Smacked Cucumber - easy to prepare spicy side dish

Smacked cucumber is a hot asian salad made with cucumber, it's a kind of pickle. A pickle with a punch. It goes with lots of things. It's fresh and spicy hot, and very easy to make. You bash up the cucumber and break it up, then you salt it to remove some of the moisture, then you dress it. There's a bit of waiting around. Then fun eating.

Smacked Cucumber

Ingredients

• ½ cucumber (halved lengthways)

• 1 tsp sea salt flakes

• 
  

• for the dressing

• 4 Szechuan peppercorns, toasted and ground

• 1 garlic clove, crushed

• 1 tsp granulated sugar

• 2 tbsp rice vinegar

• ¼ tsp ground black pepper

• 1 tbsp soy sauce

• 1 tbsp crispy chillies in oil

• 1 tsp toasted sesame oil

topping

2 spring onions

toasted sesame seeds

Method

Wash the cucumber, cut in half lengthwise

place cucmber on a board cover with a metal spatula and thump (smack) it with the rolling pin. You might like to use the flat of your hand, but it don't. You want to crush it like this until it breaks, or cracks, then chop it roughly into smallish pieces

put the cucumber pieces in a colander and scatter the salt over them mixing the salt through - put the colander in a bowl or on a draining board to catch the drips - leave for 30 minutes

make the dressing whisking together all the other ingredients

rinse the cucumber under a running tap and shake dry - toss in a tea towel to make completely dry - put in a bowl, pour over the dressing and stir it through

finely slice the spring onions

sprinkle the cucmber mixture with the spring onions and sesame seeds and serve

Spicy non-mayo by itsu

When I'm out and about in London I like getting lunch at Itsu, now fully automated. I like it so much that I bought the Itsu cook book and found this spicy sauce recipe. It is vegan and simple to prepare. I haven't experimented with flavours yet, besides garlic, ginger and black pepper the main flavour is Sriracha sauce, which is usually vegan but best check the label as fish sauce is included in some varieties.

Tahini is used to thicken the sauce as well as increase depth of flavour, but not very much, so this is truly a low fat low calorie sauce.

When I'm at home this is the sauce I now like to use with my regular lunch of steamed veg and rice. and sometimes I give it a boost with gomasio.

Itsu Spicy Sauce

Recipe

• 120g silken tofu
• 3 tsp tahini paste
• 3 tsp Sriracha chllli sauce (or 1 hot red chilli, chopped)
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 3 tsp  sugar or alternative
• 10g (2cm) grated fresh ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed or grated
• 1 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• t tbsp water
• 1 tbsp light oil

Method

Put all ingredients into a blender and whizz together to make a smooth sauce

Use immediately, or store in a screwtop jar in the fridge until needed.

notes:

if you use a firmer tofu you will get a grainier result, but it will still be delicious

Sesame salt - store cupboard essential - Gomasio

Gomasio is ground and toasted sesame condiment that makes plain vegetables and plain rice a delicious meal. You can use it alongside soy sauce or instead of it. I can't recommend it enough. I make it by toasting the sesame seeds and adding a pinch of salt. Some people use more salt, but I find it overwhelming.

I use a suribachi but you can use
a pestle and mortar or a food processor

you can see the grooves that help grind the seeds

I made some cottage pies too..

Gluten free Yorkshire puddings

Your Yorkshire puddings will look like this

I've just cooked this batch of Yorkshire puddings to freeze for when we have our family gathering - not on Christmas Day this year. Although once my Christmas lunch guests know about them I may need them for the Christmas Day meal as well.

Since one daughter has been gluten free for a long time and another has recently found it helps her deal with some health problems, we will be eating GF. It's much more sociable. So it's gluten free stuffing/pate etc. Another daughter is now a vegetarian, so a nut loaf will also be served.

Anyway, Yorkshire puddings are the holy grail for those who like them, and I'm feeling lucky. I've found a recipe with three ingredients: cornflour, eggs and milk. You can add seasoning, however since the puds are really a receptacle for gravy, do you need to?

No electric whisk btw, save the splatters and use a large hand whisk. Let's go.

YORKSHIRE PUDDING RECIPE

Set oven to hot, 220 c

generously oil a 12 hole muffin tin or similar, including the top and edges of each hole

put the oiled muffin tin into the oven to get to sizzling point

Ingredients

200g cornflour
6 eggs
300 ml milk or nut milk/soya milk

salt and white pepper to taste

Method

• put cornflour in largish bowl adding salt and white pepper if you like
• whisk cornflour gently
• add the eggs and beat until smooth 
• slowly add the milk beating all the time
• when batter is silky like cream transfer it to a jug
• get the hot oiled muffin tin out of the oven and pour the batter into each hole - you should have enough to get nearly to the top of each one
• put the filled tin back into the hot oven and leave the puds for at least 20 minutes - it'll take 20-25 minutes for them to cook through. Checking on them by opening the oven door will ruin the rise, so don't open that door

Silk road bulghur salad or transcaucasian delight

The bright colours and bursting flavours of this salad are particularly welcome on a drizzly day. The pomegranate seeds look like jewels, and the dark green of the herbs is accented by the pale green of the pistachios. The flavours and textures combine to make very enjoyable mouthfuls, sharp and sweet, aromatic and savoury, and satisfyingly filling.

The recipe comes from a combination of cooking that I suppose could be called transcaucasian. I’ve been travelling the silk road in my kitchen, I was already familiar with middle eastern and Turkish cookery, and I’ve travelled a little bit further. I suppose you could compare it to tabbouleh.

It is what the French call a salade composée, a mixed salad, or a put together salad. The French make a big deal of such things, although many salads have more than one ingredient, even a green salad.

I’ve been known to complain about long lists of ingredients needed for some recipes, and I hope this recipe doesn’t put anyone off. The ingredients are now easily available in London and many wholefood and supermarkets – pomegranate seeds can be seen alongside sandwiches offered as a lunchtime snack. Currants are traditional standard of the store cupboard, used in old style baking, eccles cakes and squashed fly biscuits. I love their name, evolved from the way the French say Corinth, where they first came from. 

I’m writing this in March, slightly at the end of the pomegranate season this side of the globe. If you are reading this and can’t find pomegranates you can use another sour flavour such as barberries, lingonberries or such, but they won’t give that exploding in the mouth pleasure, rather flavour and a bit more chew. If you can’t find bulghur brown rice would work. Of course if you start substituting too many things then you won’t be making this salad.

I add a pinch of gomasio, which gives an extra dimension. Because sometimes more is more. 

Preparation: 30 minutes

Equipment: chopping board, sharp knife, medium sized bowl

(For cooking bulghur see information at the end)

Ingredients

1 cup (or mug) of cooked wholewheat bulghur

Small bunch  of fresh mint

Small bunch  of fresh parsley

Small bunch  of fresh coriander

3 spring onions

Seeds of small pomegranate (1 cup)

1 tbsp currants

2 tbsp shelled pistachios

Juice of 1 lemon

Juice of 1 mandarin or Satsuma or tangerine

3tbsp olive oil

1 tsp honey

Generous drizzle of pomegranate molasses

Salt and pepper

Method

Chop the herbs as fine as you can

Slice the spring onions as thin as you can

Chop the pistachios – but not too fine

Put the cooked bulghur into medium sized serving bowl

Add the chopped herbs, sliced spring onions and chopped pistachios

Add the pomegranate seeds and currants

Add the lemon juice, olive oil, mandarin juice, honey and pomegranate molasses and stir well and add salt and pepper to taste.

Bulghur

Cook the bulghur as usual or as follows:

Warm one tablespoon of the olive oil in a pan over a gentle heat and add a half cup of bulghur, shaking it around in the pan until it is coated in oil

Add a cup of stock and bring to the boil, and then to a simmer

Put a lid on the pan and cook at a simmer for 10 minutes, covered, then turn off and leave, covered, for five minutes

After this check the bulghur is nice and chewy, and not sticking to the bottom of the pan. There should be no liquid.

NB bulghur can vary hugely, and you may need to adjust the cooking of the bulghur in your store cupboard accordingly

-->

Beetroot salad - mustard vinaigrette

Even in the winter, salad is a lovely part of a meal. Some people like pickles with their meals, but I prefer salad. Of course there is no stopping you having both.

Yesterday we had a sit down weekday lunch, one of those lunches where everyone eats something different, even though you’re eating at home.  My plate housed a mixed green salad with avocado, asparagus and watercress using the Long Family dressing, a traditional olive oil, vinegar and garlic dressing. I also put together a quick beetroot salad. I’ve posted the recipe before as one of my hors d’oeuvres posts.

I used to go to the green grocer, and to market stalls and beetroot would be bubbling away on a camping stove

, the earthy smell wafting along the road, drawing me in. Freshly cooked beets were ready to buy, and when you came to use them the dry outer skin could be rubbed off, revealing the rich deep red flesh ready to eat, sweet and cool. The supermarkets sell small versions of the larger lovely beets and both can be wonderfully dressed with a mustard vinaigrette. The onion is essential, and the longer it sits in the dressing with the beetroot the better – but it is still pretty good straight away.

Beetroot Salad Recipe

Four small beetroot or equivalent

One small onion

Mustard vinaigrette

• Slice the beetroot to suit – I like it diced
• Finely chop the onion
• Mix with vinaigrette

Vinaigrette

Large teaspoon Dijon mustard

Large pinch salt

Generous grindings of black pepper

I tbsp wine vinegar

2 tbsp light oil (sunflower or similar)

• mix salt, pepper and mustard
• stir in the vinegar until it is well combined
• stir in oil until dressing looks like a loose mayonnaise

Variations of ingredients and methods

• Walnuts and parsley are delicious additions to the salad
• A little whisk makes combining the mustard dressing easier

Gerry Long's mashed potatoes - purée to some

Very yummy Long family mash - grace à mon père

The family mash is ever popular, and I am making a first go writing up the recipe here. Mostly it's done by feel, while you beat the potatoes hard with a fork, trying to fluff and crush at the same time, you start to feel when it's ready. I somehow managed to get the outline instructions from my father - mash was one of the few dishes he made from beginning to end.

The ingredients that combine to make the magic are:

potatoes
butter or margarine
pepper and salt
nutmeg

Some people favour particular varieties of potato, but I won't pretend that I do, because mostly I just use what is hanging around. In our house you need about three potatoes about the size of a computer mouse per person, unless Kitty and Olivia are in, in which case you need four per person.

Once you get a taste for this mash you may find you want a larger quantity. Have a pint of milk ready and make sure you've got at least a serving spoonful of butter or marg.

Instructions

• Peel the potatoes.
• Cook them in salted water until very well done - a fork stuck into one will make it fall apart easily.
• Drain the potatoes and add the butter and some of the milk, a hearty pinch of salt and some ground black pepper. 
• Mash with a large fork. Beat those potatoes and keep beating.
• Add a pinch of nutmeg - I use freshly grated. Don't overdo it.
• Beat a bit more, taste and adjust the seasoning if you need to.
• Add more milk if the potatoes are stiff - it should be smooth but not at all runny. 

I've been given a potato masher that's a bit like a miniature pogo stick, with springs and everything. I do use it, but I always end up using a fork afterwards. Just to make sure - and also because I feel a bit like I'm being unfaithful to the source implement. The fork is the magic wand of mash.

I don't really get those rice masher things either.

I like to pile the mash into a bowl and use the fork to give it lots of texture, my favourite is a volcano shape. Assuming you've used an oven proof dish you can put it in the oven to get a crust,

That's it.

The proof of the pudding, as the saying goes, is in the eating. And the proof of the recipe is in the cooking. Two proofs at once in this case, as Kitty followed the recipe and shared it with friends. She is the barometer for authentic Gerry Long mash, her friends are the barometer for v yummy, apparently.

Duck for a month

I've just divvied up a duck. It was a lovely day, and I thought I'd try a little amateur butchery on the kitchen table.

I fell upon a video online, with a French lady preparing a duck, taking the flesh off the carcass in one piece, calling it 'removing the duck's overcoat'. I had a go, and the confit has been started - the meat is sitting in salt as I type.

One medium duck should serve well, two good size magrets to eat this week, served with prune sauce. The two wings, legs and aiguillettes,will be confit, cooked and preserved in fat, so they'll be eaten in the new year, with salad. The carcass is being made into stock, which will be part of our gravy on Christmas day. The geziers, liver and heart will also be part of the gravy and stuffing. Not bad for £7.50. Oh, plus the fat and salt, call it £12. The fat will make roasties more tasty as well.

Little tasty turnovers

Inspired by a visit to an Afghan restaurant, these little turnovers are deliciously fresh. If I say so myself. I'm not a great fan of fiddly cooking, still, I reserve the right to say this isn't fiddly. It just involves lots of chopping. And a bit of boiling. And rolling out pastry (shop bought in my case). OK, it's fiddly, and the pay-off makes it worth it. Little parcels of loveliness. I served these up with a tarator, a bit lumpy, because it was my first time making it. Tarator is a nut sauce, a bit like maionnaise (apart from my first attempt). The combination is perfect for vegetarians, vegans and anyone with tastebuds. If you are wheat intolerant the whole thing would work with rice pastry. 

Oh, what's in it? Leeks, carrots, potato, coriander, teeny bit of dill, pepper and salt. The shop bought pastry is made just with oil. 

RECIPE

Two large leeks (or a bunch of spring onions)

Two potatoes (cooked in their skins, peeled when cool enough)

Generous handful of finely chopped coriander (cilantro to some) including stems

Pinch of dill

One large carrot, cooked

Ground black pepper

Salt

Tablespoonful of oil

½ block of ready-made puff pastry

Set the oven to Gas Mark 7/425F/220C

• Cut the leeks (or spring onions) into fine slices
• Cook gently over low heat in the oil – careful not to burn, you don’t want that caramel taste
• Peel the cooked potatoes and cut into very small cubes, chop up the carrots in the same way
• Take the softened leeks off the heat, season with pepper and salt and stir through all the other ingredients

You can make this mixture the day before if you want to

Roll the pastry out very thin, keeping the rectangular shape

Cut into nine square of approximately equal size

Put two heaped teaspoons of the mixture in each, moisten the edges of the pastry, fold over, and crimp together with a fork

Snick a little hole into the top of the turnover (pasty)

Brush with egg if you like, to give golden colour

Cook in oven for 20 minutes or until golden.

houmous

I ate houmous on Samos, but only once, as part of a mixed plate. I was so greedy I didn’t really concentrate on the flavour and texture. I love chick peas, and often make houmous at home. It ends up much smoother than the stuff you buy ready-made, and cheaper. You can also adjust the flavours as you like. It’s worth having a jar of tahini in the cupboard anyway – that’s the sesame paste used with the chick peas.

I’ve given up on food processors too, it makes washing up more complicated. I just use a stick blender.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 can chick peas (400g)

1 peeled clove garlic

2 tbsp virgin olive oil

2 tbsp (heaped) tahini paste

Lemon juice (to taste, fresh is best but you can use bottled, approx 2 tbsp)

Hearty pinch of salt

Method

• Blend everything together until you have a smooth paste.
• Allow mixture to sit if possible, as the garlic flavour deepens.

I like to serve it draped with a drizzle of the best olive oil and a tiny sprinkle of sweet paprika.

Eat

Great with toasted pitta bread, toast or crackers. I like it on a plain digestive sometimes.

Use leftovers to stir into soup or hot rice.

Variations

Add cumin and fresh coriander or roast peppers and sundried tomatoes to the blend.

Sesame salt or Gomasio

Gomasio adds in a major way to many dishes. It really is seasoning, rather than flavouring. I use it on vegetables, hot and cold, on rice or noodles and in soups. It adds depth and warmth, and is very comforting.
We make it and keep it in a jar.

Recipe for Sesame Salt
3 tbsp sesame seeds
3 hearty pinches of Maldon salt

Method
Heat a heavy-based frying pan or wok.
Put in the sesame seeds and keep stirring until they go golden brown. They’ll pop around a bit – if you’ve got a splatter guard you can use it to keep them in the pan. I don’t bother.
Blend the toasted seeds with the salt. You could use a mini blender, but the best way is grinding them with a pestle.

We have a bowl with grooves in it that I use, but you can use a mortar or a bowl.

You end up with a golden powder with some sesame husks visible in it.
Sprinkle over your food, to your own taste

Steve's avocado sandwich breakfast - healing food and hangover cure

Having listened to tales of Christmas woe, filled with fevers and flu, I was lulled into an unattractive state of smug, a vulnerable place to be. I woke up on Saturday with a sore throat, a headache and backache that made me wonder if I’d been sleep drinking. Painkillers helped a bit, but not enough to stop me feeling very sorry for myself, as I monitored my symptoms to see if I was in the running for the ‘most sick’ title. I am not an attractive invalid.

Fortunately, Steve delivered just what was needed: an open sandwich of avocado with a squeeze of lime, salt and pepper. His original recipe is for buttered toast with marmite and the lime etc on top. I didn’t fancy the marmite, so mine came without. I tried his with marmite and found it edible, much richer, almost chocolatey, and not what I wanted.

The vibrant green of the avocado is definitely a healing hue. Even with a limited sense of smell, and the inability to lift my head properly, the colour and smell of the lime made me feel cheerful and hungry. I ate mine much too quickly, and had another.

I would recommend an avocado per person. For the greedy. Especially the hungover and greedy, oh, and the ill.

Recipe

Ingredients

Ripe avocado

Bread

Butter

Lime

Pepper and salt

Method

Make a slice of toast and let it cool

Butter the toast and spread with slices of avocado.

Squeeze lime juice onto the avocado slices, add pepper and salt.

Eat.