The little recipe that could: Sultana, walnut and yogurt salad

Sultana, walnut & yogurt salad

This is shaping up to be my recipe rave of the year. It's a real find!

Imagine savory fried onions stirred into strained yogurt. A generous portion of broken walnuts for crunch, some lime to jazz things up, a big splash of hot garlic-mint oil and a crowning of  more walnuts and luscious, sweet sultanas (golden raisins) or dates, as in the original.

It's a mosaic of flavours and textures in the mouth. A truly extraordinary delight.

I pinched the idea from Irish food diva Diana Henry's Cook Simple: Effortless Cooking Every Day. Diana pinched it from the late Armenian polymath Arto Der Haroutunian's Middle Eastern Cookery, and Arto pinched it from any one of a multitude of ways that dates, walnuts and yogurt (or whey) are combined traditionally in dishes called kaleh joosh in Iran. Good food travels; across continents and down through time!



Amazingly, Diana's recipe is merely an accompaniment to a lamb dish. It is one of many great recipes in Cook Simple, a fabulous cookbook for the greedy cook with a bent for Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flavours and very little weeknight cooking time on her hands. And one that can easily take centre stage on a meze table.


For those interested, the kaleh joosh recipe in Middle Eastern Cookery sprinkles flour over the fried onions, adds the yogurt and brings it almost to the boil. Dried mint (rather than the fresh in Diana's take) is used in the oil and the whole thing is topped with saffron water, dates and walnuts. Other versions you can find on the Net include soup-like concoctions, some even with meatballs in them!

Since Greek yogurt is not readily available in Japan, I strain a tub of plain yogurt and use that instead. You can do this by putting the yogurt in a sieve lined with kitchen paper over a bowl, or, to speed things up,  twisting the top of the kitchen paper closed and putting the package in the sieve with a light weight (say, a tin of tomatoes on a side plate) on top. The liquor that strains off makes a lovely thirst-quenching drink.

Sultana, walnut and yogurt salad

Serves 4-6 as part of a meze table

1 large onion, finely chopped

5 tbsp olive oil

125 g Greek yogurt (or 450 g plain yogurt, strained)

40 g walnut pieces

juice of 1 lime

2 cloves garlic, finely sliced

small handful mint leaves, chopped

75 g sultanas

1 If using plain yogurt, strain some of the liquid out of it in a kitchen paper-lined sieve over a bowl.

2 Fry the onion gently in 2 tbsp of the olive oil until soft and golden, Stir in the yogurt, two-thirds of the walnuts, and the lime juice. Spread this in a shallow bowl.

3 Heat the remaining olive oil and quickly fry the garlic until just golden. Add the mint and cook for another 20 sec. Drizzle over the yogurt and onion mixture.

4 Scatter on the sultanas and the remaining walnuts.



Enjoy!

Diana Henry's lamb and orange khoresh

When I wrote about Margaret Shaida's Orange khoresh back in January, I knew I would have to revisit the version in Diana Henry's Crazy Water Pickled Lemons. Diana's version of orange stew was one of my very first forays into the wide world of Middle Eastern cooking. It really opened up my eyes and taste buds to how good the eating is in that part of the world!

There is some kind of alchemy involved in this dish. Other than orange flower water (which I consider optional, as it makes little difference to the taste in all honesty), there is nothing out of the ordinary in this recipe, but for a citrus lover like me, the results are nothing short of phenomenal!

Diana does not give a source for her recipe, but she's definitely done her homework, and perhaps even bettered the other versions of this delightful dish that I've tried since. Her addition of mint is inspired (whatever made her think of adding mint to lamb...? (g)), and really lifts this dish onto a higher plain. I use teeny, tiny peppermint leaves, which do take some prepping, but I think it's worth it.

On the other hand, Diana saves us some time by only boiling the orange peel once to remove the bitterness. Most recipes call for several changes of water to do this job. However, since we are using lamb here, it can take the stronger orange flavour very well.

I've adjusted Diana's recipe for the pressure cooker. The meat will take roughly double the time to cook in step 3 if simmering without pressure.

All in all, I would say that this is my favourite orange khoresh, if not one of my very favourite things to eat. If it takes a little time to make, I'm not going to complain. It is a joy to make something so very good to eat.

Lamb and orange khoresh

Serves 6

3 oranges
40 g unsalted butter
2 tsp caster sugar
olive oil
675 g lamb from the leg, cut into 3-4 cm cubes
2 onions, thinly sliced
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
275 ml orange juice
Juice of 1 lime
275 ml lamb stock or water
salt and pepper
3 carrots
good handful of mint leaves, torn
2 tsp orange flower water
25 g shelled pistachios, roughly chopped, to garnish

1 Remove peel from the oranges with a vegetable peeler, taking care to leave the pith behind, and cut into fine strips about the size of a match. Cover with cold water, bring to the boil, cook for 2 min, then strain. Heat half the butter in a a small pan and add the orange rind. Stir, then add the sugar and cook over a medium heat for a couple of minutes, until the sugar has melted and the rind has lightly caramelized. Set aside.

2 Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pressure cooker. Fry the lamb cubes over fairly high heat, so that they get a good browning on the outside. You should do this in batches to ensure that they get properly coloured. Remove and set the lamb aside.

3 Add another 1 tbsp of olive oil to the pressure cooker with the rest of the butter. Heat this and saute the onion until soft and translucent. Sprinkle on the cinnamon and cardamom and cook for another minute. Add the juices, stock and water, and the lamb, with any juices that have run out of it. Season, seal the pressure cooker and and bring up to pressure. Turn down the heat and cook at low pressure for 40 min.

4 Peel the carrots and cut them into batons about 6 cm long. Using a very sharp knife, remove the white pith from the oranges then, cutting close to the membrane, remove each segment. Add the carrots and caramelized orange peel (reserving a little for garnishing) to the lamb once it has been cooking 40 min. Simmer, uncovered, for a further 20 min, adding the orange segments in the last 10 min. Gently stir in half of the mint in the last couple of minutes.

5 Stir the orange flower water, if using, into the khoresh and turn it into a heated bowl, scattered with the remaining mint and orange peel and the pistachios. Serve with plain white rice.

Enjoy!

On hearing my foodie heroes speak

I was listening to a podcast on the BBC this lunchtime and one thing leading to another, as it does, discovered Radio 4’s Women’s Hour. Knowing it was the BBC, the very name conjured up visions of matriarchs, all smelling of lavender and violets, sitting around discussing the proper way to grow petunias, knitting patterns, oh, and plum jam (on which topic the film Calendar Girls offers some humourous enlightenment).

It wasn't all that bad, and while not exactly hip, the programme's Food and Cooking section does have lots to offer food junkies in need of a hit. And so it was that I heard for the first time the voices of two of my biggest foodie heroes (Nigel Slater, Diana Henry), and one (Anissa Helou) who is almost certain to join their ranks when I finally relent and purchase her book Modern Mezze.

Knowing them only by their written words, I was surprised by how un-posh Nigel sounded, and how down-to-earth-Irish Diana did. Diana, especially spoke nothing like I imagined she would. After all, it was her Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons, and its Mediterranean/Middle Eastern bent, that started this cooking quest to begin with. (And whose latest book, Roast Figs, Sugar Snow, Amazon.co.jp has promised to deliver very soon, just 3-5 weeks after the ordering; how am I supposed to wait so long!?)

Actually, they both sounded like the sort of friends you’d want to have over for eats round the table for hours and hours. I’m sure they’d be just as good company as the have been in print, even if they sound nothing like they do on the page (g).

Saffron