Mediterranean Vegetables
Fennel, Mushroom and Parmesan Salad
An Italian guest recently remarked that Italians don’t really do salads; they’re often borrowed from other countries. I wondered if that were the case and reached for my Oxford Companion to Italian Food written by Gillian Riley (it must have taken her years and years of research) and she has a lot to say about Italians’ love of mixed green salad, misticanza, through the centuries. Read the rest of this entry »
Tumbet
Cookery books are never written in isolation; mine rely on the generosity of strangers who often then go on to become friends.
My insight into the culinary life and goings-on in Mallorca is largely thanks to a group of close friends, who used to take it in turns to host Sunday lunch together. And I got introduced to them because another friend lent me her finca, which I moved out of after 4 days – I gave up being sensible and scientifically sceptical about the invisible furniture being dragged across the sitting room, doors which suddenly refused to open, and a beeping whistle sound which followed me about the house – into a hotel where the daughter of Sally Caimari -Mitchell’s god mother also happened to be staying; serendipitously Sally ran a tapas bar, and have loads of pals all of whom were really keen on cooking.
The research became easy after that.
Pumpkin sauté or Calabaza frita
My husband and I are attempting a Lifestyle Adjustment aka an attempt at losing weight without noticing any food restrictions. Now, I am not a believer in low calorie/low fat extreme diets; but the science behind the Glycemic Index – the rate at which carbohydrates are broken down to glucose, which in turns affects how quickly you feel hungry – seems sensible. Basically, one should eat more of the low GI foods like broccoli and less of the high GI foods like potatoes. Read the rest of this entry »
Roasted Cauliflower and Carrots with a Garlicky Tahini Dressing
We’ve got a vegetarian staying with us at the moment. I love vegetables, but it’s always more of a challenge to think up meals when my fallback supper position is to reach for a packet of sausages to transform in some way: pasta, patties, casseroles, even toad in the hole – I’m so grateful for their versatility – there’s always good quality free range bangers in my fridge.
I came across this Lebanese recipe in a recent issue of Saveur magazine (part of an article by Carolyn Forché of a dinner party in Beirut) and it was so successful with meat eaters and vegetarians alike, I’m doing it again by popular request. I’ve adjusted the original recipe slightly, adding carrots (which go well with the cumin and add a touch of sweetness) and reducing the amount of garlic. Read the rest of this entry »
‘Drowned’ cauliflower supper dish
The cauliflower is a virtuous vegetable: it has a starchy mouth feel and texture, while being low in calories and high in things like Vitamin C. It does not rate highly on the glamour rating, but it does lend itself to some surprisingly good supper dishes.
I was intrigued to discover it is hugely popular in Sicily. When I visited the island one January, caulis were piled high in all the markets: the purple kind was preferred in the Catania region, while the green variety was in abundance in Palermo, where the picture to the left was taken. Ever since then, I’ve kept an eye out for what the Italians (and Sicilians) like to do with them.
And actually what the Italians like to do seems to be similar to what the Spanish like to do – at least in Mallorca. Coliflor ofegada, drowned cauliflower, is similar to Puglia’s cima di rapa affogata – one variation of which is with cauliflower. I guess Salerno and Palma de Mallorca were on the same shipping routes back in the Middle Ages?
Colfiorito lentils from Umbria
When I first moved to Italy a friend of mine said ‘well of course you must get yourself a pasta pot’ which has an inner sieve with handles, ostensibly to make draining easier (it doesn’t). While tracking one down I came across a soapstone casserole and bought that instead. These are hewn from solid rock, nothing new fangled like composite stone; they are not only extremely heavy they are fragile too.
I realised it was going to be a bum purchase as I staggered out the shop and then couldn’t figure out how to get it in the car without doing my back in. It got worse: it came the instructions which involved oiling the dish and then baking it full of water for about 6 hours, twice. Gas is amazingly expensive here in Italy and I got mean about the whole thing. It gathered dust for the next 2 years. Eventually I stopped punishing it and got it prepped, and then another 2 years passed.
But last Saturday I visited Colfiorito, a small, unexpected plateau in the Sibillini Mountains, just inside Umbria. It is famous for its red potatoes, something I found out only afterwards, otherwise I’d have bought some. No, I was myopically hunting down lentils, Colfiorito being less well known than Castelluccio as an Umbrian lentil growing region. Dotted along the road are lorries selling chick peas, lentils, onions and potatoes. All very charming and miles more expensive than the local supermarket; still, it was an adventure on a glorious autumn day. Read the rest of this entry »
Pickled Tomatoes
At this time of year, tomatoes always remind me of the few months I spent working in Russia: Siberia to be exact. There, summer is short and it’s spent growing enough vegetables to see folk through the long, very cold winter. Having been brought up in Africa, I remember looking at the town thermometer bleeping minus 30C, and thinking that it couldn’t get any colder– but it did.
Potatoes were stored in specially constructed cellars – holes dug into the roadside verges, with drainpipes poking up through the soil to keep the spuds aerated. But most of the vegetables were pickled. Pickling was so popular, supermarkets stocked concentrated acetic acid for people to dilute into vinegar.
This picture is of pickled tomatoes, bottled by my friend Tatiana and her mother. They carefully stuff each fruit with a slither of garlic before packing them into sterilised jars with whole dill heads (including the seeds) and filled with vinegar. The sealed jars are then placed under a blanket in the sun to cook a little, before being stored in a cool place. They should be left for a couple of months before being eaten. They’re delicious, a treat borne out of necessity, and this picture reminds me to be grateful for Italy’s year round abundance. Which they bottle too, of course!
Down in southern Italy their version is the following: they halve and salt tomatoes, and leave them to dry in the sun. In the UK, there isn’t the right kind of sun – so you could put them on a baking try in a very low oven for two to three hours for a not very similar but it’ll do effect. Next soak them in some white wine vinegar for 30 minutes or so, then stuff them into sterilised jars with a couple of garlic cloves and herbs of your choice – mint or basil, for example – before adding sufficient extra virgin olive oil to ensure the tomatoes are sott’olio, under oil. Tap the jar to make sure all the air bubbles have escaped before sealing it. They can be eaten immediately, but last a couple of months.
Greek Greens and Skorthalia
The temporary vegetable market in Corfu Town has been settled into its tented accommodation for several years now. The new, EU approved, Health and Safety compliant sheds stand on the original site, 98% completed; and the only thing stopping everyone moving back are the rates the council want to impose. It’s the same scenario all over Europe. The local market gardeners are squeezed out and all you have left are the importers, the grocers selling hydroponically grown tomatoes from Holland.
Not all the traders have succumbed to standardised vegetables: Eleni and her daughter Irena, for example, sell produce from Pelekas in the centre of the island. I was about to leave the market without buying anything, but Eleni hustled me into a conversation (conversation is too grand a word for what happened, I keep inadvertently speaking Italian not Greek so she tried her version and between us confusion reigned) and that is how I had my first encounter with vletra. I am not sure that is how you spell it. It’s a type of horta, wild green, except that it isn’t often found in the wild, but volunteers in the veg patch. And if you know anything more about it, please let me know!
Anyway, Eleni’s method of serving vletra – or spinach when it comes to the rest of us – is to blanch the leaves, drain thoroughly, and then dress them in olive oil and lemon. So far, so standard; but she also likes to boil whole little courgettes and whole new potatoes and serve these three vegetables with skorthalia.
Now the trick with skorthalia is to remember it is a garlic and potato dip; not mashed potato flavoured with garlic. It is best freshly made and still tepid. I think making the mixture with still-hot potatoes cuts the sharpness of the raw garlic, but still allows a lovely warming pungency.
Eleni’s idea of serving this with courgettes is excellent – I halved and blanched 10 cm sized ones for 2 minutes so they still had a bit of bite and could plough through the dip without breaking.
8-10 cloves garlic, depending on size, skinned
1 teaspoon sea salt
150ml extra virgin olive oil
1kg potatoes, peeled and cubed
juice of one lemon
Crush the garlic with the salt to create a mush. Whisk this puree with the olive oil to make an emulsion. Boil the potatoes until tender, drain thoroughly, and blitz in a food processor, the engine running while you pour in the oil followed by the lemon juice – a bit like making mayonnaise. Add a little more oil if necessary and stop mixing when you have a smooth puree the consistency of hummus. Taste for garlicyness – add more if you fancy it!
This amount makes a good bowl full, serving 4 people as a side dish or lots more as a dip.
Another variation, a preference of Nikos Lekkas the local accountant, is to add 2 slices of 3 day old bread, crumbed, to the potatoes in the food processor. He adds even more garlic and treats himself every Friday so that his breath has two days to recover before meeting clients on Monday. Needless to say he loves it.
Aubergine and Tomato Salad
Our good friends Clare Whitmell and Caimin Jones came over for supper last night and Clare asked me to post this recipe; it was so good that Caimin, who doesn’t usually like aubergine, had second helpings.
It is an adaptation of a recipe that appears in Paula Wolfert’s Moroccan Cuisine. Paula is specific on how to prepare the aubergines, which I decided to skip as I don’t think aubergines are prone to bitterness these days; and in addition to the cumin she specifies coriander leaf, which is impossible to find in rural Italy, and paprika. I only have smoked paprika in the larder and it wasn’t an optimal pairing with the cumin when I first cooked this dish, so last night I substituted fresh thyme. It works. The key, though, is the quality of your vegetables: make sure you have the plumpest, heaviest aubergines and the juiciest, ripest, preferably home grown tomatoes.
I used a large frying pan to fry the vegetables in batches, transferring them to a casserole as they browned. There is no scientific basis for this (other than I didn’t want to steam the aubergine) and if you can think of a more efficient, uses only one pan approach, do it! Like dust off that tagine lurking at the back of your cupboard. In the absence of one, I think a heavy bottom, well seasoned cast iron casserole is important for this dish as no extra liquid is added; the vegetables stew in their own juices.
Serves 4 – 6 people as a side dish
Olive oil for frying
2 aubergines, about 500g each, 2cm dice
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
5 plum tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 tsp cumin seed
1tsp rock salt
3 garlic cloves
1tsp fresh thyme leaves, approx 4 twigs stripped
Heat about 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large non stick frying pan over a medium to high heat. Add half the aubergine cubes and fry for about 10 minutes, stirring regularly, until the cubes have coloured and turned slightly soft. Scrape into a cast iron casserole dish, and then repeat this step with the remaining aubergine. Sprinkle over the cayenne.
Crush the sea salt, cumin seed and garlic together with a pestle and mortar. Actually, I use something called a chobbit that I bought in Jakarta many years ago. It is similar to a pestle and mortar but the heavy stone mortar and angled pestle make it ideal for creating pastes.
Add a little more oil to the frying pan followed by the garlic paste and tomatoes. Fry the tomatoes for a couple of minutes so it starts to look like a chunky salsa and then stir this into the aubergine along with the thyme.
Now cook the mixture over a very low heat and remember to stir it regularly, taking care to scrape the bottom of the pan – it will stick and burn if you don’t. The vegetables will eventually turn to a kind of mush and the tomatoes almost become indistinguishable. This will take about 15 to 20 minutes.
Leave the salad to cool to room temperature.
I served this with cold roast beef and a zucchini salad. I used the round pale green type of zucchini: slice 5 thinly and brush the slices with a little oil before dry-frying or grilling them so they catch a caramel colour but don’t burn. Arrange them on a plate. I then dribbled over more oil and squeezed the juice of half a sweet or Amalfi lemon – lime juice could be a good substitute – before scattered marjoram leaves over everything. Very simple and very good.
Greek Scrambled Eggs
Two weeks in Corfu without my father: the unimaginable is happening anyway. His ashes are currently in the drinks cupboard, the family like the idea he has good spirits for company. Just below the garden wall is a young walnut tree, next to where the old footpath to the sea zig zags across the hillside. It has the most marvellous views and the plan is to bury his ashes there, and build a stone bench so family – and passers-by – can spend time with their memories of him while contemplating myriad distant blues. Read the rest of this entry »
