Archive for the ‘Food’ Category
Tuna and Chickpea salad
Posted by: Yant Martin-Keyte in Food on June 20th, 2010
Making lunch every day it’s hard to avoid the drudgery of ham sandwiches. So I’m on a constant look out for easy lunch dishes, that travel. This spicy salad has become one of my favourites and CP asked for the recipe this week so I thought I’d share it with you as well.
Ingredients:
Tinned Tuna in olive oil
Tinned chick peas
Parsley
Red onion
Nonpareille capers in brine
Lime
Olive oil
Cumin seeds
Ground coriander
Cayenne pepper
Salt
Method
1. rinse and drain the chick peas well
2. pour the olive oil from the tuna in a heavy fry pan
3. heat the oil
4. add 1tsp of cumin seeds, 2tsp ground coriander and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper fry for a minute
5. add chick peas to pan and toss in the flavoured oil
Fried Chickpeas
6.fry for a few minutes then add a couple of table spoons of pine nuts
7. cook for a couple more minutes till pine nuts have some colour
8. turn out into a bowl to allow to cool
9. wash and chop parsley, about a third of a bunch
10. dice the red onion
Chopped onion
11. when the chickpeas are cool add parsley and onion
12. add zest and juice of limes, add salt to taste and a tablespoon of capers
Tuna salad
Anzac biscuits and roast figs
Posted by: Yant Martin-Keyte in Food on May 15th, 2010
Like most Ozzy kids Anzac biscuits were an integral part of growing up. I particularly liked the overcooked (read burnt) ones that were usually found at the back of the baking tray near the oven hot spot. It must have been a textural thing, as a child I never liked soft food much. Custards and rice pudding were out as was cooked vegetables. So I did miss out on some treats, including the unctuous chewyness of the less burnt Anzac biscuits.
Recently I was cooking biscuits for work and as we have a nut allergy, egg allergy and yeast allergy to consider I was somewhat stuck. It was then I thought of the humble Anzac again. Now I’m sure there is a traditional recipe floating around my family somewhere but I couldn’t find it. So I went searching the ever-helpful BBC and found this recipe. Now I am an inveterate tinkerer so as good a recipe as it is I did play about with it. I added dark Muscavado sugar and treacle making the biscuits that much darker and richer. i particularly liked the affect of chunks of unmixed sugar melting to caramel in the oven.
Conjoined by a delightful use of brown sugar my friend H called recently to ask for a recipe for roast figs. I do get random phone a chef calls from friends which is always satisfying and amusing. Now roast figs are an other of those mushy foods which I wouldn’t have enjoyed as a child but have grown to love now. And so simple they are to cook as well, sliced in half sprinkled with some good brown sugar and butter and roasted till the desired texture is reached served with Mascarpone and vanilla is a particular favourite of mine but ice-cream would take it that little bit further to luxe ness and a couple of overcooked Anzacs would finish it of with some good textural contrast.
Slow Cook Sunday – Smoked Haddock Risotto
Posted by: Yant Martin-Keyte in Food on July 26th, 2009
You wouldn’t think it is the middle of summer with the grey drizzle that is falling outside. But it is nice weather to be cooking a hearty risotto. I’ve had some smoked Haddock in the freezer for just such a dish, so I just picked up the other ingredients I needed when I ventured out into the damp. Some fresh mint and frozen pea’s.
My approach to risotto is too first to colour the rice in a mix of hot oil and butter. Once the grains are nice and golden I add in some chopped onion to sweat. next in would be white wine and stock but I had to make do with a Knorr cube and hot water. Then in went the fish. After cooking out for a while I add the pea’s cooked out a little further then finished with chopped mint, Parmesan cheese and butter.
Time as always is the key with risotto, you just need to slowly add hot liquid little and often. So I’ve some great risotto for dinner and enough for lunch for a couple of days.
Quick and dirty Cassoulet
Posted by: Yant Martin-Keyte in Food on July 12th, 2009
It’s slow cook Sunday and I’m cooking a quick and dirty Cassoulet. Quick! not exactly slow cooking, I here you say, yes well it’s quick preparation and slow cooking over a couple of hours while I watch the Tour de France highlights. Dirty? It is not a traditional French recipe, it is my own gonzo slightly Spanish version.
So let’s get down and dirty and cooking. I started with some Chilli oil in my heavy faux Le Creuset pan from Ikea and browned off four chunky pork sausages. While they were colouring I chopped some picante chorizo, onion, garlic, potatoes and Romano peppers. They were all thrown onto the pan to sweat out. I assembled the rest of the stew and added it to the pot, dried oregano, beef stock cube, smoked paprika, a tin of butter beans and a couple of handfuls of Puy Lentils. Some hot water and its done, well after two hours slow cooking on the back burner.
In my rush I forgot the carrots oh well…I’m back to watch the Tour in the Pyrenees.
Allez Allez!
Sweet and Salty
Posted by: Yant Martin-Keyte in Food on July 1st, 2009
Jonah over at The Frontal Cortex has an interesting post about the matching of sweet and salty food combinations. He touches on some good research on how salt is processed by our body and brain and his conclusions concur with what I was taught as an Apprentice Chef.
What is not touched on, but something I find useful in the kitchen is the relationship between salt and bitterness. A pinch of salt in my chocolate cake/mousse will just reduce the bitterness of the dark chocolate and make for a more balanced dish. Salted Cucumber will be a little drier and less bitter and this is true of a number of foods.
My favorite sweet salty combo is crisp Granny Smith’s with some strong salty cheddar, what’s yours?
Red pepper chutney
Posted by: Yant Martin-Keyte in Food on June 14th, 2009
This spicy little number came about when cooking at a friends place recently. We were having Moroccan chicken (that’s an other post) as a main and I’d decided on Falafel as a starter but wanted it a bit more interesting than just hummus. I picked up some red peppers, red onion and some chilli’s from the Brixton market with the rest of our shopping.
I roasted the peppers first with olive oil, garlic and some salt and pepper. I peeled the peppers and sliced them, they went in a saucepan with the oil from the tray and a sliced red onion and some chopped chilli. Now I’d bought some bell chilli’s so only put in half a chilli as they are red hot. This all sweated of to soften then added brown sugar and red-wine vinegar. Then on a low heat it just cooks down for an hour or two.
We had this warm with the Falafel and the left overs went well with some cold cuts the next day.
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Chilli Oil
Posted by: Yant Martin-Keyte in Food on June 8th, 2009
I’m not usually a fan of flavoured oil, I tend to get bored of the flavours before I use them up. But through a couple of coincidences I came to make some chilli oil. A friend gave me a big bag of dried chilli’s and Waitrose had French Lemonade in the flip top bottles. So I’ve now got 750ml of chilli oil brewing away, looking forward to the heat.
Chilli oil
Slow Cook Sunday – Russian baked cheesecake
Posted by: Yant Martin-Keyte in Food on May 31st, 2009
Something a little different this weekend, sweet rather then savoury. This is an old recipe which I found in a great book “The Man Who Ate Everything” by Jeffrey Steingarten. The book has some of the best witting on food bar none by a non-professional. I’ve been using the recipe for ten years and have yet to taste better or improve on it. Baking is not an area to divert from the recipe or to try and cut corners, so I’ll detail the full recipe for a change and urge you to stick to it to get the best results.
Ingredients
200g digestive biscuits
1.5tbs melted butter
320g caster sugar
1kg cream cheese (Phily or good alternative)
2tbs plain flour
4 large eggs
250ml sour cream
pinch salt
4cm Vanilla pod very finely chopped.
Pre-heat your oven at 165degC.
Line a 25cm spring form tin.
Crush the biscuits and add 40grams of the sugar before mixing in the melted butter, cover the base of the tin running a little up the sides.
Cream the sugar and cream cheese well.
Add flour and a pinch of salt, mix in.
Split the eggs a beat the yolks before adding to the cream cheese mix, mix.
Add sour cream then beat mix till smoothly combined.
Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites careful to retain air.
Gently pour into tin.
Bake in preheated oven for an hour, turn if it browns to much on one side.
After an hour turn oven off and leave in for an other hour. It will still be wobbly at this point, the hour in the oven switched off will set it, don’t keep opening oven to check though as you will loose the heat. The extra hour should prevent it from cracking too much as well.
Allow to chill fully once out the oven as it will be soft. Use a nice hot knife (dipped in hot water) to slice. Nice on it’s own or with some fresh Raspberries.
Slow Sunny Cook Sunday – Spanish Sausage Caserole
Posted by: Yant Martin-Keyte in Food on May 24th, 2009
With the sun shining on England its not the time to be slow cooking in a hot kitchen you might think. Well yes, so inspired by the Mediterranean weather I knocked up a quick one pot dish before hitting the road for a hard bike stewing in the heat while my food did the same.
I came home toasted to a nice unctuous pot of lovely stew and the final hour of today’s Giro stage on the telly, each exciting in there own way.
So what went in the pot? First some paprika packed pork sausages were browned off in there own fat. Then in some olive oil a whole roughly chopped onion sweated with some diced chorizo and bacon. When this was soft in went eight cloves of chopped garlic, diced red peppers, a couple of chili’s and a table spoon of hot smokey Spanish paprika. Cooked down for five minutes I then added a tin of crushed tomatoes, a good glass of red wine, a tin of butter beans, sliced carrots, diced potatoes and some stock to finish.
It’s actually far to hot to the dish for tonight’s warm evening, but it will make a perfect lunch this week when normalcy kicks in too the English summer and it goes back to grey drizzle. Now I’m of to sit in the garden, drink Sicilian lemonade and pretend I’m by the Mediterranean.
Slow Cook Sunday – Chili
Posted by: Yant Martin-Keyte in Food on May 17th, 2009
I’m writing this while a nice batch of Chiliesque luvlyness bubbles away on the back of the stove. It is destined to be my lunch or emergency dinner for the beginning of the week. The little rest before consuming giving the flavours that bit longer to develop. It is now a Sunday ritual in my house now, which I’m going to share with you each week for inspiration and ideas. I will be giving you recipes too, but they are simply for guidance or to trigger your imagination.
The chili on the stove is made up of:
- half a kio of lean beef mince browned and set aside
- Onion, garlic, chili’s, and Romano peppers swea ed together
- Smoky paprika, dried oregano, chopped parsley and a beef stock cube added for flavour
- tinned crushed tomato, red wine and water
- salt and peper natch
A couple of hours slow cooking and it will all be ready.
What are you cooking this afternoon?