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!

Havij polo: Reza's Persian rice with carrots

Reza's havij polo Persian rice with carrots

One of the underground passageways at Tokyo Station hosts an "open-air" market on the fourth Friday of the month. I often stop by a miso maker's stall for the interesting breads they sell. Unusual combinations like komatsuna and miso really tickle my fancy. This last month, they were also selling fresh-picked carrots with their bushy tops still on! Finally, my chance to try my dear Persian cooking teacher's rice with carrots.

It's been a while since the last Persian Table cooking class, but Reza posts delightful illustrated recipes on his blog from time to time, and this charming one really caught my eye.

The carrot tops are used as a herb in this rice, which would make a lovely accompaniment to any Persian stew (I had it with the braised broad beans below). With just a sprinkling of cinnamon and cayenne and saffron, the spicing is subtle, but exotic at the same time. Many recipes for havij polo also call for a topping of fine strips of orange peel. I used an extra splash of lemon juice instead.

If you have one, a mandolin will speed up the carrot preparation. Even if you don't, compared to other Persian rice dishes, this one is relatively quick to make.

Havij polo: Reza's Persian rice with carrots

Serves 4

320 g (2 rice cooker cups) long grain rice (Japanese rice is also fine)
pinch of saffron threads
2 tbsp boiling water
1 tbsp each butter and olive oil
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1/2 medium-sized carrot, sliced into matchsticks
1.5 cups carrot leaves, stripped from the hard stem and chopped finely
1 tsp cinnamon
salt and freshly ground black pepper
cayenne pepper, to taste (optional)
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp butter (optional)
1 Wash rice several times until the water runs clear, drain and set aside. Grind the saffron with a little sugar or salt and dissolve in the boiling water.

2 Heat butter and olive oil in a frying pan on medium heat and fry the onions until soft. Turn the heat up to high and add the carrot leaves, then the carrots. Fry, stirring, until the carrots become pliant. Add the cinnamon and cayenne pepper, if using. Salt lightly, remove from the heat and add the lemon juice.

3 Meanwhile, bring a large pot of well salted water to the boil. Add the rice and stir a couple of times to ensure it does not stick to the bottom of the pot. Boil on medium heat for 6 minutes or until the rice is semi-cooked but still firm in the middle.  Drain into a large colander and rinse briefly with cold water.

4 Turn rice into a large bowl, stir in the saffron water and then the onion-carrot mixture. Check seasoning and add more salt if necessary.

5 Pour the remaining oil into a large pot that has a tight-fitting lid. Pile the rice mixture into the pot in a pyramid shape. Using a chopstick or skewer, push holes into the rice, all the way to the bottom of the pot. Pour water around but not over the rice. Place a clean tea towel or kitchen paper over the pot and cover with the lid. Steam for 25-30 minutes on the lowest heat possible, moving the pot around from time to time to prevent burning. Place on a damp towel for around 5 minutes to loosen the bottom and stir in the remaining butter, if desired. Serve with a Persian stew.

Enjoy!

Caspian broad bean braise with garlic, dill and lime

Broad beans (favas) with garlic, dill and lime

This is my absolutely favourite thing to do with my very favourite spring beans. Garlic and dill are a classic combination that packs quite a punch, but this dish seems to go down well with grown-ups and kids alike (all except the Young Man, who has a thing about broad beans (and dill, for that matter)).

The recipe is adapted from one in Najmieh Batmanglij's glorious romp through the veggie side of Iranian, Afghan and Central Asian food, Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey. I adore Najmieh and love the way she can make something totally exotic and moreish out of basic ingredients. This is such a dish, and can be served with rice as a main course, or with bread as an unusual appetiser (I once took it to a pot-luck party, right in its frying pan).
Don't baulk at the head of garlic called for here. The beans can take it, believe me! And make sure you do peel the beans. It's a pain, I know, but it makes all the difference.

Najmieh says this dish is from Gilan. We didn't visit Gilan during our trip to Iran a few years back, but it was broad bean season when we were there (April-May), and our hostess in Esfahan made vinegared broad beans that the rest of us munched on while waiting for the then Much Younger Man to recover from a bout of travel exhaustion.

Actually, the Iranians seem to have a great appreciation for the broad bean. A classic dish of the Persian New Year (March 20 or 21) is baqala polo or rice with broad beans and dill. You can see Najmieh herself showing Martha Stewart how it's done here.

The broad bean season is a little later here in Japan. Luckily I have some in the fridge for another round this weekend.

Caspian broad bean braise with garlic, dill and lime

Serves 4 (or more if served as an appetiser)

500 g podded and skinned broad beans
1 tbsp vegetable oil, butter or ghee
1 bulb garlic, peeled and crushed
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp fresh lime juice (preferably Persian lime juice)
1 cup water
1 cup chopped fresh dill, or to taste
4 large eggs

1 Heat the fat in a wok or deep frying pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and stir-fry for 1 min. Add the broad beans, salt, pepper, turmeric and lime juice and stir-fry for 5 min. Add the water and bring to a boil. Reduce  heat, cover and simmer on medium-low hear for 15-20 min of until the beans are done. Adjust seasoning to taste. Add the dill.

2 Just before serving, break the eggs gently over the beans, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, cover and allow to simmer for 5-8 min, until the eggs are set.

Enjoy!

Shiomomi nasu: Salt-massaged eggplants with Japanese aromotics

I have been addicted to nasu (Japanese eggplants) this last while. They are everywhere at the moment, and the cooking magazines (which I really have to stop tempting myself by looking at) have 101 different ways to use them. The "Mighty Nasu" indeed (to paraphrase one of my foodie heroes Ottolenghi).

Yes, the eggplant/aubergine/patlican/baademjaan/badinjaan/baingan/ brinjal is beloved to many cuisines, but have you ever had it raw?? Most of the world makes a fuss about removing the bitterness from eggplants before cooking them, but here in Japan, it couldn't be easier: Just squish around in a bag with salt! The dark, bitter juices come right out, and you don't even need to cook them. How good is that?

This quick side dish recipe is from the June 17, 2010 edition of the Japanese food fortnightly Orange Page (don't ask; I'm as mystified by the name as anyone...). I thought it not bad, for my first attempt at salt-massaged eggplants, but with the Japanese big three aromatics shiso (perilla leaves), myoga (myoga ginger) and raw fresh ginger, it may be a bit "medicinal" for some tastes.

The trick to this dish is to make sure that all the eggplant slices get massaged well, and to slice the aromatics very finely.

I haven't tried this with the larger eggplants that you tend to find outside Japan, which are called bei-nasu (American eggplant) in Japan. For now, I suggest you seek out small, round Japanese nasu, which weigh about 80-100 g each.

Salt-massaged eggplants with Japanese aromatics

Serves 4 as a small side dish with other Japanese dishes

2 nasu Japanese eggplants (about 160 g total), sliced into 2 mm thick rounds
2/3 tsp salt
3 shiso (perilla) leaves, rolled and sliced very thinly
1 myoga (myoga ginger) bud, halved lengthwise and sliced thinly
1 thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped into thin shreds
splash of Japanese soy sauce (to taste)

1 Place the eggplant slices in a small polythene bag and add the salt. Press out all the air and hold the opening of the bag tightly closed with a thumb. With both hands, gently squeeze the eggplant slices until they loose their juices, most of their bulk and become pliant. Make sure not to miss any of the slices. Tip into a colander and rinse with water. With your hands, squeeze out as much of the water as possible.

2 In a small bowl, toss the shiso leaves and myoga. Add the salt-massaged eggplant, sliced ginger and a splash of Japanese soy sauce. Toss again and serve in tiny bowls as an accompaniment to other Japanese dishes.

Enjoy!

Aash-e reshteh: Ottolenghi's take on the Persian soup

Happy Persian New Year! It's No Ruz again and that means aash-e reshteh (Iranian noodle soup) at the Saffron household.

A couple of weeks back, Yotam Ottolenghi posted this recipe for legume and noodle soup in his New Vegetarian column on the Guardian website. One look at the picture and I was mitten. It wasn't until I read through the recipe that I realized it was the Ottolenghi take on aash-e reshteh! And just in time for the spring equinox, and No Ruz. I knew I had to try it!

Chock-full of greenery to celebrate the arrival of spring, I have always thought of aash-e reshteh as a herb and spinach noodle soup, but I guess there are other interpretations (g). With three different legumes--chickpeas, butterbeans and yellow split peas--legume-lovers will certainly cheer at Ottolenghi's version (g).

The soup has a lovely velvetiness from the yellow split peas and is garnished beautifully with turmeric onions (you could also add some dried mint to the onion garnish, as Najmieh-khanom does), sour cream and a few reserved butterbeans and chickpeas. It's those cheffy but not fussy little Ottolenghi touches that I love. It looks lovely and tastes like spring should.

All those lovely legumes means, of course, that you are going to have to get them recipe-ready (almost, but not quite cooked). The easy way--if you have a pressure cooker-- is to soak and cook each variety separately. After soaking for 8 hours, it only took me about 10 minutes to get both legumes cooked up this way (around 2.5 min for the chickpeas once they came to pressure, and around 6 min for the "butterbeans" (in my case a pricey larger Japanese variety called shirohana-mame). Real butterbeans would probably take less time, I suppose.) I don't soak with bi-carb soda, but it could make a difference to the cooking time, who knows? When in doubt about cooking times, err on the side of caution with a pressure cooker. You can always cook some more if you need to.

Does all that sound like a lot of work? It's really not. I made this version much quicker than the Najmieh Batmaglij recipe I usually follow from Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies. And the results were just as fabulous, even substituting hard-to-find ingredients like kashk (whey paste) with readily available ingredients like sour cream and vinegar. I'm now hard-pressed to say which version I prefer!

I have been tickled pink to see Ottolenghi showcasing Persian cooking of late; first with eggplant kuku and now aash-e reshte. With food this moreish, all I can say is More please!

Legume noodle soup: Ottolenghi's take on aash-e reshteh

Serves 8

125 g dried chickpeas, soaked in water overnight with 1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
125 g dried butterbeans, soaked in water overnight with 1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
2 large onions, thinly sliced
10 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
80 g clarified butter
1½ tsp turmeric
Salt and black pepper
225 g yellow split peas
Roughly 2 litres vegetable stock
35 g chopped parsley
35 g chopped coriander
15 g chopped dill
100 g spring onion, thinly sliced
150 g baby spinach
100 g reshteh (or linguine) [S: broken in half]
150 g soured cream, plus 1 tsp per portion to finish
1½ tbsp white wine vinegar
4 limes, halved

1 Drain and rinse both the chickpeas and butterbeans, then either boil them separately in lots of fresh water until almost cooked – anywhere ­between 25 and 55 min, or cook under low pressure for around 2.5 min for the chickpeas and around 5 min for the butterbeans, once they come to pressure – and drain. Reserve a few of each legume as a garnish

2 In a large, heavy-based pot, sauté the onion, garlic and butter on ­medium heat for 20 minutes, or ­until soft and golden-brown. Stir in the turmeric and some salt and ­pepper, then lift a third of this mix from the pot and transfer to a dish for use later.

3 Add the chickpeas and butterbeans to the pot, then add the split peas and stock. Simmer for 30 minutes, skimming off the froth occasionally, or until the peas are tender. Add the herbs, spring onion and ­spinach, stir and cook for 15 minutes more; add extra stock (or water) if the soup is very thick. Taste and season generously.

4 Add the noodles and cook for about 10 minutes, so that they are just done. Stir in the soured cream and vinegar, adjust the seasoning and serve at once, garnished with extra soured cream and the reserved cooked onion mix. Serve lime halves to squeeze over every portion.

Enjoy!

Chargrilled asparagus, zucchini and semi-dried tomato salad with yogurt cheese

When I was in Ikea for a bookcase to corral my ever-expanding cookbook collection (I swear that they reproduce all by themselves; it's nothing to do with me!), I found a cast-iron ridged grill pan/griddle. Ooohhh. I've been wanting one of those for soooo long. The Young Man said he'd chip in to get it for me as a Christmas present (he can be a real sweetie like that and he certainly knows the way to his mother's heart (g)).

The find couldn't have come at a better time, as I'd spied this lip-smacking salad in my new Ottolenghi cookbook (see previous post). The photo of the salad in the book is pure food porn. It was the first thing my dear friend H pointed out when she flipped through it, too.

Admittedly, this is a little bit fiddly, but the results are sensational. The YM was totally blown away by this, and was showing it off at school the next day. That is without the manouri cheese, which, even if available here, would probably cost an arm and a leg anyway (butter is now up to 360 yen for 200 g. It's an outrage!).

Instead, I drained plain yogurt in a kitchen towel-lined sieve for a day. That is longer than I've ever drained yogurt, but in truth, it wasn't long enough to get a really cheese-like firmness. Not to worry, it was very tasty just the same. Next time I'll just start the night before. The cheese is chargrilled, too, in the original recipe, but drained yogurt would just melt at that temperature, so we didn't go there.

I was so pleased with the semi-dried cherry tomatoes in this recipe that I've since made up a whole batch (dried for an hour and a half) and put them in a jar with olive oil. Yum! These are going to go in some homemade bouillon I'm going to make based on this River Cottage recipe highlighted on 101 cookbooks.

Chargrilled asparagus, zucchini and semi-dried tomato salad

Serves 4-6

350 g cherry tomatoes, halved
95 ml olive oil
24 asparagus spears
2 zucchini
500 g plain yogurt, drained for 24 hours
25 g rocket
course sea salt and black pepper

For the basil oil
75 ml olive oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
25 g basil leaves
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

1 The night before, drain yogurt by drain yogurt in a kitchen paper-lined sieve over a bowl in the fridge. You should end up with a large disc of yogurt cheese.

2 Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C. Mix the tomatoes with 3 tbsp of the olive oil and season with some salt and pepper. Spread out on a baking tray lined with baking paper, skin side down. Roast in the oven for 50 min or until semi-dried. You can leave them in for a bit more or less, depending on how dry you like them. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

3 Meanwhile, trim the woody bases off the asparagus and blanch for 3-4 min in plenty of boiling water. Drain and refresh under cold water, making sure the spears are completely cold. Drain well again, then transfer to a mixing bowl and toss with 2 tbsp of the remaining olive oil and some salt and pepper.

4 Slice the zucchini thinly lengthwise. Mix in 1 tbsp of the olive oil and some salt and pepper.

5 Place a ridged griddle pan on a high heat and leave there for a few minutes. It should be very hot. Grill the zucchini and asparagus , turning them over after about 1 min. You want to get nice char marks on all sides. Remove and leave to cool.

6 To make basil oil, blitz all the ingredients in a small food processor or blender.

7 To assemble, arrange the rocket, vegetables and drained yogurt in layers on a serving plate. Try to build the salad up while showing all the individual components. Drizzle with basil oil and serve.

Enjoy!

Rick Stein's Bangladeshi eggplant curry with tomatoes, ginger and fennel seeds

It's been a while between posts. Sorry to anyone who's opened up to the not-so-photogenic noodles below these last 2 months.

It's not that I took a break from cooking, more that life got very busy, then the Young Man and I took a two-week trip to the Old Country--Scotland, home of all manner of unhealthy eats that it is perhaps good that we don't have on a regular basis (g). Mid-trip, I managed to break my ever trusty Canon digital camera, which though quickly replaced by a swanky new Ricoh on our return to Japan, is yet to produce any blog piccies due to SD card incompatibility issues. Sigh.

But we are back now!

This is a tasty and really easy curry that was in an excerpt from Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey on the Guardian website (no longer available due to an expired copyright). I'd not really come across the recipes of British food personality Rick Stein before. Mainly because he's been busy winning awards for seafood cookery books. But after this curry, and a toovar dal with tamarind, tomatoes and curry leaves that is just like one my dear Indian friend Sa makes, I'll be keeping an eye out for more on the East from him.

If you will pardon a "language policing" moment, I was intrigued by the "Far Eastern" in the title. To my (Australian) sensibilities, though slightly old-fashioned, the term definitely conjures up the China-Korea-Japan corner of Asia. But perhaps it was an editorial decision, as Rick himself mentions the oddness of "Far Eastern" in the Meet the Author video at the Amazon link above. In actual fact, the book covers South-East Asia (no China-Korea-Japan!) + Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. A book-naming conundrum, indeed!

This curry is a cinch but really packs flavour. Make some quick before the end of the eggplant season!

I forgot to write down how many cloves of garlic and what size piece of ginger was needed, but will update the recipe when I make it again, as I think most will be like me and not want to bother weighing these. I used Japanese eggplants, which weigh about 100 g each.

The technique of brushing the eggplant halves with oil rather than heating it up in the pan is a good one. Eggplants are oil-sucking demons!

Bangladeshi eggplant curry with tomatoes, ginger and fennel seeds

Serves 4

600 g eggplants, ideally Asian finger eggplants
150 ml vegetable oil
40 g peeled ginger, roughly chopped
40 g garlic, roughly chopped
2 green cayenne chillies, finely chopped
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp freshly ground coriander seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
400 g chopped tomatoes, fresh or from a can
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp each of chopped fresh coriander and mint

1 Top and tail the eggplants and cut in half lengthways. If using larger Mediterranean-style eggplants, cut each one across in half and then each piece lengthways into 6–8 wedges. Toss them with ½ tsp salt and set aside in a colander for 10 min.

2 Heat a large frying pan over a high heat. Pour the oil into a shallow dish. Brush the aubergine pieces, a few at a time, with oil, put them in the frying pan and cook for 3–4 min on each side until richly browned. Cooking the eggplants in this way helps prevent them from absorbing too much oil, which would make the finished dish greasy. Set aside in a bowl and repeat with the remaining eggplants.

3 Put the ginger, garlic and chilli into a mini food processor with 2–3 tbsp water and whizz to a smooth paste.

4 Put 2 tbsp of the remaining oil into the frying pan and add the fennel and cumin seeds. Leave them to sizzle for a few seconds, then add the ginger and garlic paste and leave this to fry for a further 2-3 min. Add the coriander and turmeric, fry for 1 min and then add the tomatoes, black pepper, 3 tbsp water and ½ tbsp salt. Cover and leave to simmer for 8–10 min until reduced and thickened slightly. Return the fried eggplant slices to the pan and stir well to coat in the sauce. Simmer for five minutes, then stir in the fresh coriander and mint and serve.

Enjoy!

Macrobiotic apple crumble cake

I am not one of the world's best bakers. In fact, I very rarely make anything resembling dessert except on very special occasions. Despite all this, I seem to have surrounded myself with some of the world's biggest sweet tooths, who have all learned to bring dessert with them when they visit, as they know they'll probably miss out otherwise (g).

And one, dear A, brought this cake, which while lush with apple and rich with a spicy crumble topping, is not overly sweet, and quite suitable for the non-sweet tooths among us.

Being macrobiotic, there are some unusual things about this recipe, which comes from Nakashima Shiho's Mocchiri chiffon sakkuri cookie dosshiri cake (Springy chiffon cakes, crunchy cookies, substantial cakes).

For one, it is made with tensaito, or beet sugar, which has lots of lovely minerals, is less sweet and said to be much healthier than refined sugar. Tensaito might be hard to come across outside Japan, but here it was right with the other sugars, and probably had been forever, I'd just never noticed it before (not being much of a baker... (g)). I don't suppose it would matter if you used any other kind of unrefined sugar if tensaito is not available. I won't tell if you don't.

Next, the fat in the cake is not butter or margarine, but the supposedly healthier rapeseed oil or canola oil.

And if all that novelty wasn't enough, a bain-marie is used when you whip the eggs! The original Japanese recipe just said to use a "water bath", so I improvised with a stainless steel bowl over a pot of boiling water. Since you will have a hand-held mixer whirring away on high when you do this, use common sense and put the bain-marie set up on a flat surface.

This might just be the strangest cake recipe I've come across, but I am quite enamoured with this results. And it made an unusual birthday/farewell cake for my dear Indian friend Sm, who was off back to India for 6 months. Too bad he came to our little farewell bash already laden with lots of leftover cakes from his work farewell. These kept us fed for the next two days. Waaay more sweetness than we in the Saffron household are use to!

Macrobiotic apple crumble cake

140 g plain flour

2 medium eggs
50 g maple sugar
60 ml rapeseed or canola oil

For the apple jam
2 large apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
2 tbsp tensaito (beet sugar)

2 tbsp raisins, plumped up in rum for 1 day

For the crumble
50 g plain flour
50 g walnuts, chopped fairly fine
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp rapeseed or canola oil
1 tbsp maple syrup

1 Lightly oil and line an 18 cm spring form cake tin with greaseproof paper.

2 Make the apple jam. Place apple pieces in a small pan and sprinkle the tensaito/beet sugar over the top. Place over medium heat. Once the apples begin to release their juice, turn the heat up to high and cook until the apples begin to lose their shape and all the liquid has evaporated. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

3 Make the crumble. Place the flour, chopped walnuts and cinnamon in a small bowl. Stir a few times, then stir in the rapeseed or canola oil and the maple syrup. Stir until the mixture becomes crumbly.

3 Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C (160 if using gas).

4 Bring a large saucepan half filled with water to a rolling boil and turn off the heat. In a large, heatproof bowl that will fit neatly into the saucepan, beat the eggs and maple sugar with an electric mixer on low speed. Place the bowl on top of the saucepan of hot water and continue to beat at high speed.

5 Once the egg-sugar mixture comes to body temperature, remove the bowl from the saucepan. Continue to whip until stiff peaks form.

6 Turn the mixer down to low and gradually beat in the rapeseed or canola oil. With a rubber spatula, gently fold in the cooled apple jam and rum raisins.

7 Sift the four into the bowl and fold in gently with the rubber spatula. Pour into the prepared cake tin, spread the crumble mixture evenly over the top, and bake for 40 min, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Enjoy!

A picnic triad 3: Mashed zucchini with onions, garlic and mint

While googling around for picnic recipes, I remembered that I had not yet bought Claudia Roden's paean to picnics, Picnics: And Other Outdoor Feasts, which I'd spied a couple of years back, what else, getting ready for dear H & Hi's annual picnic! (I've ordered the book (since I know I will use it year after year (g)) and will let you know what I think later.)

I came across this picnic recipe of Claudia's on the American Express site Food & Wine. It's a super easy to make appetizer that is exactly what it says it is on the tin. I used less mint than called for below as I prefer peppermint, and added the juice of the lemon (I couldn't resist) rather than presenting it with lemon wedges. You can do both, if it takes your fancy.

Perfect for picnics with veggie eaters, you can whip this up in no time. Which was just as well in my case!

Claudia's picnic mashed zucchini with onions, garlic and mint

Serves 4-6, with other picnic food

450 g zucchini, cut into 3 cm lengths
1.5 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tbsp coarsely chopped mint, or to taste
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Juice of 1 lemon
1 lemon, cut into wedges (optional)

1 Place the cut zucchini into a microwave-safe container in one layer and microwave until soft, around 10 min. Drain and, using a fork, mash the zucchini in a colander to squeeze out as much liquid as possible.

2 Heat 1 tbsp of the olive oil. Add the onions and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until lightly browned, about 8 min. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until it just begins to color, about 30 seconds. Add the zucchini, mint and lemon juice, season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring, until well mixed and heated through, about 5 min.

3 Stir in the remaining half tbsp of olive oil and serve warm or at room temperature with the lemon wedges.

Enjoy!

A picnic triad 1: Ottolenghi's kisir: a Turkish tomato & bulghur salad

It was time, once again, for the annual picnic in commemoration of dear friends H and Hi's meeting some 15 years ago--on a picnic. Coming around 10 days later than usual, the weather for this year's picnic was nothing short of spectacular.

I was still humming and hawing about what to make 2 days out, but remembered seeing the recipe for this this Ottolenghi take on the classic Turkish bulghur and tomato salad kisir (pronounced "kuh-suhr") on the Guardian website and thought it might go down alright.

I had made kisir before using Claudia Roden's recipe in Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey & Lebanon. Delicious though it was, it didn't really do it for my Turkish guests at the time. Then I had it in Konya, Turkey and all became clear. Claudia's version was a true salad (no cooking!) where the Konya version I had involved stove time and was no side dish.

Looking at my notes from Turkey, I see that the onions were fried in a copious amount of oil, the tomatoes (and red pepper) in the dish were in paste form, and peeled and diced cucumbers joined in the fun. In Konya, at least, kisir is a meal of itself. A great mound is placed on a communal platter and everyone takes his share, parceling it up in lettuce and other leaves, with maybe an extra chilli and a dollop of pomegranate molasses or squeeze of lemon for good measure. Heaven!

Ottolenghi's version more closely resembles that tart, tomato-stained grain dish (though minus the cucumber). I like this fairly sharp, so I've upped the lemon and pomegranate molasses. I also left out the chilli on the day as there were to be a lot of Young People at the picnic.

The Ottolenghi kisir has a pretty pomegrate seed and mint topping that adds a nice festive touch, but which I doubt is authentically Turkish. I packed the topping ingredients separately for the picnic and added them when we were ready to eat. Short of time, I didn't take washed lettuce leaves with me, but it might be fun to do that next time.

Here's a picture of the three dishes I ended up taking to the picnic. Recipes for the other two to follow shortly.



Ottolenghi's kisir

Serves 6-8 as a main dish or a great crowd as an appetiser

2 large onions, peeled and finely chopped
60 ml olive oil, plus more to finish
2 tbsp tomato paste
4 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
90 ml water
400 g coarse bulghur wheat
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses
1 lemon, juiced
6 tbsp chopped parsley (flat-leaf, for preference)
3 spring onions, finely shredded, plus an extra one to garnish
2 green chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
Salt and black pepper
Seeds from 1 pomegranate (optional, to garnish)
1 handful mint leaves, some whole, some roughly shredded

Cos lettuce, cabbage and other green leaves, to serve (optional)

1 In a large saucepan, sauté the onions in the oil until they turn translucent - about 5 min. Add the tomato paste and cook over medium heat for 2 min, stirring all the while with a wooden spoon. Add the chopped fresh tomatoes, leave them to simmer on a low heat for 4 min, then add the water. Bring to a boil, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the bulghur.

2 Add the molasses, lemon juice, parsley, chopped spring onion, chilli, garlic and cumin. Season, stir, then set aside until the salad has cooled to room temperature or is just lukewarm.

3 Taste, adjust the seasoning as necessary--it will probably need plenty of salt--and spoon on to a serving dish. Roughly flatten out the salad with a palette knife, creating a wave-like pattern on the surface, then scatter pomegranate seeds over and about. Drizzle olive oil over the top and finish with the mint and the extra spring onion. Serve with cos, cabbage and other green leaves for wrapping.

Enjoy!

Mughal mushroom curry

I've been feeling the need for more meatless food these days for some virtuous reasons and one not so virtuous one: my freezer's already full of yummy stuff being saved for a rainy day (or at least a lazy evening).

There is another practical reason for going veggie at least part of the week and that is that it usually cuts down your cooking time. You can't beat that!

From Najmieh Batmanglij's Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey, this recipe is a relatively quick weeknight fix. It features an unusual apple, sultana and nut topping. I've read that the use of fruit and nuts in savory dishes is characteristic of Mughal cuisine. It also chimes in nicely with a similar theme in Persian cuisine, which might explain why this recipe caught the eye of Najmieh khanom.

To cook with yogurt, you often need to stabilize it first to avoid splitting. Mixing in cornflour, as in this recipe, is just one method. I had no trouble with splitting, even when reheating the dish in the microwave the next day.

I left out the garam masala and chillies out of respect for the Young Man's delicate palate. Next time, I think I might add a little turmeric, say 1/4-1/2 tsp, to give it a nice golden colour.

Mughal mushroom curry

4 tbsp vegetable oil, butter or ghee
1/2 cup blanched almonds
1 green apple, peeled and sliced
2 small onions, peeled and thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1 tsp coriander seeds
2.5 cm fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 bay leaf
2 red chillies, seeded and sliced, or to taste
450 g assorted mushrooms, sliced
1 cup chopped celery
2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp hot curry powder
2 tsp garam masala
1 large tomato, peeled and sliced
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt
2 tsp cornflour [cornstarch]

1/4 cup chopped fresh coriander [cilantro] to garnish (optional)

1 In a wok or deep-sided frying pan, heat 2 tbsp oil over medium heat, until very hot. Add the almonds, raisins and apples, and stir-fry for 20 sec. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

2 Heat the remaining oil in the same wok, until very hot. Add the garlic, coriander seeds, ginger, bay leaf and chillies and stir-fry for 1 min. Add the mushrooms and celery, and cook for 5 min. Add the salt, pepper, curry powder, garam masala and tomato. Cover and cook over very low heat for 10 min.

3 Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl, combine yogurt and cornflour. Beat, in one direction, for 5 min.

4 Just before serving, discard the bay leaf and gradually add the yogurt mixture to the wok over very low heat, stirring constantly to prevent curdling.

5 Adjust seasoning to taste. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with the almond mixture from step 1, and coriander, and serve hot with rice, pasta or couscous

Enjoy!

Hummus with pomegranate molasses

About a year ago, a strange thing happened to me on my way to work; my 70-minutes-each-way, hang-off-a-strap train commute to work: someone offered me a seat! And not just any someone, but a fellow non-Japanese someone. Normally, the chances of this happening are only slightly better than winning the lottery, but to find out that the someone in question was not only from Iran, but also a fellow foodie, well, it's probably not even worth calculating odds anymore.

S and his dear wife and daughter visited us last November, laden with all kinds of Iranian and Japanese goodies (including the most amazing macrobiotic apple crumble cake, which I then made for another Iranian-Japanese family we visited this Persian New Year. Recipe for that coming soon). I finally got to return the compliment on a glorious spring day this month.

This was just the excuse I was waiting for to try this mouth-watering hummus idea from Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East & North Africa. It must seem like this is the only book I cook from these days, but the appetiser section is just so good I want to try them all!

You may know hummus in its most well known form of chickpeas and tahini. But "hummus" simply means "chickpeas" in Arabic, and there are many other possible variations, as Mr Salloum's book above attests.

Pomegranates are one of my very favourite fruits, so I was itching to try this pomegranate-laced version for the longest time. And it was just as good as I imagined! I did tweak the recipe a little, however, using dried chickpeas instead of tinned, and sharpening it up with lemon juice, as the Lebanese pomegranate molasses I used gave the hummus a sweeter taste than I wanted.

The pomegranate seeds you see in the photo are from a little stash I froze in an inspired fit of organization during their short season here. They added just the right festive touch on top of the hummus, but did, unfortunately, loose some of their juice on defrosting.

Hummus with pomegranate molasses

300 g cooked chickpeas*
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses

1 tbsp lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp salt**
1/4 tsp pepper
4 tbsp olive oil
chopped flat-flat leaf parsley, to garnish
pomegranate seeds, to garnish

1 Place chickpeas, pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper, and 2 tbsp of the olive oil in a blender or food processor and process until smooth.

2 Spread on a serving dish and garnish with parsley and pomegranate seeds. Sprinkle with remaining oil just before serving.

* If you are going to the trouble of cooking chickpeas from dried, do yourself a favour and make more than you need for this recipe and freeze the remainder for later. Rinse chickpeas and soak overnight. Drain. If using a pressure cooker, cover with water and the metal inner lid to prevent the peas moving around too much in cooking. Bring to pressure, lower heat and cook for 2.5 min under low pressure. If you don't have a pressure cooker, cover with water and simmer until tender, which can take anything up to 90 min, I am told. You'll probably need to top up the water if cooking for so long.

** If you use tinned chickpeas instead of dried, reduce or eliminate the salt from the recipe.

Enjoy!

Zesty meze 1: Chickpea and tamarind dip

A month back, we had a big surprise when a favourite former teacher of the Young Man and dear friend, O, mailed to say he was back in town and had some goodies from Turkey for the YM. Wahoo! As it happened, my birthday fell the next week, so we arranged to have dinner at our place.

A fellow foodie, O is also one of the world's more dedicated chocoholics, so this was a chance to try out my new go-to chocolate cake on an honest critic. That seemed to go down very well, and we had a jolly time reliving a past experiment O and the YM had with biscuit-thin brownies (which they nicknamed brow-kies), that perhaps O would rather forget! O did get his own back, though, by casting aspersions on my dolma-rolling skills. As the YM said in my defence (bless his heart), we all have a first time, don't we?!

Luck was really rolling on our side when O agreed to a big day of table tennis with the YM followed by another supper at ours. Fortunately or unfortunately, a dearth of vineleaves in dead-of-winter Yokohama prevented me from defending my dolma rolling this time, but I'll be working on it for next time, you can be sure!

Instead, I put together an array of meze goodies to go with Tessa Kiros' wonderful avgolemono, made this time with 2.5 l of water and the rice thrown in from the beginning of (pressure) cooking.

The first of the meze was a Gulf variation of that old stand-by, hummus, this time with tongue-tingling fresh ginger and tamarind! It is an adaptation from a recipe in Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East & North Africa by Habeeb Salloum, one of the 3 cookbooks I permitted myself to bring back from Australia over Christmas/New Year.

I've already made a couple of things from this book, and adore the exciting and unusual combinations of flavours that have been eye-openers even for me! This zippy hummus was so addictive that our guest ended up not leaving enough room for the soup, silly boy (g).

If making this in Japan, tamarind paste (the pulp in jars is easier to use than the blocks, which contain seeds and fibres) is available from various places on-line (none of which I've used before), or check out your nearest Thai, Vietnamese or Indian food store. I usually get mine in Australia, where the zingy paste is readily available in the local supermarket of the small town where Saffron-Papa and Mama live. It keeps for a goodly long time in the fridge, but you might also want to give the some of the other tamarind recipes I've gathered here a go, too.

As for me, I'm chomping at the bit to try out Mr. Salloum's hummus with pomegranate molasses!

Oh, and just a word about the etymology of tamarind. As you can see from the name of this hummus below, tamarind is tamar Hindi in Arabic (and Persian, also). Yup, that's "Hindi" as in "India/n". Which reminds me of the story O told us of how the native-to-the-US bird that goes gobble-gobble came to be known as turkey in English and Hindi (India, again) in Turkish! Don't you just love language!

Hummus bi tamar Hindi: Chickpea and tamarind dip

2 cups cooked chickpeas
3 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp tamarind paste, or to taste
1.5 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger, or to taste
Salt & pepper to taste
1 tbsp chopped cilantro [coriander] or flat-leaf parsley
1 tbsp olive oil

1 Place all ingredients, except coriander or parsley and oil, in a food processor and process into a somewhat thick paste, adding a little water as necessary. Taste and adjust flavours to taste.

2 Place on a serving platter and sprinkle with coriander or parsley and oil just before serving.

Enjoy!

Maazat halyoon: Syrian/Lebanese avocado appetizer

I've made this yummy dip/spread a couple of times now, and it seems to go down very well. I wouldn't necessarily have thought of it myself, but avocado, lemon and sesame combination really goes well.

The sesame paste I am currently using is a Japanese one (Makoto no goma, available in nice big jars for not too much yen at Otsuya in Ueno), which means the seeds are toasted before grinding. It is very flavoursome, and I think you can get away with using slightly less than is called for in this recipe (I have adjusted it accordingly). As ever, let your own taste buds be the guide. More or less of anything is not going to spoil the dip. The parsley gives this some body and texture. Don't whizz it to oblivion, and make sure you use flat-leaf parsley, as the curly stuff would be a little strident here.

This is another from the amazing appetizer chapter of Habeeb Salloum's brilliant Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa. It goes particularly well with Argentine chimichurri bread.

Avocado appetizer

4 tbsp lemon juice
2-3 tbsp tahini
1 large or 2 medium avocados
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
2 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
pinch cayenne
1/2 tsp paprika

1 Place lemon juice and tahini in a blender or food processor and blend for a moment. Set aside.

2 Pit and peel avocados and cut into pieces. Add, with the remaining ingredients, except paprika, to the lemon juice-tahini mixture. Blend to a smooth paste.

3 Place on a flat serving platter, sprinkle with paprika and serve as is or chilled.

Enjoy!

Stir-fried pineapple with ginger (and garlic and lime!)

Here is an unusual savory pineapple side dish. It is just bursting with zip, tang and heat. There is so much going on here that it may outshine the main course, so make sure it is something really able to stand up to it.

The original recipe is in India's 500 Best Recipes, which I have written about before. However, there is no indication as to where it originates (not all of the recipes are from India, despite the book's title). The soy sauce suggests that it a Southeast Asian source might be more likely than an Indian one. Not that it matters when it tastes this good.

You could probably substitute tinned pineapple, but make sure it is not sweetened. Or then again, that might be another interesting variation you could offer as a dessert...


Stir-fried pineapple with ginger

1 pineapple
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1/4 onion, sliced thinly
5 cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into fine matchsticks
2 tbsp light soy sauce
Juice of 1/2 lime
1 fresh red chilli, seeded and sliced finely

1 Trim and peel the pineapple. Cut in quarters lengthwise and cut out the core. Chop into bite-sized pieces.

2 Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan. Stir-fry the garlic and onion over a medium heat for 2-3 min, until golden. Do not let garlic burn or it will become bitter.

3 Add the pineapple. Stir-fry for about 2 min, or until the pineapple pieces start to turn golden on the edges.

4 Add the ginger, soy sauce, lime juice and chilli.

5 Toss the mixture together until well mixed. Cook over a low heat for a further 2 min. Serve the pineapple as an accompaniment to grilled meat or strongly flavoured fish.

Enjoy!

Warm glass noodles with edamame

Life events have overtaken me lately and I've not been very inspired in the kitchen. In fact, I even lost my sense of taste for a while. Bad times, indeed. But like the gambling addict who always thinks his next big win is "just round the corner," I am determined to stay in the game!

Luckily for me, this Ottolenghi recipe from the Guardian caught my eye and I think I may have turned that corner at last.

Edamame, you say; from a Middle Eastern food specialist?! Well why not? The recipe is touted as Japanese-inspired on the Guardian site, but in reality, edamame, or young green soy beans, is the only Japanese influence. What really makes it is the blend of lip-smacking Southeast Asian flavours--galangal/ginger, tamarind and garlic--in the sauce. (You'll see from the photo above that I omitted the red chilli, but only out of respect for the Young Man's palate.)

This is a breeze to make, or rather it would be if you don't have to pod your edamame before you start. Here in Japan, edamame are a summertime treat served chilled in their pods after a light boiling and salting. Perfect with the big jugs of beer that are so popular here in the dog days of summer. Those days being far from nigh, I contented myself with frozen edamame, still in the pods. You'll want to defrost them in water before even attempting to extract the tasty green beans inside, so make sure to get them out of the freezer in good time (I'd pop them in the fridge in the morning before going to work next time). Having a YM in the house usually expedites such mundane but essential processes as podding, but in this case my YM was otherwise engaged with his studies.

I took Yotam Ottolenghi's advice about boosting this with some yaki dofu, or extra-firm tofu that's been grilled, giving it a lovely colour. This kind of tofu, if well drained (by placing a plate or other weight on top of it for about 10 minutes), stands up really well to stir-frying. You'll need to break it up a bit before you put it in the pan. I found that I didn't have enough sauce to really flavour the tofu (which really sucks up the flavours), and added some Thai fish sauce to compensate. Even making it more substantial with the tofu, you'll probably want another side dish or two to make this a meal.

Ottolenghi's warm glass noodles with edamame

Serves four

250g glass or cellophane noodles
1 pack firm tofu such as yaki dofu
2 tbsp sunflower oil
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
300g (net weight) cooked edamame beans, podded
3 spring onions, including the green parts, thinly sliced
1 fresh red chilli, finely chopped
3 tbsp coriander [cilantro] leaves, chopped, plus a few whole leaves for garnish
3 tbsp mint leaves, shredded
3 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted

For the sauce
2 tbsp grated galangal (or ginger)
4 limes, juiced
3 tbsp groundnut oil
2 tbsp palm sugar
2 tsp tamarind paste
1 tsp Tamari soy sauce
1 tsp fine sea salt

1 Soak the noodles in a bowl of hot water until soft - about five minutes. Be careful not to leave them in the water for too long because they can go soggy. Strain and leave to dry.

2 In a small bowl, whisk together all the sauce ingredients and set aside.

3 Heat the oil in a large frying pan or a wok and add the garlic (and drained tofu, if using). As it starts to turn golden, remove the pan from the heat and add the sauce and noodles. Gently mix together, add most of the edamame, the onions, chilli and fresh herbs. Stir while you return the pan to the heat for a few seconds, just to heat through, taste and add salt if you like.

4 Pile up the noodles on a large platter or in a shallow bowl, scatter over the reserved edamame and the sesame seeds, and garnish with the whole coriander leaves. You can also serve the dish at room temperature, in which case adjust the seasoning just before you do so.

Enjoy!

Christmas roundup 2: Deluxe Christmas pies

I love Christmastime and one of the very best aspects of the season is the heady scents that emanate from the kitchen. And one of the very best aromas, for me, is that of Christmas pies. All that cinnamon and fruity goodness... While you can get inferior pies at any supermarket (at least in Australia), I really like making my own.

For many years, I've been making a version of the Christmas pies in Nigella Lawson's How to Eat; basically augmenting a jar of Robertson's mincemeat with grated apple, citrus juice and booze, but this year, at the urging of Saffron-Papa, we made these super luxury pies based on a tart recipe in The Ultimate Christmas Cookbook, a book we come back to year after year. The number and amount of dried fruits in these pies make the recipe prohibitively expensive to make in Japan, but very doable here in Australia.

And the results were really far superior than anything you could buy ready-made. Unusually, the pastry contains ground walnuts and is scented with cinnamon, vanilla and a touch of sugar. It is very rich and moreish. It is very buttery, making it admittedly somewhat difficult to work with. However, I think a little extra flour would help with this. The mincemeat itself is far superior to a bought mixture. It has a nice blend of tart and sweet fruits, balanced with some lemon and green grapes. We loved them!

The recipe gives the instructions for pastry first, but it is best to make the mincemeat in advance and leave it to mature for up to 4 weeks. Though, making it that far in advance might result in reduced supplies as you will "have to" taste at regular intervals to see how it is coming along (g). If you are in a warm climate, it will be best to store the mincemeat in a container in the fridge.

Deluxe mincemeat pies

For the pastry
225 g plain flour
10 ml ground cinnamon
50 g finely ground walnuts
115 g butter, cold from the fridge and cubed
50 g caster sugar
1 egg
2 drops vanilla essence
15 ml cold water

For the mincemeat
2 dessert apples, peeled, cored and coarsely grated
225 g raisins
115 g dried apricots, chopped
115 g dried figs or prunes
225 g green grapes, quartered and seeded [Saffron: I only used half this amount]
50 g chopped almonds
finely grated rind of 1 lemon
30 ml lemon juice
30 ml port or brandy
1/4 tsp mixed spice
115 g soft light brown sugar
25 g butter, melted

1 To make pastry, put the four, cinnamon and walnuts in a food processor. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Beat the egg, vanilla essence and water with a fork, and add, together with the sugar, to the food processor mixture. Process until a dough forms. Turn out and kneed briefly on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Form into a flat disc, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 min.

2 Mix all of the mincemeat ingredients together in a large bowl.

3 Roll out pastry to a thickness of 5 mm and cut out circles for bases and stars for lids. Place the pastry circles in the lightly oiled holes of a muffin tin and fill with mincemeat. Top with pastry stars and chill for 30 min.

4 Preheat oven to 180 C. Place baking sheet in the oven to preheat. Place the muffin tin on top of the preheated baking sheet and bake the pies for 15 min, or until golden brown. Cool slightly before removing from the muffin tin. Serve warm or cold.

Enjoy!

Christmas roundup 1: Roasted root vegetables with honey, tamarind and lemon

Christmas has come and gone, and like most of us, you're probably very happy not to have to think about it for another twelve months. We're still eating leftovers here, but I did want to record my experience with this brilliant recipe from a column in The Guardian by veggie virtuosos Yotam Ottolenghi and Sam Tamimi. If you are into Middle Eastern food, or any food with big, bold flavours, then these guys should be on your radar (I'm so impressed, I've started a new label for recipes of theirs). I suggest you go directly to the link above and click on all sections of this article (links are on the right side of the photo) and get all the recipes for next Chrissie (I know I did!). You might be surprised by what two non-Christian, non-Brits came up with for our big annual feast.

Of course going totally vegetarian is not in the cards for us. I love my turkey, and go to some lengths to ensure a turkey dinner for us at least once a year, even at home in Japan. Visiting my family here in Australia this year made that as easy as pie. In fact Saffron-Papa had already sussed out a good bird before we even arrived!

But I was open to new ideas (please!) for the vegetable portion of the Great Feast, and this is it! While you still have the same old roast root veggies, here they come with a big twist: the sweetness of honey (suggested as a substitute for the original recipe's date syrup: sorry, not in this small town) and tart tamarind. And that is just the cooking juice! After the veggies are roasted up nicely but still a little crisp, they are anointed with lemon juice and zest, finely chopped raw garlic and basil! Mwow! There is enough going on here to keep even the most jaded palate (that would be mine) interested!

I was lucky enough to have lots of fresh thyme and basil straight from Saffron-Mama's well-tended herb garden. It is amazing how much more flavour herbs have when they're plucked right before the using. If I had more sunshine in my (postage stamp-sized) back garden in Japan, I would love to grow my own too, but alas...

So without further ado, here is the recipe, almost as it was found. My one addition was the butternut pumpkin. It's an Australian thing, I know, but a good addition, I feel, especially as we were not having a separate pumpkin dish. I also wouldn't bother about lining your oven tray with cooking paper: the juice soaked right through in my case, and I had to fish it out, in rags, with tongs. That's just one step too much at Christmas for me! Other than that, this is sublime and much too good to keep only for Christmas!

Roasted root vegetables with honey, tamarind & lemon

Serves six.

1 tbsp seedless tamarind paste
70ml warm water
1.5kg (net weight) mixed root vegetables (any combination of carrot, parsnip, celeriac, swede, parsnip, unpeeled sweet potato, peeled butternut pumpkin)
3 large red onions, peeled and cut into wedges
90ml date syrup
75ml olive oil
12 sprigs fresh thyme
1½ tsp salt
Black pepper
3 garlic cloves, crushed
Grated zest and juice of 2 lemons
50g fresh basil leaves

1 Preheat the oven to 210C/425F/ gas mark 7. Whisk together the tamarind paste and warm water, set aside for 20 minutes, then pass through a fine sieve [Saffron: this won't be necessary in the case of tamarind paste].

2 To prepare the vegetables, cut them into chunky wedges (1cm at the thick end), or halve the long roots widthways and then cut each half again lengthways, the fat part into four and the thin into two.

3 In a large bowl, stir together the root vegetables, onions, honey, tamarind mixture, 60ml olive oil, thyme, salt and some pepper. Use a roasting tray large enough to take everything in one layer. Spread the vegetables inside and roast for 40-50 minutes, until they are crunchy yet tender. Taste them - they may well take a little longer.

4 Remove from the oven, stir in the garlic, lemon zest and juice, the remaining oil and most of the basil (save a few leaves to garnish), then taste. Add salt and pepper if needed, transfer to a serving bowl and dot with the reserved basil leaves. Serve warm.

Enjoy!

Autumn harvest salad with persimmons

I had already pretty much decided on the menu for the Young Man's 14th (!) birthday party when I discovered the recipe on which I based this pretty salad at the NPR Food site just 2 days before the big event. I saw it and I had to have it, menu be damned!

Marrying pears (Japanese nashi in my case) with persimmons and pomegranates (two of my very favourite fruits) as it does, I was always going to fall for this crisp seasonal delight, but to then smother it all with with a citrus dressing?! It was all over.

I wouldn't say that this was a huge hit with the Young People at the party, who were too involved in playing to be much bothered with the food, but we mums more than made up for it. I made various substitutions from the original recipe. The only thing that I left out altogether was the pecans. I ran out of those a while back, but they are on the shopping list for our Christmas visit to Australia, so assuming we still have persimmons and nashi in January when we get back, I might give this another go then. Maybe with Nigel's 3 citrus dressing.

Fingers crossed, as I also have my eye on the persimmon and apple salsa featured in the same article (which you should read to get the full low-down on sweet vs astringent persimmons. There is a difference, and it is the sweet kind (usually squat and squarish here in Japan) that you want for this recipe.

Autumn harvest salad with persimmons

Vinaigrette
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (apple vinegar in Japan)
1 teaspoon grainy Dijon mustard (or regular Dijon plus 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds)
1 teaspoon honey
2 tablespoons orange juice
1/2 teaspoon orange zest
1 teaspoon chopped fresh mint
Salt and pepper, to taste

Salad
1 head of interesting lettuce (a bitter kind, for preference)
1 small bag of baby leaf salad
1 sweet persimmon, peeled and cut into 8 wedges
1 nashi, peeled and cut into thin wedges
1 handful sultanas or raisins (soaked in any remaining orange juice)
1/4 cup pomegranate arils (the edible red pieces of the fruit)

1 For the vinaigrette, shake all ingredients in a small jar and set aside.

2 In a large bowl, toss the lettuce, baby leaf, persimmons and pears. Pour half of the vinaigrette over salad and toss until coated. Add sultanas and pomegranate arils. Drizzle with the remaining vinaigrette.

Enjoy!

Two Turkish appetizers: Acili ezme and yogurtlu havuc salatasi

There was a cute little Turkish eatery literally 3 doors down the road from us a couple of years ago. Since my part of Yokohama is a decidedly non-"ethnic"-food locale, the restaurant did not last long, but ooooh the spicy tomato meze! I would have done the dishes to get a hold of that recipe. In fact, I failed even to find out what it was called. Not even a trip to Turkey (and many a meze plate) solved this little problem. This summer, I finally got a tip-off from the waitress at a Turkish restaurant in Tokyo. Perhaps it was acil domates (spicy tomatoes)? Close, but no cookie.

Turns out that this spicy salad cum dip is called acili ezme, and I found a recipe at the brilliant Turkish food blog Binnur's Turkish Cookbook. Only problem was that with the end of the tomato season nigh, I had to make this like now!

But one appetizer does not a meze make. So from my Must Try pile, I chose a carrot salad with yogurt or yogurtlu havuc salatasi from another favourite Turkish food blog Almost Turkish.

I thought these would make a nice contrast: one fresh and spicy, the other creamy and herby.

When I made the acili ezme, the was rather wet (even having seeded the tomatoes), but that could be because my toms were smaller, or because I reduced the amount of parsley in order to tempt the Young Man into trying it (g). Next time I might reduce the amount of lemon juice to compensate. You might have to scout out the sumac and pomegranate paste/molasses for this one. Both are souring agents that can't really be substituted; better to just leave them out if you can't find them.

The carrot salad was a real treat; the YM scoffed down his share despite the "offensive" presence of dill (admittedly reduced for his benefit). I drained the yogurt (in a lined sieve for about 30 min) for mine, mitigating any need for mayonnaise to thicken it. We had the salad without the raki recommended by Burcu at Almost Turkish, but it was mighty fine just the same (g).

Together or apart, these two meze will definitely be appearing on our table again. Now I just need to get some more Middle Eastern bread for next time!

Acili Ezme: Turkish Style Tomato Dip

3 tomatoes, seeded and chopped very finely
1/2 red or white onion, chopped very finely
1 cup parsley, chopped very finely
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp pomegranate paste/molasses
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cayenne pepper, crushed, or to taste
1 tsp sumac
Salt

Crush the onion with sumac and salt with your hands. Mix all the ingredients in a service bowl. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

Yogurtlu Havuc Salatasi: Turkish Carrot Salad with Yogurt

4 cups of grated carrot
1 cup plain yogurt, preferably whole milk [S: drained for half an hour if you have time]
1-2 cloves of garlic, chopped very finely
2 tbsp olive oil
3-4 tbsp finely chopped fresh dill
salt
1 tbsp mayonnaise (optional)

Heat oil in a skillet and add grated carrots. Stir until carrots are wilted. Put carrots in a bowl with yogurt, garlic, dill, and salt. Mix well. Serve with crusty bread and any kind of meat.

Enjoy!