Easy Flatbread Pizza

July 8th, 2009

DSC03381These pizzas are a great last minute dinner. So easy to make and a great (healthier) alternative to takeout pizza. You need to start with flatbreads rather than tortillas (try a turkish corner shop for the best) as they are sturdier and will hold up to the toppings better.

I often make an absurdly quick tomato by sizzling some garlic and chilli in olive oil, pouring in a can of chopped tomatoes and simmering for 15mins or so until thick and seaoning well. But you could just as easily use halved cherry tomatoes.

Top with whatever you like and bake for 10-15mins until the cheese is bubbling and golden. The key here is restraint – keep it simple and don’t pile on the toppings if you want to keep your pizza crisp otherwise, and I’m speaking form experience here, you end up with a soggy mess.

Some ideas for toppings:

  • A thin layer of tomato, a little mozzarella and some pine nuts. Top with shredded basil when cooked.
  • Top with rocket and avocado
  • Goats cheese, walnuts and a few dollops of onion marmalade
  • Chargrilled aubergine and pine nuts (a little oregano would be good here)
  • Any combination of anchovies, capers and olives
  • Thinly sliced pear, gorgonzola and pine nuts, topped with some rocket or watercress.
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Cauliflower Pasta

July 3rd, 2009

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A reworking of this Cauliflower Pasta recipe taking inspiration from this recipe on 101cookbooks. Instead of braising the cauliflower, I stirfried it in a large frying pan with some onion until golden and nutty. Add some pasta and spoonful or two of creme fraiche to finish. Some chopped parsley, basil or toasted pine nuts would be a welcome addition here.

This is a great way to cook cauliflower. The key is patience, you need to stand over the pan for a good 5mins, turning the cauliflower regularly as it browns and tuns golden on each side, this is the key to giving the cauliflower the nutty caramelised flavour.

Try this as a base to a simple cauliflower curry, frying the cauliflower in curry powder and ading chopped tomatoes at the end.

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Courgette and Pistachio Bulghar Wheat Salad

June 30th, 2009

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A zingy bulghar wheat salad packed full of parsley and coriander, pistachios and orange. I also chopped some courgette into small pieces, fried in a little olive oil and added it to the salad, finishing off with a squeeze of orange juice to freshen things up. Pistachios are fast becoming a new favourite, mixed with orange juice, its an exotic combination.

As with most salads, this is a chop and assemble job. As ever, bulghar wheat holds up quite well, so make plenty for lunch and snacks later. Try adding some shredded roast chicken for a more substantial meal maybe eating with a simple tomato salad.

Ingredients

200g bulghar wheat, cooked
2 courgettes
3tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 bunch parsley, chopped
1 bunch coriander, chopped
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 orange, zest and juice of 1/2
75g pistachios, chopped

  • Top and tail the courgettes, slice into 4 lengthways and slice into chunks.
  • Heat a frying pan with 2tbsp olive oil and fry the courgettes for 5 mins or so until golden brown and cooked through. Season well and a splash of orange juice.
  • Mix with the bulghar wheat and add the rest of the ingredients saving some pistachios to sprinkle over later.
  • Serve with a spoon of yoghurt and sprinkled with the reserved pistachios.
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Friday Night Mezze

June 28th, 2009

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My friends came over on Friday night for the usual dinner, drinks, shisha and terrible dancing. What with the weather and our dancing plans, I decided to go for a mezze affair taking inspiration from a tapas special in a really old copy of Observer Food Monthly written by Moro. A few colourful dishes that weren’t too heavy eaten along with a simple salad and toasted pittas, the kind of food that can be eaten warm, lazily, over easy conversation with a glass of elderflower and fizz.
Top of the list was hummus with crispy lamb – an old favourite, this is so tasty and so easy. You can definitely get away with a decent shop bought hummus. Spread messily over a large plate, top with lamb mince fried with onions and little cinnamon, pine nuts and parsely. Then this delicious beetroot and pistachio salad – raw beetroot sliced paper thin topped with a jade green pistachio sauce flecked with parsley, mint and lemon zest. The nuts and lemon zest go perfectly with the sweet beetroot.

Finally I made chicken legs marinated in garlic, tahini and cumin, roasted until golden and crispy served with a tahini sauce.

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All recipes here.

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Courgette Pasta

June 21st, 2009

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We got the first of summer’s courgettes in our veg box this week, small, firm and sprightly specimens. Perfect for the first Courgette Pasta of the summer. I wrote about this last year, but for those of you who might not have read it or who simply forgot, then this is a little reminder.
A perfect way to cook courgettes, grated coursely and fried slowly in plenty of butter and olive oil, left long enough to create crusty caramelised bits in place. Add plenty of garlic, lemon zest and pepper and eat with pasta. This is fresh and summery, none of the usual mushiness that makes most people dislike courgettes. Try adding a handful of pine nuts or a few spoons of creme fraiche.

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Spinach and Anchovy Tart

June 12th, 2009

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I’ve been lusting after this baby for a while now, everywhere I look in food magazines, there are beautiful tarts made in this rectangular tart tin. Not only was I won over by the elegance, I also hoped it might be easier to line with pastry and blind bake (I ALWAYS get holes). So, it was with great delight that I wandered around John Lewis homewares department last week and came out clutching my tin.

We seemed to get an explosion of green in the veg box this week, a bag of beautiful baby spinach, earmarked for nothing more than a salad and big bunches of spring greens. In my quest for tart inspiration, I came across this recipe on BBCGoodfood.com, except I used stirfried sping greens, chopped finely instead. The anchovies are not overpowering at all, but lend a salty savouriness, that perks this up and stops it being bland.

I also skipped the potatoes and made a potato salad instead. Slice new potatoes into thick coins and roast with olive and oil and salt until cooked through and golden, make sure you scrape them off the bottom of the roasting tray every so often to stop them sticking. Once cooked, add pepper, a squeeze of lemon juice, finely chopped onions and parsley. My new favourite way to eat new potatoes.

As you might expect, this is delicious eaten at room temperature so leftovers won’t last long as I discovered when we devoured them at 4am after a night of dancing. The crumbs were quite a depressing sight the following morning.

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Spiced Turkey Kebabs

June 7th, 2009

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Marinaded in garlic, ginger, yoghurt and ground cumin. The kebabas are delicately spiced, nothing too overpowering, using yoghurt to tenderise and mint for freshness. We used turkey mostly because it was cheap, but of course you can use chicken – breast or thigh would work equally well. The yoghurt keeps the turkey wonderfuly moist as it has a tendency to dry out.

We eat these along with the bulgar salad below, but I would also eat them stuffed into pittas with salad and mayonnaise or yoghurt.

Ingredients

Serves 4

400g turkey breast, cut into chunks
4 tbsp Greek yogurt
handful chopped mint
1tsp ground cumin
1tsp ground coriander
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
small piece fresh ginger, finely grated
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 red chilli, finely chopped (optional)

  • Soak 12 wooden skewers in water for 30mins.
  • Add all the ingredients to a large bowl, mix well, cover and leave to marinade for an hour.
  • Thread the turkey onto the skewers
  • Grill for 8mins until golden brown and cooked through, turning halfway.
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Roasted Tomato and Spinach bulghar salad

June 3rd, 2009

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This is one of the great salads that I’m loving at the moment. They take a bit longer than your average chop and go salad to prepare but are bursting with flavour and if you make a huge batch, you can eat it for dinner and keep leftovers in the fridge for lunch or for other meals. Simply add the protein of your choice. Try blistered slices of haloumi, fried mackerel fillets, chicken, lamb kebabs or a poached egg.

This salad was inspired by this recipe from 101cookbooks, in all honesty, I took a cursory glance at the ingredients and went by the picture more than anything, so my version is below. Bursting with colour, sweet roasted cherry tomatoes and slow cooked red onions go beautifully with the nutty bulghar wheat spiked with loads of fresh herbs, a little garlic and a handful of spinach (I have a sneaky suspicion that toasted pine nuts or almonds would be a fabulously crunchy addition). A perfect accompaniment to a mezze type affair, try a simple carrot salad, some hummus and flatbreads.

Ingredients

250g cherry tomatoes
250g bulghar
olive oil
juice 1/2 lemon
1 clove garlic
3 handfuls spinach
1 bunch mint
1 bunch parsley

Onions
3 red onions, finley sliced
2tsp brown sugar
1tbsp balsamic vinegar

  • First up the tomatoes. Preheat the oven to 180C. Slice the tomatoes in half and throw onto a large baking tray. Drizzle with olive, season with crunchy flakes of sea salt, a twist of black pepper and a pinch of brown sugar. Stir well, making sure all the tomatoes are cut side up and roast for 40mins until shrivelled and golden.
  • Meanwhile pour the bulghar wheat into a saucepan that has a lid with 1/2tsp of bouillon if you have it or a pinch of salt. Cover with boiling water, bring to the boil, cover and simmer until all the water is absorbed and the bulghar is tender but still with some bite. (you may need to add a little extra water or drain any excess off.
  • Heat a large frying pan with 2tbsp olive oil, add the onions and cook on low until completely soft. Add the balsamic vinegar, sugar and plenty of seasoning and cook for another 5mins or so until dark, sweet and sticky.
  • To assemble the salad, squeeze the lemon juice over the bulghar and add 2-3tbsp olive oil, the garlic and most of the mint and parsley. Stir well and season to taste.
  • Fold in the spinach and tumble onto a large serving platter. Top with roasted tomatoes, onions and the rest of the herbs.
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Summery Salad

June 2nd, 2009

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I picked up some lovely organic pork meatballs from Waitrose (who can resist a ‘reduced’ bargain these days?), at the time I was thinking of a rich stew spiced with cumin, coriander and cinnamon to eat with a mound of cous cous and a dollop of yoghurt (serious comfort food) . Alas, the weather was having none of it, after sweating it home on the tube, the thought of cooking a stew and then eating was not appealing.

Off I went to the cookbooks and came back with this recipe from Delicious magazine. A fresh and summery salad of sweet peas, broad beans, crunchy radish and meatballs made by splitting open sausages and rolling them into balls. View this as completely open to interpretation – we used what we had in the fridge for ours, some thinly sliced fennel, peas, lettuce and red onion along with the lovey meatballs.

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What brings the whole thing together is a generous scattering of mint and parsley and a deeply flavourful dressing made from (a lot of) anchovies, garlic and lemon juice.

Leave out the meatballs and this is a great side salad or try it grilled chicken or fish and here you could add capers for extra zing. I must admit I also mixed the leftovers with some bulghar wheat for my lunch – perhaps a little unorthodox but the extra carbs bulk it up and make it a little more exciting for lunch rather a leftover soggy salad.

Dressing
1 garlic clove
4tbsp olive oil
6 anchovy fillets, chopped
juice 1/2 lemon

To serve:
1 small bunch of mint and parsley, roughly chopped

To make the dressing, heat the anchovy fillets and olive oil gently until the anchovies melt, now add the garlic and lemon juice and some black pepper.

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Chickpea Fritters

May 23rd, 2009

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This is part of my resolution to actually cook something from the various food magazines I buy every month. These little chickpea fritters are from Olive. I made them as a starter when some friends came over, but they are pretty filling so would make a good lunch. I layered them with chargrilled aubergine and mozzarella and a tomato and coriander salsa. A deviation from the actual recipe which suggests using beetroot instead of aubergine, I’ve earmarked this for next time.
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Whilst they were definitely delicious, flavoured with tahini, coriander and garlic, they are a little time consuming to make – separating eggs, whisking egg whites and the like. Don’t let it put you off, just be prepared to spend a decent 30mins on it. The good news is leftovers keep pretty well, I actually made mine in the morning and warmed them through in the oven.

Ingredients

makes 8-10 small fritters

1 can chickpeas, drained
150ml milk
2 eggs, separated
1tsp baking powder
100g plain flour
1 small bunch coriander, chopped (reserves some for garnish)
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 chilli, finely chopped
2tsp tahini
lemon, a good squeeze
1 aubergine, sliced
1 mozzarella ball, sliced
Tomato Salsa
250g cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
small bunch coriander, chopped
2tbsp olive oil
1tbsp lemon juice

  • To make the tomato salsa, mix all the ingredients and season well.
  • Drizzle the aubergine slices in a little sunflower oil and rub in.
  • Heat a large griddle pan and fry the aubergines for a few minutes on each side until soft.
  • Remove from the pan, season well and squeeze over a little lemon juice.
  • Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl,whisk the egg yolks and milk into a smooth paste.
  • Sift in the flour and baking powder and whisk in well.
  • Add the coriander, garlic, tahini, chilli and lemon juice and stir well.
  • Now stir in the chickpeas.
  • Whisk the egg whites into stiff peaks, fold gently into the chickpea mixture.
  • Heat a large frying pan and add a little oil. Spoon in about 1tbsp of mixture at a time into the pan and cook for 2-3mins on each side. you should get 8-10 fritters
  • Drain on kitchen paper once cooked.
  • To assemble, layer a fritter, a slice of aubergine and a slice of mozzarella and spoon over a little tomato salsa.

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