh out loud funny, but not lovely. And that's why I love it - it's why I've read it about 3 or 4 times. Julie Powell has disasters and dramas and her tales of woe (as well as being snortingly funny) are what then make her triumphs over the art of French cooking such a joy to read. I really don't think the movie was true to Julie, but for all that, it is a lovely flick and definitely worth an evening. You'll fall in love with Meryl/Julia.

A note though. Don't take your poor lad with you - he will find himself in a tiny minority amongst a majority of middle aged/elderly women! Poor boy. And then to top the evening off, your car will be hit from behind at an intersection on the way home leaving him fuming and you nursing a whip-lashed neck.

French food for us tonight I think! Bon Appetit!

Kitty's Tagine

Since moving to the UK, Andrew and I have spent quite a bit of time up in Scotland with his aunt and uncle (Kitty and Peter). These lovely people have been so warm and welcoming and I really feel like I do have some family over here, which is nice when I'm so far from my own family. Kitty isn't a big fan of cooking - in fact, I believe you could go so far as to say she hates it - but when we stay we always get lovely meals and this one in particular I really enjoyed. It was a Moroccan chicken tagine (although I should probably say Moroccan-inspired since I have very little experience with Moroccan cuisine and have no idea how authentic (or not) this dish is!) and I think it's wonderful. I also have a feeling that you could make it as a vegetarian dish using root vege in place of the chicken - or potentially even fish, although you'd want to add the fish at the last minute once the sauce was done. Not wholly sure about the fish, actually...it may be too sweet for that. Anyway, if you do happen to try this using something other than chicken, please let me know. I'd love to hear how it turned out!

Kitty's Tagine

1 kg chicken (or root vege...if you use a lot of pumpkin or sweet potato, you might want to hold back on the addition of honey at the end as it could end up too sweet)
2 tbsp oil
2 onions, sliced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp chilli powder (or a whole fresh chilli, chopped, if like me you have no decent dried stuff)
1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 1/2 cups stock (chicken or vege, to go with whatever you are using in the tagine)
1 cup water
1/2 cup dates or dried apricots, chopped (I've only used apricots, but would love to know how the dates turn out)
1/2 cup almonds, toasted (I think the original recipe was for flaked almonds to be added at the end, but Kitty didn't have any when she made this so she just put whole almonds in with the apricots. I actually loved that - the nuts sort of swell and become quite meaty and flavoured with the sauce - so I now use whole in preference. Your call though - add flaked at the end if you prefer)
1/4 cup liquid honey

Cut up chicken (or vege) into chunks and fry in 1 tbsp oil until browned. Set aside.
Heat remaining oil and sweat onion and garlic until softened. Add spices and cook until fragrant.
Return chicken (or vege) to pan with water and stock. Simmer for an hour with lid on.
Remove lid, add fruit and nuts (if using the whole ones) and simmer until thickened slightly. (Fruit will start to break down)
Stir in honey, taste and season if needed.

I like to serve this sprinkled with chopped coriander and rice, although couscous would also be lovely (and probably more 'Moroccan'). I have a sneaky suspicion that some type of flatbread would also be good served with this.

My favourite foccacia

This recipe is easily one of my most-used bread recipes. It's one that I photocopied from a cookbook of my Mum's, and I just love it. If you're into bread making, I urge you to try this next time you fancy a nice warm chunk of herby bread to go with some homemade soup or a hearty winter stew. It's also wonderful toasted or grilled the next day and topped with sweet, ripe tomatoes or with piles of mashed and salted avocado (or whatever you like on toast. Grilled garlicky mushrooms would be wonderful. Ooh and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon. I'm hungry...)

The secret to this is to knead in the olive oil after the first rising. That, it seems, is what gives the bread its wonderful density and richness. It also imparts a lovely olivey aroma. This part of the process is rather messy and squelchy, but fun if you like to play with your food! If you're using a bread maker, I guess you just add the oil after the first proof and let it knead it briefly again.

This makes 2 pretty decent sized foccacias, but I often just make half. Or make the full recipe and freeze it.

Foccacia*

1 Tbsp sugar
750ml lukewarm water
1 Tbsp dried yeast
1 Tbsp salt
1 kg flour (the original recipe says plain flour; I use strong bread-making flour. Use what you have and I doubt it'll matter)
75ml or 1/4 cup olive oil (I just use my light cooking olive oil here, but feel free to use half extra virgin. I suspect a really strong EVOO would be quite overpowering in the final bread)
handful of fresh herbs - rosemary is the classic, but thyme is lovely, fresh oregano would work too. Strip the leaves and finely chop (although I keep a few whole springs and leaves to poke into the top before cooking)
rock or flaky sea salt

Dissolve sugar in 1 cup of the warm water then sprinkle over the yeast and leave to get frothy
In a large bowl, mix the first measure of salt with the flour. When the yeast is frothy, add it to the flour and then add the remaining water (I like to rinse out the yeasty remains with the rest of the water). Mix to a dough.
Knead the dough until smooth and elastic. Place in a bowl, cover and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size.
Punch down and turn it onto the bench. Knead the olive oil into the dough a little at a time. It's quite slippery when you begin, but the bread 'takes' the oil after a while. You'll feel this happen. Just keep repeating (and adding some of the chopped herbs as well) until all the oil has been used.
Divide dough into 2-4 pieces (depending on how large you want your loaves to be. I've made mini individual foccacia rolls on occasion which work nicely as well. Suit yourself) and place on a greased tray or in a greased tin. Flat the dough with your fingers firmly. Cover again and leave to rise until doubled. Once doubled, brush lightly with olive oil, sprinkle with more herbs and the salt (or whatever other foccacia topping you fancy - olives, sundried toms - although these often burn - thinly sliced potato, sweet caramelised onions with thyme and some feta...go to town with your experiments!).
Bake at 220degC for 15 mins then reduce to 200degC for a further 20 mins. Brush or spritz the dough with water every 10 mins during cooking (and the odd splash of oil) - this will ensure a wonderfully dense crust.

Enjoy!

*this recipe has been borrowed from the Destitute Gourmet for whose recipes I am often very grateful!

Feasting Regardless of Travel Frustrations!

We've been away on holiday for a week or so, hence my absence from the kitchen of late. We decided this year - in our infinite wisdom ;-) - to go camping down further south in England. When I came to stay in England with my dad a few years ago, I stayed in late August/early September in Bath, and the weather was amazing. Hot dry sunny days and long summery nights. This was what I imagined our camping holiday would be like. It wasn't. Many dramas - weather related and otherwise - ensued, and while it wasn't exactly the restful holiday I'd planned, we did have fun and now that it's over, we like to look back and laugh at our misfortunes along the way. One of things which caused my partner Andrew to laugh most often was my cooking. Not because it was bad, I hasten to add, but because it was probably more ambitious than your ordinary camp cooking. I didn't think there was anything wrong with the menus, but other friends laughed outright when I told them our meal for the first night...lamb biryani with freshly made (at the campsite) naan bread. I'm not completely deranged, I do realise that this sounds a bit mad for camp-cooking, but there is a reason. I took frozen lamb chops from home for the biryani, and when I was taking them out of the freezer I noticed that I had some pre-made naan dough in there so I threw it in the chiller bag as well. Why not?! It actually worked remarkably well. I basically just fried them in a hot pan with oil, pulling them into vague shape rather than rolling them. Then I kept them warm in tin foil while I made the biryani (which, in fairness, is actually not a difficult meal - it's onions, garlic and spices, then meat or fish of choice, rice and water which you leave to cook by itself for about 20 mins. Actually very simple). The verdict? Campside naan bread were a total success! Sort of like Indian damper (you know the scone dough stuff you used to wrap around sticks and roast over a campfire when you were a kid?)

Aside from the Indian feast, my meals were fairly normal I think. The next night we had creamy smoked salmon pasta (sauteed onion and garlic, a lot of cream, parmesan and smoked salmon chunks stirred through hot pasta with some baby spinach leaves. What could be simpler?!) and stirfries other nights. Actually we had fajitas one night too, which were a big hit. And, in a nod to the more traditional camp cooking, one night we did have sausages in warm rolls, but I cooked some apple slices to pop in beside them and frankly it made all the difference. Just because you only have one wee gas ring to cook on, doesn't mean standards should drop!


Me cooking the infamous naan bread

Since we've been back I haven't done much of any great note in the kitchen, although I did make a pretty yummy plum cake yesterday which I thought I'd share. The recipe is one my friend Rach gave me for an apple sponge cake (she serves it warm as a dessert, but it's pretty good for a day or two afterwards as well). I had some lovely English plums in the fridge which were thrown in there before we went away in the hopes that they'd still be ok when we got back. They were ok, but past their best eating fresh date. Yesterday the time had come to do something with them, so why not a cake? In the apple version, the apple slices stay on top of the cake and form a delicious fruity crust, but the plums did their own thing. Some of them sank, some floated, and some hovered mid-way through the cake. The ones on the bottom went almost jammy and the ones on top are sweet and crispy - really quite good.

Rach's Apple/Plum Cake

125g very soft butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup milk
1 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2-3 apples or 6(ish) plums, sliced but not peeled
Topping - 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon mixed together

Place butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, milk, flour and baking powder in food processor. Beat on low to combine then on medium for 3 mins.*
Pour into greased cake pan (I use a brownie tin, but any cake pan will do. It'll be a thinner cake the bigger your pan - doesn't really matter).
Place slices of fruit over the top of the cake (in pretty patterns if you fancy, or just in lines if you're in a hurry for yummy cake!) Sprinkle over the topping evenly.
Bake at 180degC for 30(ish) mins or until it is firm in the middle.
Cool in tin then slice.

* If, like me, you don't have a food processor, just make this with the old school method. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla and beat for a couple of mins. Add dry ingredients and beat together well.