Ploughman’s lunch with baba ganoush @ home

I love a ploughman’s lunch.  I love its simplicity, its variety and the element of surprise when various combinations of cheeses, olives, salad ingredients, condiments and spreads are placed atop a solid foundation of wholesome bread. 

This one included some basil and rocket from the garden, cherry tomatoes, a few olives, some tuna, as well as a spoonful out of a few jars of homemade goodies that I had in the fridge, including Sichuan Pickled Cucumber and Black Shiitake, eggplant pickle and baba ghanoush, the recipe of which is right here:

Baba ghanoush

3 medium eggplants

1 Tbsp tahini

1 Tbsp yoghurt

Juice of a lemon

1 tsp cumin seeds

If you have a gas stove, place the eggplants on the open flame until the skins are completely blackened and the eggplants are soft.  If not, roast whole eggplants in the oven at around 200˚C until softened (about 30-40 minutes).  Then place in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave until cool.

When eggplants have cooled, peel the skin away and discard the tops.  Put the flesh into a clean bowl, mashing with a fork if necessary.  Add the tahini, yoghurt and lemon juice and stir well.  You may need to adjust these elements, including the addition of salt, to suit your own taste.  You can puree in a blender or food processer at this point if you like, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

Dry fry the cumin seeds in a frypan until toasted and then grind in a mortar and pestle.  Add to the baba ghanoush, reserving some for a garnish if you want to get fancy.  I sprinkled mine with store-bought dukkah and drizzled with olive oil.

Sichuan Pickled Cucumber and Black Shiitake @ home

This little concoction of Neil Perry’s was recommended to me by our friends, Bu and Ingvar, and requires one important statement:

Its awesomeness cannot be underestimated.

I highly recommend you try this one at home, whether or not you are a fan of pickles, cucumbers or shiitake mushrooms.  I am usually not a particularly picklish kind of girl, and I don’t get into the shiitake thing that regularly either, but the bizarre Sichuan peppercorn zing, the razzmatazz of the ginger, the sweetness that the sugar brings to the whole thing and the clean cucumber finish makes this an incredibly moreish combination.  It goes with just about anything;  I’ve been enjoying it with my favourite tofu and rice dishes, barbequed fish and even as part of a ploughman's lunch with cheese, olives etc.  And it’s really easy to make, too. 

7 small Lebanese cucumbers, cut into quarters lengthways and deseeded

65g (1/2 cup) sea salt

250ml peanut oil

1 Tablespoon Sichuan peppercorns

10 dried small red chillies

100g sugar

100ml rice vinegar

2 ½ tablespoons light soy sauce

1 large knob of ginger, peeled and cut into very fine julienne

20 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in warm water for 30 mins, stalks removed, finely sliced

Put the cucumber in a colander over a bowl, sprinkle with the sea salt and mix well. Leave to stand for 1 hour to draw out any excess moisture and then rinse well under cold running water and drain.

Heat a wok until smoking. Add the peanut oil and, when hot, add the peppercorns and chillies and cook until blackened. Add the sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, mushrooms and finally, the cucumber. Stir for a minute or two. Pack into a 2 litre sterilised glass jar, allow to cool and then cover and leave or a day or two to mature before serving.

Neil Perry’s recipe says it lasts for 2 weeks in the fridge, but mine is still going strong 3 weeks later (and I don’t even have 24 hour power), so feel free to keep indulging until the jar runs out, which probably won’t be long anyway.

A visit from Miss Kylie

Our lovely teacher friend from the desert came for her second visit this year, this time bringing her boyfriend, Jarrad.  The week was pretty much spent cooking and eating, so here is one of Miss Kylie’s creations:

Miss Kylie’s Green Papaya Salad

1 medium green papaya (paw paw), shredded with a mandoline or grated

1 medium cucumber, seeds removed and julienned

1 medium carrot, grated

A handful of cherry tomatoes, halved

A handful of peanuts, crushed (she also used some macadamias and hazelnuts that we had in the cupboard)

A handful of sunflower seeds

1 large red chilli, finely sliced

1 tsp dried chilli flakes

1 tsp palm sugar, grated

2 tsp fish sauce

2 tsp rice vinegar

1 Tbsp soy sauce

For the dressing, whisk together the fish sauce, vinegar and soy sauce, then add the palm sugar and dried chilli, stirring to combine.

Put the rest of the ingredients into a large bowl, toss to combine and then drizzle over the dressing.

English muffins! (Yes, English muffins!!) @ home

I was amazed the first time I learnt that you can actually make English muffins, complete with split, right in your own home.  And if you’ve got a bit of semolina on-hand, yours can look just as good (if not, better) than the Tip Top ones.

I nabbed this recipe from Easy as (Vegan) Pie and adapted it ever-so-slightly.

7g packet dry yeast

1 Tbsp sugar

1 cup lukewarm water

2¼ cups flour

1 tsp salt

3 Tbsp olive oil or butter, softened

A handful of semolina

Combine yeast, sugar and water.  Leave to stand for 5 minutes to let the yeast develop (watch for the foam – this is good).  Combine flour and salt in a large bowl, make a well in the centre and pour in the yeasty-goodness and olive oil/butter.

Gradually incorporate all the flour into the liquid, eventually making a soft dough, then tip out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth (around 8 minutes).  Cut a cross in the top of the dough and place it in a clean, oiled bowl.  Cover and leave to prove until doubled in size (45 minutes to 1 hour).

Preheat oven to 180˚C.  Knock the air out of the dough and knead again for a minute or so.  Roll it out to a flat circle, about ½ inch thick.  Cut into rounds to the size you want, then pat both sides with semolina.  Heat a drizzle of olive oil or butter in a heavy-based frypan and fry the rounds on each side until golden.  Once browned, put onto a baking tray and bake in the oven for 6-10 minutes.

These will keep for a few days in the fridge and for many days in the freezer.  When ready to use, split down the middle, toast and serve with loads of butter, vegemite, jam, poached/scrambled eggs, etc.



Banana bread, sweet dukkah and yoghurt for brekkie @ home

The bananas we get in Oecusse are lovely and sweet, but you can only buy them by the massive bunch-load.  So, needless to say, we often have large numbers of them going soft at the same time.  If the childhood version of my friend Amanda lived here, there’d be no problem with this, because she used to be a big fan of liquid-ripe bananas.  But in lieu of a little Amanda, I make banana bread instead.  This recipe is adapted from a delicious. magazine version.

Banana Bread

1⅔ cups plain flour

1½ tsp baking powder

⅓ cup caster sugar

⅓ cup brown sugar

1 tsp grown cinnamon

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract (I used vanilla bean paste)

3 ripe bananas, mashed

Sift flour and baking power into a bowl.  Stir in sugars and cinnamon.  Add eggs, vanilla and banana and stir until well combined.  Pour into greased loaf pan and bake for about 45 minutes at 160˚C.

Too easy.

**

Home-made yoghurt

I’ve been making my own yoghurt for the last year or so.  It’s a very satisfying thing to do when the supermarket is an overnight ferry’s journey away from your fridge.  The method for yoghurt is very simple, provided you have a starter-culture:  either a packet culture (such as “Easiyo”) or just some store-bought yoghurt at room temperature will do.  You will also need a thermos.

600mL milk – we only have access to powdered milk, which works fine.

1 or 2 Tbsp milk powder – this will result in a thicker, but fattier, yoghurt.  (I don’t skimp on the fat.)

1 Tbsp plain yoghurt at room temperature

First, get your thermos up to temperature by filling it with hot water. 

Put the milk in a heavy-based saucepan.  Stir in the extra milk powder, making sure it all dissolves.  Slowly bring the heat up, giving the milk an occasional stir.  Bring to the point where bubbles begin to surface on the edges, but do not boil.  Turn off the heat and then let the milk cool to body temperature (this can be tested with the inside of the wrist, like a baby’s bottle).  When the heat is just right, stir in the yoghurt.* 

Tip the hot water out of the thermos and pour in the milk. Screw on the lid and then leave, without disturbing, for at least 7 hours and up to 24 hours.

When you open the thermos, the yoghurt should have set.  If it is too runny, you can strain off some of the whey through a muslin-lined sieve (I use a clean chux which works just as well).

I like spreading the yoghurt onto a piece of toasted banana bread – I think of it as a poor man’s ricotta, but slightly more zingy.  We also get awesome local honey here, which is equally yummy drizzled on the yoghurt, sprinkled with sweet dukkah (recipe follows) or a handful of muesli.

* Note that if you do this too early (ie when the milk is still too hot), it will curdle.  If this happens, you can still continue the process, but at the end you’ll have cheese instead of yoghurt.  You’ll need to strain the whey from the curds, too.

**

Sweet Dukkah

Adapted from delicious. magazine.

You can get creative with this concoction, using any type of nuts or seeds you like; hazelnuts and pistachios are particularly good.  I also added some shredded coconut to mine, which made it a bit tropical.

⅓ cup sesame seeds

2 Tbsp poppyseeds

⅔ cup toasted almonds, chopped

¼ cup pine nuts

¼ cup desiccated/shredded coconut

3 tsp ground cinnamon

Drizzle of olive oil

1 Tbsp honey

Combine all ingredients except oil and honey and spread onto a lined baking tray.  Drizzle with oil and toast at 200˚C for about 4 minutes.  Add the honey and stir.  Toast for another 5-7 minutes, until golden (be careful of over-toasting: it can happen fast).  Cool completely.  Pulse in a food processor, or grind in a mortar and pestle until roughly chopped.

**

Now that’s a hearty breakfast.  : )